2026 WAC Champs: Fuller Smith on Tarleton State’s Rise to the Top | Ep. 107

What You'll Learn in This Episode

Host Ross Hawley sits down with Fuller Smith, head coach of the Tarleton State Texans, fresh off a 2026 WAC Championship, a WAC Coach of the Year award, and a trip to the Austin Regional where the Texans knocked off UC Santa Barbara.

Fuller doesn't take a victory lap. Within a day of the season ending, the transfer portal opened and recruiting mode kicked back in. This conversation is about what it actually takes to build a program that keeps winning long after the trophy gets put away.

The highlights:

• Why Tarleton's breakout season "shouldn't be a surprise" once you understand the administration behind it
• How Fuller spends the two weeks after the season doing a full internal audit of himself and his staff
• The word Ross uses to describe watching Tarleton play, and the team motto behind it: "unafraid to crash and burn"
• Why knowing your own baseball identity — and hearing genuine words of affirmation — changes how far a player can go
• An honest, unfiltered read on the transfer portal: who it helps, who it quietly wrecks, and why fit matters more than talent
• The self-scouting story Fuller uses to teach players how to honestly evaluate where they stand
• What keeps a head coach smiling through a 48-minute podcast: "I'm playing with house money"

A Championship That "Shouldn't Be a Surprise"

Stephenville, Texas is known locally as the City of Champions, with a track record across high school football, basketball, and other sports — Art Briles once coached football there. Fuller says Tarleton baseball's rapid rise from the Division II era into a Division I contender fits that same pattern once you look behind the curtain.

"If you really look at it and what's going on here, it shouldn't be a surprise to anyone what we're doing. Because you have to have people behind you."

That support starts with administration. Fuller says the conversation with the athletic department isn't about this year — it's about building Tarleton into a destination program for the next five to ten years, regardless of who's sitting in the head coach's chair.

"We're just caretakers of this program for as long as we're allowed to be. And then once we're gone, the next guy is going to step in and continue to build on that foundation."

Why Winning Feels Fleeting — and the Two-Week Audit That Follows It

Ross asks whether Fuller gets to sit back and enjoy the moment. The honest answer: barely. The transfer portal opened the day after the season ended, and recruiting never really stopped.

Every offseason, Fuller runs himself and his staff through a deliberate internal review — what needs to change for the players, and just as importantly, what he personally needs to change as a head coach.

"I'll bring the staff in and go, 'What are some things that I need to do better?' Do I need to be more assertive, or do I need to let it play out a little bit more?"

He's clear that meaningful change can't happen mid-season — it has to be planned six to twelve months out, then executed start to finish.

"Freedom" and Being Unafraid to Crash and Burn

Ross tells Fuller the word that comes to mind watching Tarleton play isn't just mature — it's freedom. Fuller confirms it's intentional, built around a team motto:

"We talk about being unafraid to crash and burn all the time. If you're going to go for it, just do it. If you don't ever go for it, you'll never know if you could ever have done it."

That looseness extends into the dugout in the tightest moments of a game, where the staff is deliberately cracking jokes instead of tightening up — because the byproduct of winning and losing, Fuller says, was mostly decided six months earlier in practice.

Asked what would take the program to the next level, his answer is simple: daily intentionality. Not just talent — showing up and emptying the tank in every single rep.

Why Every Player Needs to Know Their Baseball Identity

Ross shares his own story of being told, too late in his own career, that his identity was a two-pitch relief arm — and asks how deliberately Fuller communicates identity to his players.

"If they don't know who they are, they will never reach their true potential. This is what you are now, this is what you need to be good at, and here's the roadmap to get there."

Fuller applies the same standard to himself as a coach — old school, tough, gritty, blue collar — and pairs that toughness with genuine words of affirmation, which he calls one of the most overlooked tools in coaching.

"You need to speak positive affirmation into young men, because they will become what you speak."

The Transfer Portal: Anxiety, Bad Advice, and Lost Potential

Asked what emotion the words "transfer portal" bring up, Fuller doesn't hesitate: anxiety for the kids.

"There's kids that have been in there four times in four years. They've never reached their true potential because they've never had to fail and figure out a way to get better."

His concern isn't the portal itself — it's players taking bad advice from family or agents and chasing a new scenery instead of doing the harder work of growing through failure. Tarleton has retained the majority of its roster by prioritizing fit over pure talent, even when it means passing on good players who wouldn't be happy there.

Advice for Players Trying to Climb the Ladder

Fuller's advice for anyone chasing a pro career starts with brutal self-awareness. He played junior college baseball himself before walking on at Ole Miss — proof that the ladder isn't linear.

"You need to self-evaluate: this is where I see myself, this is where I'm at now. It doesn't mean this is where you're going to end up."

He tells the story of a high school player he coached who considered walking on to a national title contender. Fuller's advice: go watch the game first. The player did — and called back to say he couldn't make that team. Self-scouting, Fuller says, beats getting told what you want to hear by people who love you unconditionally.

From Watching Alabama Baseball to Watching His Son's Favorite Player

Fuller's own love of the game started as a kid in Birmingham, watching Alabama baseball and the SEC Tournament — his father played football for Bear Bryant. Today, fandom looks different: watching former players he coached, like Baltimore Orioles outfielder Colton Cowser, with his own son cheering him on. Earlier in his career, it was following guys he played alongside, like Zack Cozart.

"Now that I'm older, most of the guys I played with are retired. It's the guys I was fortunate enough to coach who are still progressing — and now my kids get to watch them too."

The Hardest Part of the Job, and Advice to His Younger Self

Fuller says the toughest part of coaching is work-life balance — learning to actually turn it off when he gets home to his family. If he could tell a younger version of himself one thing:

"It's not that big of a deal. 90% of the things you worry about will never happen anyway."

What keeps him upbeat through it all is treating the job like house money — he loves what he does enough that he'd be just as content doing something else tomorrow if he had to.

Episode Timestamps

Tap any timestamp to jump the player straight to that moment.

• 1:26 — 2026 WAC champions and WAC Coach of the Year
• 2:38 — Stephenville, the "City of Champions," and Tarleton's rapid rise
• 4:05 — What real administration support looks like
• 5:59 — Why winning feels fleeting, and refocusing on 2027 immediately
• 9:13 — The offseason self-audit: staff and personal accountability
• 12:01 — "Freedom" and the "unafraid to crash and burn" motto
• 14:56 — What Tarleton needs to improve: daily intentionality
• 18:16 — Helping players define their baseball identity
• 20:50 — Why words of affirmation matter more than people realize
• 22:43 — The transfer portal: anxiety, bad advice, and lost development
• 27:52 — Advice for players trying to climb the ladder: get self-aware
• 31:05 — The self-scouting story: go watch the game first
• 33:32 — From Alabama baseball as a kid to watching Colton Cowser with his son
• 39:22 — The hardest part of coaching: work-life balance
• 41:00 — Advice to his younger self: "it's not that big of a deal"
• 45:40 — Walkout music: old-school Dre instrumentals to Texas country today

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Fuller Smith is the head coach of the Tarleton State Texans, 2026 WAC Champions. Follow him on X. Subscribe to the Baseball Forward Podcast for more conversations with the players, coaches, and leaders elevating the next generation of the game.