RIP: Homer Smith

Fascinating guy and a good coach. Particularly liked the comments from Leamon Hall, his former Army quarterback who became his son-in-law, at the bottom of the NYT obit:

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/15/sports/football/15smith.html?src=recg

 

Got to know him a little bit when I was a student reporter in college. Wonderful guy, always polite and you could just tell by the literary and historical references he dropped into conversation that he wasn't your average football coach.

As Bill Curry said the other day on Ivan Maisel's podcast, Smith might have been the only Princeton, Stanford, Harvard grad who ever coached college football.

Here's a great column on Smith by Cecil Hurt, sports editor of The Tuscaloosa News:

http://alabama.rivals.com/content.asp?CID=1210404

My favorite Homer Smith story was that he would lie on his back next to the center in both practice and pre-game warm-ups in order to both evaluate and time the center-quarterback exchange. He would say things like, "Jay (quarterback Jay Barker), your top hand needs to be one centimeter to the right."

I think Alabama once went an entire season without a botched center-quarterback exchange.

 

One of his departures seriously hurt UCLA. He wasn't there when Troy Aikman came through in '87 and '88. The Bruins probably would have been 11-1 Aikman's junior year and 12-0 and national champions his senior year. They went 10-2 both years.

Anyone who's stayed at the Valley River Inn in Eugene, Ore., can relate. As smart as he was, Homer couldn't find his room in that hotel.

 

Dick Tomey had a great line about Smith's academic pedigree when Smith was coaching for him at Arizona.

"Homer's got degrees from Princeton, Harvard and Stanford. I don't think we have any professors around here who can say that."

 

Thanks for the links, fellas. Hadn't thought of Homer Smith in a long time. RIP.