Michael Smith is entering his fourth full year as the Director of Cross Country and Track & Field after joining the NAU staff on August 16, 2016.  Smith helped assist the men's cross country national championship winning team in the fall of '16 and took over as the director of both the school's track & field squads along with the cross country teams that following spring.

A groundbreaking, award-winning and thinking-outside-the-box kind of coach, Smith has indisputably become one of the greatest and most sought-after running coaches in the country.

In 2018 Smith was named the 2018 Big Sky Men's Coach of the Year. He was also honored with the Bill Delinger Award after his team won the 2018 NCAA Division I Cross Country Championships for the third straight year. The men's indoor team won the Big Sky Conference for a record eighth-straight year. Smith was awarded the Indoor Coach of the Year on the men's side again. Smith coached the NCAA Indoor National Champion in the men's mile run, Geordie Beamish. 

After taking control of the program completely in the Fall of 2017, Smith helped the men's cross country team to its second-consecutive NCAA National Championship. Both his men's and women's teams swept the Big Sky Championships as well. Smith was honored with the Bill Dellinger Award for being the year's National Men's Coach of the Year and also picked up both the Big Sky's Men's and Women's Coach of the Year awards.

In Smith’s first year as the Director of Track & Field in the Spring of 2017, not only did his teams earn three Big Sky titles (Men's and Women's Indoor/Women's Outdoor), but he was also named the USTFCCCA Mountain Region Women’s Indoor and Outdoor Track & Field Coach of the Year.  Smith was also named the Big Sky Indoor Men's Coach of the Year as well in his inaugural season with the program.

Smith coached four Lumberjacks to All-American honors in track & field in 2016, 16 All-Conference performances in the indoor season which was followed by 11 All-Conference finishes during the outdoor campaign.