Nationally recognized in his field, Jason Smelser was named Northwestern State’s director of strength and conditioning in January 2023.
He wasted no time making an impact on Demon student-athletes and drawing rave reviews from NSU’s head coaches for his and his staff’s abilities.
Smelser came to NSU from ULM where he spent a year working primarily with the Warhawk baseball program as its head strength coach.
While at ULM, Smelser also assisted the head strength coach with ULM’s football strength and conditioning program. While, At ULM served on a committee to revamp the athletic department to help produce a streamlined and better transparent way of operating, creating an internal and external operations system.
Prior to returning home to Louisiana, Smelser was the director of sports performance at William Jewell College in Liberty, Missouri. At William Jewell, Smelser oversaw and directed a staff that was responsible for implementing and designing strength and conditioning programs for 22 sports.
He also held a position on the athletic director’s cabinet and designed and implemented mental health programs, better gameday experience with operations and create a better student experience for student-athletes.
His tenure at William Jewell came after spending the spring 2021 semester at Lane College as its director of sports performance. While working with 12 sports Smelser also made improvements to Lane’s weight room and began implementing mental health programs for Lane’s student-athletes.
Smelser spent seven years at Central Oklahoma as an assistant football coach and the head strength and conditioning coordinator for football and women’s track and field. He instituted UCO’s first nutrition program for its student-athletes and created a hired position for a nutritionist without institutional money.
While at Henderson State from 2011-14 as the head strength and conditioning coordinator, Smelser drew national acclaim as American Football Monthly Magazine’s 2012 Division II Strength and Conditioning Coach of the Year.
That recognition came for his work with the Reddies’ football program, but Smelser also worked with men’s and women’s swimming and diving, women’s volleyball and men’s basketball at Henderson State.
A former head football coach and defensive coordinator at Iowa Wesleyan from 2005-10, Smelser was the defensive coordinator and head strength and conditioning coordinator at Concordia University in Ann Arbor, Michigan, for the 2010 season.
An all-state linebacker at Ouachita Christian near Monroe, Smelser is a two-time graduate of Southern Arkansas University, earning his undergraduate degree in kinesiology in 2000 and his master’s in the same field in 2001.
