Smaha Gets Immersed In His Work Cougars Trainer Works, Plays Hard

Through countless broken legs and torn knee ligaments, through dozens of concussions and separated shoulders, through mangled fingers and bruised ribs, he has never missed a football game during his career at Washington State.

Mark Smaha is WSU’s ultimate gamer.

Now in his 20th season as WSU’s head athletic trainer, Smaha has been on the sideline for each of the Cougars’ last 214 games. By conservative estimates, he has attended more than 1,000 WSU practices.

The highlight?

“Probably going through a cloud of about a thousand barracudas with my camera,” Smaha says.

Point being, there’s more to Mark Smaha than sports medicine.

He and his wife, Jackie, are avid scuba divers. Underwater photography is their specialty. If you can pronounce it, they’ve probably dived there.

Malaysia, Micronesia, Palau, Guam, Ratahan, Belize. The isles of Galapagos and Cayman.

Next year, the Solomon Islands.

“I believe in work hard, play hard,” Smaha says.

Football season is when he works the hardest. On top of his team-related duties, Smaha oversees a staff of eight certified trainers and 30 students. The work week can stretch beyond 70 hours.

“But it’s OK,” he says, “because when football’s over, baby, I’m going diving, I’m going skiing, I’m going to go screw off, I’m going to the lake.”

Most recently, Smaha went to Salt Lake City, where he was enshrined in the National Athletic Trainers’ Association Hall of Fame.

“An enormous experience,” says Smaha, a former NATA president.

In its 48-year history, the NATA has had roughly 25,000 members. Only 190 are in the Hall of Fame. Last year, he was courted by Stanford University. Smaha credits WSU athletic director Rick Dickson as a major reason he stayed in Pullman.

“It’s nice to be wanted,” says Smaha, who was reportedly awarded a raise.

“Through the whole deal at Stanford, I went through a lot of transition emotionally and mentally,” he said. “Is it time for me to make a decision to do something different?

“There have just been a lot of things happening,” he said, “from one extreme high (the Hall of Fame) to one extreme low in losing my mother (who died July 11).”

When it comes to treating injuries, Smaha can sometimes come across as blunt or even indifferent. Few things annoy him more than when an athlete feigns serious injury.

“But I do get emotional at times,” Smaha says. “Like the time (quarterback) Mike Pattinson blew his shoulder (in 1993). I was standing there bawling my eyes out. But there’s some things that I won’t get real emotional about.”

Perhaps tragedy has taught him to ration his emotions. The 1970 Marshall University plane crash that killed 75 people will forever be a defining event in his life. A 23-year-old graduate assistant at the time, Smaha was supposed to be on that plane. He had given up his seat so a peer could travel with the team.

“It was devastating, absolutely devastating.”

The experience has undoubtedly taught Smaha to cherish life. Particularly revealing: a conversation several years ago with an old-school trainer lamenting the work habits of younger trainers.

“When I was their age,” Smaha says, paraphrasing the older man’s words, “I went to work at 6 in the morning and I worked until 11 at night, seven days a week, and I never saw my kids grow up. But, by God, I had a great work ethic.

“I feel sorry for you,” Smaha replied. “You’re going to go to your grave and the obituary is going to read: ‘Enjoyed working in his yard because that’s all he ever had time to do.’ “I’ll never be that way.”

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