Sportswriter Smith Recalled
February 09, 2010 05:24 PM | General
(5:26 p.m.)
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| Bill Smith |
I was saddened to read of the recent passing of former Daily Mail sports editor Bill Smith, 80, who entertained Charleston area sports fans for years with his one-of-a-kind reporting.
Our paths crossed briefly – I believe Bill’s last year at the Daily Mail was my first year working at WVU. What I remember most about Smitty was his referring to everyone as coach. I was coach. Michael Fragale was coach. Our sports information graduate assistants were all coaches.
What Smitty had was incredible access to all of West Virginia’s coaches – access which benefited Charleston Daily Mail readers until his retirement in the early 1990s.
Bill got access for two reasons. No. 1, the coaches knew Bill wasn’t going to take the privileged information he got and use it as rope to hang them. Secondly, and more importantly, Smitty got inside information because he was smart enough to understand what he was getting.
That doesn’t mean Bill always sat on his scoops.
A close friendship with Bobby Bowden gave Smitty the scoop of his career when he found out that Bowden was considering a move to Florida State the day before West Virginia’s Peach Bowl victory over North Carolina State.
Smitty told Bowden there was no way he could sit on what he was told, so Bobby agreed to let him use it as long as Bowden was cited as an anonymous source.
Smitty also took Lou Holtz to task when he saw one of Holtz’s assistant coaches jogging around a cinder track at West Virginia’s practice site in Atlanta before the 1972 Peach Bowl.
Smith cornered Holtz at a press conference the day before the game and asked him why one of his coaches was at West Virginia’s practice. Holtz said he didn’t know what Smitty was talking about.
Bill had seen the NC State guy with his own two eyes, and despite Holtz’s denial, he wrote about it anyway.
Smitty called the idiots idiots when they began pounding on Bowden’s locker room door after West Virginia’s 36-35 loss to Pitt in 1970. As only Bill could do, he explained in the most simplest of terms that it wasn’t as if Bowden was trying to lose the game!
A choked up Frank Cignetti (who would also battle his own health problems) dedicated West Virginia’s big win at Maryland in 1977 to Smitty, who was in the hospital recovering from his first heart attack. Cignetti's post-game tribute is a good example of what Bill Smith meant to West Virginia’s coaches.
Bill took the teams to task when they played poorly. When they stunk, he wrote that they stunk. If the coaches made boo-boos, Bill wrote that they made boo-boos.
“He was no cheerleader,” Don Nehlen told the Daily Mail’s Jack Bogaczyk. “If you played lousy, he said you played lousy, and he probably got to write that more than we'd have liked. But he played it straight.”
Smitty also didn’t care what his readers thought. He wisely understood early in his career that he wasn’t going to please everybody. He was grateful to those who appreciated what he wrote.
As for the rest of them? Smitty would say, to hell with them. That was the boxer in him.
Additionally, Smitty was one of the few reporters I ever knew who actually looked forward to covering football games at Syracuse’s Archbold Stadium - not so much for its Spartan conditions but more so because of the hot New England clam chowder and the stiff adult beverages Syracuse Sports Information Director Larry Kimball served after the games.
“Sometimes it took me a little longer to finish my stories up there,” Smitty once told me.
Rest in peace, Smitty.
Briefly
Isn’t that what Jay Wright did last night against West Virginia?
Wright chose to play a Triangle and Two on Da’Sean Butler, who burned the Wildcats for a career-high 43 points in Morgantown last year. Butler finished the game 2 of 12 from the floor for 13 points.
“We can’t expect Da’ to get 30 for us and carry us every night,” said West Virginia coach Bob Huggins. “When they’re chasing him around and giving him that much attention how do we not get a rebound? We got out-rebounded by eight and that hasn’t happened all year and they play four guards.”
Speaking of Jay Wright, man can that guy dress! How many quarts of blood would you need to sell to get enough dough to buy the shoes that guy wears?
WVU’s 44.1% is well below the rest of the Top 10 teams in the country with only Kansas State and Purdue at 45.8% even coming close to the Mountaineers.
Syracuse and Georgetown are the two best shooting teams in the Top 25 at 53.1 and 50.5% respectively.
The WVU women are also the worst shooting team in the Top 10 at 41.5%. The next closest team to the Mountaineers is Duke at 42.6%.
That shows you the value of playing great defense, which Bob Huggins and Mike Carey both preach.
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| A record crowd attended West Virginia's Pink Zone game against DePaul in 2008.
All-Pro Photography/Dale Sparks photo |
West Virginia had 6,232 for last year’s Pink Zone game against USF and the Mountaineers set the Coliseum regular season attendance mark in 2008 when 8,307 showed up for the DePaul game.
The Hoyas have lost only three times this year against James Madison, Dayton and Marquette, and are coming off recent wins against Rutgers and St. John’s. Georgetown faces Pitt tomorrow night before taking on the Mountaineers in Morgantown.
West Virginia beat Providence 75-59 last Saturday in Providence to run its record to 21-3. The Mountaineers’ three losses this year have come against No. 1 Connecticut, No. 4 Notre Dame and No. 7 Ohio State – all on the road.
Selvish Capers is rated the 11th-best offensive tackle and is projected as a third or fourth round selection. Alric Arnett is rated 30th among wide receivers right now.
Could you teach me, I asked jokingly?
He said he didn’t know how to either, but I have my doubts.
Have a great week - shoveling snow!
