COMMERCE CITY, Colo. - In the most highly anticipated - if least suspenseful - move of the Colorado Rapids' long offseason, the club announced Tuesday that interim coach Gary Smith has accepted a three-year offer to stay on as head coach.
"A couple of weeks ago we finished our season in a gut-wrenching fashion, but I think we learned a lot in that process," Rapids managing director Jeff Plush said, referring to the heart-breaking draw with Real Salt Lake on the final day of the season, robbing the Rapids of the playoff berth that was within their grasp until it was snatched with an equalizer in the game's final minute.
"I'm very excited to announce today that Gary Smith will have the 'interim' tag taken off his title and become the head coach of the Colorado Rapids," Plush continued. "It's a job that he has earned. We had the fourth best record in the league [since Smith took over]. We were not performing well, we were at the bottom of the table in mid-August, and we took it to the 90th minute on October 25th."
Now Smith will have the chance to take the Rapids even further, steering the side through the next three seasons with the expectation of continuing the dramatic turnaround he brought to the club since taking over when former head coach Fernando Clavijo and the Rapids mutually agreed to part ways in August.
"It's always difficult when you're taking over a team that somebody's been in control of," Smith said. "I had been involved to a degree with Fernando and knew the players well. So to try first and foremost to regain some confidence within the group was important. I think you saw we did that. The players, over a period of time, began to express themselves to a much greater degree. And when all is said and done, it's really about the players. As a coach or a manager, you offer some guidance. You give the players an opportunity to try and express themselves, obviously within some guidelines, but it is the players that walk across those white lines and perform."
Some of Smith's players took their responsibility a step further, acknowledging the impact Smith had on their season and walking into Plush's office to plead the case for keeping him on as head coach. Respected leaders such as defender Mike Petke and midfielder and team captain Pablo Mastroeni - who agreed to a contract extension Tuesday in a move closely tied to the Rapids decision to retain Smith - spoke passionately on behalf of the coach who helped them fall in love with the game all over again.
"When you have veteran players who have been in the league a long time and want to be loyal to a coach, that doesn't happen very much in sports these days," Plush said. "When you hear those kinds of glowing responses from people, you'd be frankly stupid not to listen to the wind a little bit and take advantage of the opportunity to think about it and what that means, what the impact could be if you make it quick and smart and make the right decision, all rolled into one."
Plush explained that the club saw no need to interview any other candidates for the head coaching vacancy, having seen everything he needed in a new coach during Smith's 11-game "audition," including one game filling in for Clavijo and 10 as interim coach. In addition to the improved play on the field, Plush was impressed with what he called a "dramatic culture shift" in the clubhouse, citing the tremendous morale boost that accompanied Smith's promotion and observing first-hand the daily interactions between the coach and his players.
Smith led Colorado to a 5-4-2 record since taking over for Clavijo, turning around a 6-10-3 record that had the Rapids in the basement of the Western Conference before Smith stepped in. The expected initial spark from a coaching change led to immediate results as the Rapids reversed a four-match winless streak and defeated Kansas City with Smith filling in for Clavijo before officially taking the helm as interim coach.
But as the spark continued to burn and Colorado climbed back into contention, support for Smith swelled throughout the ranks.
"Gary brought to the team a profound love for the sport again," Mastroeni said Tuesday. "[He created] an environment that was competitive every day, where people challenged for spots in a realistic way, where age, where your resume was thrown out the window, and the guy that deserved the spot got the nod for the weekend. It was an environment where I got in my car every morning and I'd think about the training session, I'd think about what I needed to do. I thought, 'I want to be the best player in training session today.' Those are feelings I haven't had in many, many years."
Though Smith acknowledged the need to try and bring a proven goal-scorer to the team, he shared the confidence that the club he managed during the final third of the season was a club good enough to compete for the MLS Cup, rather than suffering the prolonged offseason after failing to overcome their early deficit and recover in time for the current postseason.
"Next season there'll be, I'm sure, a couple of changes," Smith said. "But I think we have the nucleus of a very good team here. Some good young players. The balance within that group, certainly at this precise moment, would have been very interesting and very exciting to go into the playoffs with. I don't see an enormous amount of changes, but just a team that's maybe a tad rejuvenated and ready to really set the record straight from the end of the season. "The boys have an opportunity to go and rest and reflect on the disappointment of the last game of the season," Smith added. "I'm sure that will be very fresh in a lot of players' minds when we restart and try to get on the road to achieving what we all want, which is to win something."
At least one anticipated change is expected to be the hiring of Smith's former teammate and friend Steve Guppy as an assistant coach. Guppy has been a coach with the Rochester Rhinos of the USL First Division, and though Smith emphasized that the pursuit of Guppy is "an ongoing process" with "nothing confirmed," both Guppy and the Rhinos have indicated the coach will be leaving Rochester to join the Rapids staff.
Smith initially came to the Rapids as part of the clubs' partnership with Arsenal FC, establishing the Arsenal Center of Excellence at the Rapids soccer facility. His old position remains vacant, and will likely be filled by another coach with ties to Arsenal.
Smith had been a scout for Arsenal, following coaching stints with Wimbledon FC, Wycombe and Watford in the English premiership and a seven-year playing career with Fulham, Barnet FC, and Colchester United.
"The first thing you see is a real interest in what he would call 'playing football,'" Plush said, explaining the qualities Smith embodies as a coach. "That's what Arsenal does all the time. Not just lobbing the ball forward and playing in a direct fashion. Playing the game the way it's meant to be played.
"The way he coaches is to defend it quickly, to win the ball back quickly, and then play. But also [he understands] the process of defining roles in order to do that effectively. The big culture change is having a very clear definition for what we want our players to do. Gary wants to win football matches. Nothing else. Nothing else in life. That's all he cares about."
Smith was able to share that single-minded focus with his charges over the season's final two months, tapping into their once-dormant passion and re-igniting a sense of purpose and a mission the club can't wait to accomplish.
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