2025 Hall of Fame Feature: Martin Smith

“He’s been an incredible mentor to me, not only professionally, but personally,’’ Schumacher said. “I would never be where I am today without having Martin Smith in my life. He’s a very special person to me.

“I was very raw, very immature and he was exactly what I needed to harness whatever skills and talents I had and focus it into the sport. Once I figured out how to do that – it was really because of him – I absolutely fell in love with everything about it.’’

Nuttycombe said the key to Smith’s success was his preparedness.

“He always had them ready at the key times to be ready,’’ Nuttycombe said. “That’s an art. That’s a skill that not all coaches can figure out how to do, but he did.’’

Schumacher said the key to Smith’s success was his ability to communicate.

“People see the intensity side of coaches because their visible outside the playing field or in the heat of battle, whatever you want to call it,’’ Schumacher said. “A lot of people don’t get a chance to see that coach outside of the arena. I’ve been very fortunate to see Martin in that capacity. You couldn’t have a better representative to the Wisconsin Hall of Fame.

“His lessons to young people centered around being focused and disciplined and becoming the best that you could be. It didn’t matter where you carried that beyond sport, those were life lessons that he was able to bring into the athletic environment.

“It’s OK to be competitive and to be disappointed when things don’t go well and to work hard for things. The element of becoming the best that you can be at whatever you’re doing was a message that was taught daily to us.’’

Smith said he was “very flattered and honored’’ to be added to the UW Athletic Hall of Fame. He said the most important lesson he learned came courtesy of Nuttycombe.

“I learned a lot that would serve me well after I left Wisconsin in regards to Ed’s approach to being a head coach,’’ Smith said. “That was one lesson that I’m very thankful for. You don’t necessarily see it at the moment, although I think in many cases that I do know how lucky and fortunate I was to have worked with Ed, because he had a special gift for getting the best out of people.’’

BEST OF THREE

One: Smith has the cool distinction of having won league titles – either in track and field, cross country or both – in four different conferences. In addition to UW and the Big Ten, there was Virginia in…