Smith Left His Mark On Tiger Program

ST. LOUIS (OL'M) - During my time on and around the football field, I had the pleasure of learning more about the game from some talented high school and college coaches such as Gary Heyde, Mike Mooney, Tom Beauchamp, Andy Hill, Bill Cubit, and Larry Smith.

Today one of them, Coach Smith, passed away due to complications from leukemia. He had been battling cancer for nearly a decade.

When I first started working for Missouri's football team in 1997, I was in awe of being around a college football team on a daily basis. It was also great to once again be part of a winning program after being a member of state finalist and semifinalist teams in high school at Mehlville.

Coach Smith, to me, had an intimidating presence and I tried my best to make sure he didn't know who I was. The way I saw it, a student manager was like a baseball umpire in that if you hear their name, they must have done something wrong.

But as I climbed up the experience ladder, I was able to become more involved and take on more responsibility, which included dealing with Coach Smith personally.

In 1999 and 2000 I stood right next to "Big Dawg", as we referred to him, on gamedays. My job was two fold. First, it was my responsibility to hold Coach Smith's headset when he was not using it. I found it somewhat amusing that even though the headsets were wireless, he didn't want to bother with them when it came time to punt. Secondly, I had to chart the punters' get offs and hang times and then leave the list on his desk after the game. Having considered getting into coaching before ultimately choosing broadcasting, standing next to Coach Smith gave me great insight to how a head coach reacts and makes tough decisions.

Coach Smith certainly loved football, but didn't necessarily live and breathe it. He really made it a point to pay attention to not only what his players and assistant coaches were up to, but other staff members as well. When I first started working at KOMU-TV and anchoring the morning cut-ins during the Today Show, coach Smith was watching and made sure I knew it. During dinner in the dining hall one day, Coach Smith came up to me and said "I saw you on the news this morning. You did a good job." I was shocked that he'd take time out of his busy schedule after practice to let me know. I certainly appreciated the kind words even though I knew how awful I was back then.

The final two seasons under Coach Smith did not go the way I had planned or anyone else as well. There were times during games when it was clear that we were going to lose and there were times that I lost focus and stopped following coach. Coach Smith would yell out my name and then ask "Are you alright." I wanted to say that I was ticked because we were getting embarrassed on the field, but I just said I was fine.

He did at times let his emotions get the better of him. Following Missouri's 37-0 loss to Oklahoma in 1999, Coach Smith showed anger I had not seen in him before as he completely tore into the team in the locker room. On top of that, he then stated he wanted to talk to all the coaches privately. He quickly went into another tirade, punching a mirror in the coaches locker room and breaking it.

It was also apparent during his last two years in Columbia that something wasn't right physically with coach. He couldn't walk around the practice fields as he had in the past. Instead, he drove around in a golf cart, getting out periodically.

While coaches receive plenty of criticism by fans and the media for poor decisions, there was only one occasion during those last two season that I disagreed with a call he made. During the 2000 game against Michigan State, we were looking at 4th and 3, trailing by only three points. Instead of keeping the offense on the field, he decided to punt. He felt if the defense could hold the Spartans to a three and out, the Tigers could at least get into field goal range for Brad Hammerich. But the defense had not been able to stop big T.J. Duckett all day and there was no reason to think that would change. Sure enough, Michigan State was able to run the clock out.

I will also remember a few days before we flew to Tucson for the Insight.com Bowl when some of us managers had to drop by Coach Smith's house off Bluff Creek Dr. in Columbia. He still had a home in Tucson and wanted a roll of carpet thrown on the equipment truck to take to the other house. After we grabbed the carpet, he offered us a couple cases beer he had in his basement. Of course we could not turn such an offer down.

Coach Smith took every team he coached to at least one bowl game and he's one of very few to take four different schools to postseason contests. He will also be remembered as the coach that turned around a program that suffered 14 straight losing seasons.