This month, Randy Smith will retire as athletic director and coach of the Running Club after serving 51 years in Ozanam athletics.

Randy, who began working at Ozanam in 1974 as a PE teacher and a leader of recreational activities, has worked with hundreds of youngsters, managed regional relays, and developed relationships with youth across the decades. In what started as a plan to work for a couple of years at Ozanam after he graduated from college ends with a record of serving youth in need of a caring adult for more than a half century.

Randy and Jan Smith during their wedding at Ozanam Chapel

Randy Smith has become synonymous with the Ozanam Campus. He is so connected to Ozanam that he was married to his wife Jan in 1987 at the Ozanam chapel.

Technically, this is Randy’s second retirement from Ozanam. In 2016, he retired as a full-time instructor and stayed on as the athletic director and to lead the Running Club. As athletic director he didn’t slow down, scheduling events, running the scoreboard, keeping statistics, and serving as the commissioner for Great Plains Athletic Conference, the basketball conference in which Ozanam competes against teams from around the area.

In his early days at Ozanam, Randy found creative ways to keep the youth active. After school, the then seven dormitories had an hour with no therapy and participated in intramural flag football, basketball, volleyball, and cross-country running. The dorms would compete against each other.

“The kids at Ozanam were missing out on things like swim lessons, Little League baseball, and boy scouts,” Randy said. “It was partly about competition, but also about understanding that sometimes you lose, you have to follow the rules, and you learn how to take instruction.”

Randy Smith and Pam Sanders

Those activities evolved beyond the Ozanam Campus to competing against other youth in the area. In 1977, Randy and Gillis Recreation Director Bob Dever started the KCI Relays, which at its peak hosted 16 schools or agencies with 500 boys and girls ages 5 to 18 competing in a track meet at Center High School. The top 3 finishers in each event would then go on to compete the following week in our State Track Meet in Fulton, Missouri and competed against the top 3 finishers from the schools or agencies in the St. Louis area. After a few years, Randy and Pam Sanders, now the principal at Gillis, worked together on the meet, which existed until 2018.

Willie Hutson began working at the Ozanam Campus in 1983 and later coached the basketball team until he retired in 2022. Hutson says he has never seen a more organized person than Randy Smith, citing the many athletic programs, including swimming and basketball, that Randy built from the ground up. Randy engaged staff to play sports alongside youth and engaged families to be spectators at many events.

“Randy built the Ozanam athletic program to be one of the finest in the country,” Willie said. “He created a great feeling at Ozanam for the kids and the staff, which brought people together. Every kid got a chance, no matter what, in just about any sport they were interested in. He touched a lot of lives.”

Randy also developed the Running Club into a staple of the Ozanam Campus. The club, which has been in existence for more than 40 years, remains popular with youth at Ozanam. It meets in the spring and fall, trains three times per week, and runs five or six 5K races each season. The 10 or so youth who qualify for the club must have the willingness to work hard and get along with their peers and coaches. They need to follow guidelines including doing well in school, abstain from drugs and alcohol, and have limited behavior problems.

The club does extremely well in races and runners frequently win medals by placing in the top three in their age group and in the top 10 overall. Over the years, Ozanam runners have participated in 5Ks, 10Ks, and several members completed a 26.2-mile marathon. Several runners have gone on to excel at running track and cross-country at their high schools after leaving Ozanam.

“Many of the boys and girls experience personal success in earning a medal or beating their own personal time, which gives them a great feeling of accomplishment,” Randy said.

Distance runners often talk about a “runner’s high.” The youth in Ozanam’s Running Club also find it therapeutic and shared comments, such as:

“Running helps me with my anger.”

“Running gave me something to belong to.”

“Running a 5K showed me that I have total control over everything that comes my way.”

“Everyone on the team is doing better with their treatment.”

Coach Sidney Moore met Randy when he came to work at the Ozanam Campus in 2015. Randy’s commitment to the Running Club has left an impression on Coach Moore.

“I would see Coach Smith pulling onto the campus and getting clients to leave for a race at 6:30 a.m. and seeing the clients come back with medals from the race,” Sidney said. “It made me feel good to see and hear how much they enjoyed the race, and how they would tell youth and staff what place they finished.”

During the past nine years, Randy has imprinted his commitment on other staff as well. Sada Smith has turned her love of basketball into serving as assistant coach for the Ozanam Eagles basketball team over the past two seasons. She once saw Randy give a youth a pair of his own basketball shoes because the youngster admired them.

Sada describes Randy as the true backbone of Ozanam’s athletic accomplishments. She was frequently surprised by Randy’s willingness to go above and beyond for youth on Campus. He makes sure the runners in the club have good quality running shoes. (Randy credits Brad Ziegler and the KC Running Company in Martin City for their support over the past 11 years, along with private donations and grants to support The Running Club.)

“Randy made sure that every kid had an opportunity to succeed and be part of something bigger than themselves,” Sada said. “He’s shaped the culture of this place, and that will last long after his retirement. We’ll miss his guidance, wisdom, and unwavering belief in our kiddos. I feel incredibly lucky to have had the chance to work with Coach Smith and to learn from him.”

As retirement approaches, Randy is looking forward to spending more time with his family, including being part of the activities of his eight grandchildren. He will stay active by spending more time working out and playing competitive pickleball.

Randy says his greatest accomplishment is creating the opportunity for boys and girls on campus to participate in a variety of sports and activities. The youth had a chance to play most every sport and could be involved with activities like biking, hiking, fishing, canoeing, backpacking, and even going on overnight camping trips.

“In general, I’ll remember the joy on the kids’ faces when they completed a 5k race, passed a swimming test, or when they had some type of success in the activities in which they participated,” Randy said.