Sprint Coach Smith Will Leave UCLA

John Smith, one of the most renowned sprint coaches in the world, has announced his resignation as the assistant men’s track and field coach at UCLA, effective at the end of the month.

Smith, who worked with the Bruin sprinters, hurdlers and relay teams during his 17 years at the school, also has been coaching several world-class athletes with the Irvine-based HSI track club for several years.

Smith, who did not return phone messages, said in a press release that his devotion to an HSI club that includes world-record holder and Olympic 100-meter champion Maurice Greene led to his decision.

“I have come to a crossroads in my coaching career and this is the decision that I have to make,” he said. “It’s not an easy one. UCLA has been my life, both as an athlete and a coach. But over the last few years, my professional athletes have taken up more and more of my time and I want to continue to move ahead into that coaching challenge.”

Art Venegas, the men’s coach at UCLA, said that Smith’s decision had nothing to do with a $1-million civil suit filed against Smith and HSI for his alleged brawl with former HSI athlete Anjanette Kirkland.

“I’ve seen the success of his club in recent years,” Venegas said, “and I think it got to the point where continuing to do both was very demanding.”

Smith, the world’s top-ranked quarter-miler as a UCLA junior in 1971, helped the Bruins win two NCAA championships and nine Pacific 10 titles as a coach.

The Fremont High graduate coached six Bruin athletes--including sprinter Ato Boldon, 400-meter runners Danny Everett and Steve Lewis and intermediate hurdler Kevin Young--to individual NCAA titles.

He also coached a 1,600-meter relay team of Everett, Lewis, Young and Henry Thomas to a collegiate record of 2 minutes 59.91 seconds in the 1988 NCAA final.

Derek Loudenback, a volunteer assistant at UCLA for the last two years, will be the Bruins’ interim sprint coach through the end of the 2002 season.