Larry Smith (American football coach)

American football player and coach (1939–2008)

Larry Dean Smith (September 12, 1939 – January 28, 2008) was an American football player and coach. He served as the head football coach at Tulane University (1976–1979), the University of Arizona (1980–1986), the University of Southern California (1987–1992), and the University of Missouri (1994–2000). In Smith's 24 seasons as a head coach, his teams were 143–126–7.

Smith was a native of Van Wert, Ohio, where he was a three sport star at Van Wert High School, graduating in 1957. He earned an appointment to West Point, but transferred to Bowling Green State University a year later to pursue coaching. He played two way end for the Falcons, playing on a small college national championship team as a sophomore in 1959; he won all league honors as a junior and was team captain as a senior. Smith graduated from Bowling Green in 1962 with a Bachelor of Science in Mathematics, and later earned a Master of Education from Bowling Green in 1967.

Known as a defense oriented, no nonsense coach, Smith began coaching as an assistant with Shawnee High School in Lima, Ohio for two seasons (1962–63) and then head coach the next three years (1964–66). In 1967, he joined Bo Schembechler's staff at Miami University, serving as defensive end coach for two seasons. He moved with Schembechler to Michigan, serving as offensive line coach for four seasons (1969–72). When fellow assistant coach Jim Young (also a native of Van Wert, OH and high school football teammate) was hired as head coach at Arizona, Smith moved with him and served as the assistant head coach/defensive coordinator there for three years (1973–75). Smith's Green Wave team experienced a break out year in 1979: Tulane opened the season defeating #13 Stanford and later defeated #19 SMU. In the regular season finale, Tulane defeated rival LSU, 24–13, in the Louisiana Superdome; the crowd of 73,496 remains the highest attendance to see the Green Wave play at the Superdome. Tulane ended the regular season with a 9–2 record, ranked #15 and was invited to play in the 1979 Liberty Bowl, its first bowl game in six years. Tulane lost to Penn State, 9–6, but Smith's ability to finish the season 9–3 attracted attention and he was hired away by Arizona. Smith's tenure with Tulane ended with a 17–27 record. The Wildcats improved to 6 5 during his second season, highlighted by a major 13–10 upset of #1 USC on the road. Under Smith's leadership, the Wildcats became competitive in the conference, and also began dominating the rivalry with the Sun Devils. It culminated in consecutive bowl appearances: in the 1985 Sun Bowl, where a tie with Georgia gave the Wildcats an 8–3–1 record; and the 1986 Aloha Bowl, where a victory over North Carolina allowed the Wildcats to finish with a 9–3 record in his final season. Smith's 1988 team was arguably his most successful. With Rodney Peete at quarterback, the Trojans started their season 10–0, defeating #3 ranked Oklahoma and #6 ranked UCLA. USC's Rose Bowl berth clinching win over UCLA that year was its first ever against the Bruins in Pasadena since they moved to the Rose Bowl in 1982. The 1990 season was marked by a strained relationship with quarterback Todd Marinovich, culminating in a heated verbal barrage on Smith in full view of a national TV audience during the 1990 John Hancock Bowl loss, and Marinovich getting arrested for cocaine possession a month later. Marinovich soon left for the NFL after his sophomore year. After the 1990 season three players were arrested on charges of sexual assault (and later acquitted), and after spring practice there were the arrests and subsequent convictions of two players in a kidnapping robbery spree. The 1991 season itself was only the third time the Trojans had had a losing season in over 30 years. The 1992 season proved to be Smith's undoing with USC. The Trojans had a disappointing 6–4–1 regular season that included a 31–31 tie with San Diego State (a game in which the Aztecs' Marshall Faulk shredded the USC defense for over 250 yards), a 31–23 loss to intersectional rival Notre Dame, and a gut wrenching 38–37 loss to archrival UCLA. The then #23 ranked Trojans accepted a berth in the 1992 Freedom Bowl, a lower tier bowl game in Anaheim, California, against an unranked Fresno State team in the first match between the two programs. Despite being heavy underdogs, the Trent Dilfer led Bulldogs won in a 24–7 upset victory that angered many USC supporters. His first two Tigers squads went 3–8–1 and 3–8; however, they improved to 5–6 in 1996. The 1997 Tigers finished with a 7–4 regular season record, Mizzou's first winning season since 1983. The Tigers even came within a controversial kicked reception of defeating eventual national champion Nebraska at home that season. Mizzou was invited to the 1997 Holiday Bowl, where they were defeated by Colorado State, 35–24. The 1997–98 seasons marked Mizzou's first back to back bowl games since 1980 81 under Warren Powers' tenure. Smith was rewarded at the end of the 1998 regular season with a new five year contract that raised his salary from $161,500 to $180,000 annually; he had become one of just four coaches in NCAA history to take four schools to bowl games. The Tigers followed their two bowl seasons with two losing seasons that featured a number of blowout losses. The 1999 squad went 4–7, gave up a 21–0 shut out loss to rival Kansas, and ended the season with three straight blow out defeats of 37–0 to Oklahoma, 51–14 to Texas A&M and 66–0 to Kansas State.

After his coaching career ended, Smith moved back to Tucson and worked as a commentator for Arizona football games on Fox Sports Net, and organized weekend instructional camps twice annually. He also voted in the Harris Poll, part of the Bowl Championship Series equation. He died in Tucson on January 28, 2008.