Funeral services were held October 7, 2002 for L.T. Smith ,

L.T. Smith dead at age 84.

a 1998 inductee into the Mississippi Sports Hall of Fame,who died Wednesday October 2, 2002 at the V.A. hospital in Jackson, MS. He was 84. Smith had been in failing health for several years.

Smith was a highly successful high school coach for 26 years, 23 of them spent at Lanier High School in Jackson, MS where he guided the Bulldogs to five pre-integration basketball state titles and seven conference crowns in the old Black Big Eight Conference, the prestige conference of the era. His track team claimed the state title in 1959.

One of his Lanier teams in the mid-50's finished second in the now defunct National Negro High School Tournament played in Nashville, TN because of a controversial call that cost the Bulldogs the national crown.

"He should have won the game," said 1997 inductee W.C. Gorden , a student in Nashville at the time, who watched the game from the stands and later found himself coaching against Smith.


"We were in the south divsion and he was in the north," recalled Gorden, who was basketball head coach at Eva Gordon High School in Magnolia, MS prior to becoming the winningest football coach in Jackson State University history . "Thank God, I didn't have to compete against him often because the last game I remember, he beat us in the conference tournament 120-68."

Though his coaching reputation was made on the basketball court, Smith says in his exhibit at the Mississippi Sports Hall of Fame and Museum that "Football...is the king of all sports...and (players) have to make their minds up if they really want to get involved in it and become dedicated."

Smith was a military veteran and a Tougaloo College graduate. He was named to the Tougaloo College Hall of Fame in 1993 and the Mississippi Association of Coaches Hall of Fame in 1979.

"He will be remembered as an icon in the coaching arena," said 1999 inductee Dr. Walter Reed , who knew Smith for more than 50 years."His teams were always well-prepared and well-disciplined," said Reed. "He was strictly no nonsense. He would get in a players back pocket in a minute."

© Copyright 2001-2002 by Mississippi Sports Hall of Fame Museum

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