Per Ted Hutton:

http://weblogs.sun-sentinel.com/sports/college/fau/blog/2008/05/fau_looking_for_new_strength_c.html

Bad news in Owl Country.

We'll set aside the basketball coach search for a second, because while trying to figure out who it might be, I found out FAU is losing another very important coach.

The Suit confirmed Monday night that strength coach Tony Smith is leaving, heading back to his hometown in South Carolina to coach at the high school he graduated from.

Strength coach is a hugely important position, and FAU's recent football success can be traced to Smith being hired three years ago. Word got around quickly, and the players were dismayed at the prospect of losing Coach Smith. They revered the guy.

He came in after stints at Mississippi and Clemson, so knew what it took to compete in the SEC and ACC, and soon had FAU players reaching new heights.

Under the NCAA rules, strength coaches have more contact with players than any other coach. The Voice raved about Tony, and understood his impact on the program.

Good luck to Tony, and good luck to The Voice and The Suit in finding a replacement.

Good luck Tony, sad to see you go…..


but good news owl nation!!!

i heard these guys were available

wow, that's a tough loss…he was one of the big reasons we were able to improve last year…

Dont see the HS job?! But wish him the best!

Is it as a strength coach or a head coach? If it's as a head coach I can understand

I'm sure he was great, but at least know we have a point of reference when we try to replace him moving forward.

We know what we're looking for in a strength coach, so that's a positive of all this.

Good luck to him back home, too!

Man it seems there is a mass exodus from FAU? Pretty disappointing. We need to get a bunch of coaches in place that plan on staying and really building the program. It would be great to get a head coach that the fans will be excited to come out and see. The players will bring us in, but a great coach would be an even bigger incentive to come out and cheer on our team.

I don't think it is really that uncommon to see programs of our size lose coaches.  Coaching turnover is really pretty common throughout college athletics.  In fact, our football staff has remained pretty stable over the years.

Basketball is another story….

Not all that much we could have done about baseball, if the coach wants to retire.  Besides the next baseball coach will be what?  The 3rd in our history?  Not bad for a program that has been around about 30 years.

ehh this is all part of the growing pains FLNATIVE, we are a growing program and stuff like this will happen.

On the other hand we cant take 3-4 weeks or months to replace people on our staff.

These guys just don't get paid enough, unfortunately, making hard to retain some of them.

I wrote this on Ted's blog, but I'm almost certain there's a high turnover rate of strength coaches.  Due in large part to pay, as Bytor said, among other things.