Frankie Smith is entering his fifth season as head coach at Saginaw Valley and is looking to build on the successes of the 2010-11 season.  Smith help guide the Cardinals back to the GLIAC postseason for the first time since the 1998-99 season as he selected as GLIAC “Coach of the Year” after the SVSU finished the season with a 16-12 record, the most since 1997 season. 

In the 2008-09 season, he led the Cardinals to a 9-17 overall record, which included a 9-13 mark in the GLIAC.  In the 2007-08 season, the team was 12-14 overall with a 7-11 record in conference play. 

He was hired as the seventh head men’s basketball coach at Saginaw Valley State University on August 28. 2007. Smith came to SVSU after serving as an assistant coach at Miami University (Ohio) since April 1999.

Smith helped build Miami University into a national success story, as the RedHawks had five-straight Mid-American Conference Tournament byes, the only MAC school to do so over the past five years. In addition, the RedHawks won a MAC Regular Season Championship in 2005 and a MAC Tournament Championship in 2007. Miami University has made three-straight postseason appearances, with NIT bids in 2005 and 2006 and an NCAA bid in 2007.

Prior to Miami University, Smith posted a 125-35 (.781) career record during his six-year stint as the head coach at Tug Valley High School in Naugatuck, West Virginia. He guided the 1998-99 Panthers to West Virginia’s Class AA state championship, which was the school’s first state crown.

For his efforts, Smith was named the West Virginia Class AA "Coach of the Year", as well as the Williamson Daily News "Coach of the Year". He was selected as the coach of the state’s Class A-AA all-star team.

Smith earned a bachelor’s degree in Physical Education and a minor in History from Eastern Kentucky University in 1988.

He and his wife, Jill, have daughter, Madison, who is currently in her junior year at SVSU.