By Stephen Smoot
Fans attend sporting events so they won’t miss the action. They observe the plays, cheer those that turn out good, or at least reflect superior effort and skill. After the game, the fans talk about the highlights, the result of the game, and what the lessons learned from watching may mean about the team’s chances to advance in the postseason.
Some games, even some plays, will never be forgotten by the fans.
Others remember their experience differently. “What remains in my memory,” says Gary Smith, whose career spanned decades, “is the relationship I had with the players.”
From his playing days, he shared that “I remember more about the friendships and the camaraderie in sports as much as I remember the actual games.”
Smith, inducted into the West Virginia University Institute of Technology Sports Hall of Fame last week, was honored for his four years playing for the program back when its home fields lay in Montgomery. Montgomery is a small town, narrowly situated between a valley wall and the Kanawha River in the industrial and mining areas east of Charleston.
He has vivid memories of Montgomery, which offered quite a bit of culture shock to a young man who grew up competing in the fields of Sugar Grove and Brandywine before going to high school in Franklin. Gritty blue-collar Montgomery “was a shocker,” he said. Smith added that “Montgomery wasn’t very big, but there was a huge gambling influence.” Mom and pop businesses often allowed secret card games and other gambling in the back of their shops.
“Every little place had a back room,” he noted. “An old country boy from Sugar Grove didn’t know much about that.”
Smith found his way to what was then called West Virginia Tech through a coach with a Pendleton County connection. James Hill coached defense in football and also baseball at the time. Smith remembered, “Coach Hill married a lady who was in Upper Tract. He saw a football game, saw me play. He must’ve liked the way I played.”
Hill inquired if he would be interested in playing football at Tech. Then, Smith said, “Baseball season came around. He was at the game and said, ‘I am also the head baseball coach.’”
Smith added that a few local students, not all bound for college athletics, were also headed toward Montgomery, so he took Hill up on his offers.
“Including Charles Hedrick, our superintendent,” he said.
Not many athletes take on the rigor of a full commitment to two varsity sports in college. It’s nearly unheard of to star in both. Smith started all four years in both baseball and football and earned first team all West Virginia Intercollegiate Athletic Conference in 1973. The athletic department also conferred the Outstanding Senior Athlete Award on Smith.
Smith’s heart has remained steadfastly devoted to Pendleton County and coaching, even during his early playing days. “I knew from a very young age,” he explained, “that I wanted to continue in some type of style, coaching and teaching.”
He did not merely compete, but observed, analyzed, and learned from every coach, every game, every scenario. “I didn’t just want to play the game, but learn the game as I played,” he added.
The mark of a coach lies less in wins and losses, but more in longevity and legacy with those who played for him. Smith coached football, basketball, baseball, and softball during his 44-year career at Franklin and then Pendleton County.
Jeremy Bodkin, head basketball coach for Pendleton County, praised Smith’s “knowledge of football, basketball, and baseball, even of volleyball and softball.” Bodkin played multiple sports for Smith and said, “It’s an overdue honor for him. I’m happy for him.”
Eddie Sites exclaimed, “He could coach Tiddly Winks and you’d want to play for him.”
Sites described Smith’s “four yards and a cloud of dust” approach to football. “He had a play in football,” Sites stated, “44 wham. Ask him about it.” Sites claimed that Smith started every game running that play first on offense.
Smith well-remembered that play. He described the play, “44 wham. Is to the right side.” Smith then said, “I ran a player back and forth with the same play.” The team advanced all the way down the field running 44 wham. When they were on the verge of scoring, Smith sent the play in to quarterback Jeremy Harper. He asked, “Same durned play?”
The answer was “same durned play.” And it worked.
Smith knew to adapt his approach to the times and the changing of the game. After his son went to play for Rich Rodriguez, who was implementing his revolutionary spread offense at Glenville, Smith adapted it to high school. From Franklin, it spread throughout the Potomac Highlands. Now it is the dominant offense run in the region, alongside the run heavy misdirection style offense run by Keyser and Moorefield.
But Smith knows that his legacy is best expressed by those whose lives he touched through coaching and teaching. “They are great young men,” he remembered, “fathers, some of them are my best friends today. They tell me more stories to remind me,” he smiled.
Sites offered a brief description of Smith’s impact on the community, with the understanding that the word means more than prevailing in games, but also describes the big picture of how one person can bring good to a community in so many ways.
He said he had one word to describe Smith – “winner.”
