Mizzou’s Brian Smith Earns Kiwanis Don Faurot Sportsperson of the Year
5/8/2019 8:44:00 AM | Wrestling
Tiger Style head coach wins annual award given to top sportsperson in Columbia
COLUMBIA, Mo. – Mizzou Wrestling head coach Brian Smith is the 2019 Don Faurot Sportsperson of the Year, announced today by the Kiwanis Club of Columbia. Smith will be presented the award at a banquet on Tuesday, June 18, at the Broadway Hotel in Columbia. The honor – named after Mizzou's legendary former football head coach and director of athletics – was established in 1991 to honor an outstanding candidate who contributes to the local sports community as an athlete, coach, administrator or official. Other notable Mizzou recipients are Karissa Schweizer, J'den Cox, Max Scherzer and Mike Alden.
Coach Smith had another banner year at the helm of the Tiger Wrestling program, guiding the team to its eighth straight conference title, fifth straight top-10 finish at the NCAA Championships and a 16-1 regular season record. The Tigers ranked has high as fifth nationally in the major collegiate wrestling polls during the 2018-19 season, a spot that fans have grown accustomed to seeing Coach Smith's program in.
In his 21st season as the Tiger head coach, Smith coached four All-Americans this season, giving the Tigers at least four All-Americans in every season since 2014-15. Mizzou Wrestling us one of just five schools nationally to earn a top-10 finish and have at least three All-Americans in each of the last five seasons. Mizzou is 94-9 in dual competition over the last six seasons and went an incredible 7-1 against top-25 teams during the 2018-19 season.
In 1998-99, Coach Smith took over a Mizzou program that had finished no better than 38th at the NCAA Championships in the previous three seasons and no better than 16th in the previous 14 seasons. Since then, Smith has developed Mizzou into a perennial power, earning eight of the program's nine all-time top-10 NCAA finishes, including five-straight years finishing sixth or better. The program has produced eight national champions, all under Coach Smith, and has won eight-straight conference titles dating back to the program's final season in the Big 12 in 2011-12. Coach Smith has coached 27 different wrestlers to 55 combined All-America honors during his tenure. Mizzou had just 19 All-Americans in the previous 53 seasons.
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