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Coach Dave Smith passed away last night and is now with the Lord. Service plans are pending but will probably be either Thursday or Friday this coming week. I will keep you informed.
Coach Smith was a great friend to many Mustangs and will be missed greatly. Please pray for his wife Judy and the family as they go through this difficult time.

One of my favorite coaches, friend, and former neighbor. Condolences and blessings to his family.

May God bless Coach Smith, his family, friends and former players. Peace.

Peace to him and his family.

He can visit with Sleepy, Red McClain, Doak, and many of his Mustang friends. Say hello to Frank Gansz Dave!

We should honor him by wearing throwback uniforms at some point this year.

While I am unfamiliar with Coach Smith, my prayers go out to him and his family at what is a very difficult time. Any loss to Mustang Nation is a loss to me.

Mustangsabu wrote:While I am unfamiliar with Coach Smith, my prayers go out to him and his family at what is a very difficult time. Any loss to Mustang Nation is a loss to me.

Coach Smith was head coach after Fry and his tenure was one of debate and this is not the time for that. But when I was at SMU Dave was the offensive line coach and did a great job of protecting Hixson. He was also my immediate mentor while I coached the red shirts and prepared them to run plays against the defense in practice. He lived about 2 blocks from my parents, who had moved to Richardson with a job change. I would see him in his yard often on my way to my folks house, and we would have very enjoyable conversations about everything and anything imaginable.

My wife and I will always remember Dave Smith with affection.

He took a team up to Ohio State one year and we went up there on a lark - figured we would be able to walk up to the stadium entrance and buy tickets from people with extras, like in Dallas when we made a last minute trip. Not so in Columbus. Historically that game turned out to have the second highest attendance all time up to that point and there were tickets for a three figure asking price. No way!

We had about decided to find a bar when my wife saw some people in Red and Blue plus a couple in "civilian" clothes. My wife has never been bashful and she walked up to the the group and said the man who was perhaps the tallest, or maybe just the one who was talking the most. She said, "You look important. We are SMU fans and need some tickets to the game. Can you help?"

It turned out she had addressed Dave Smith and his reply was he had four extras that the SMU party would not be using and how many did we need. We replied "two" and got a pair of tickets on the twenty yard line or better. We introduced ourselves around and Dave would not take any money and we had a few moments of pleasant conversation. It turned out that the "civilian" couple were Jim Dugan's folks and she was a pleasant lady who said she was glad her son had not gone to a football factory "like Penn State." She also said she got very excited watching her son play football but that it was nothing like watching him in the state wrestling meet when he was in HS.

We never saw Dave Smith again. We told the story to our folks in Dallas and it turned out that my wife's mother had some friends who went to the same church as the Smith family. We asked that thanks be passed on to Dave Smith from that quarter and I hope they did.

And the other two tickets? Dave gave those to a couple of OSU students. We were next to them in the middle of a bunch of OSU students with a bottle of tequila and every time the Buckeyes made a play they passed the bottle around. SMU was overpowered in a good game. I think David Bostick was moved to LB from FB after that game.

That's almost all the story. I have told it on an SMU board before. Dugan read my note and thought I'd insulted his mother and offered, more or less, to fold me up and stuff me in a small envelope. Made me glad I lived a long way from Dallas. Jim Dugan may read this note also and I can only repeat what I said above. His mom was a nice lady and it was nice to meet her. She was very proud of him.

My thoughts are for the Smith family. In our experience Dave Smith was a generous guy and I think also a good coach on every level where he had an assignment. I am glad that people like myrdel also had a good opinion of him.

I only met Smith once, when SMU came to Little Rock to play the U of A. I read where he was taking the team to the Arkansas Children's Hospital here in Little Rock on Friday night before the game, so I went there too. He had the team going through the hospital greeting the little ill kids, some of whom would not survive very long. It was touching to see, I believe, Ricky Wesson, carrying around a little sick girl, about 3 years old, with a huge smile on his face. Dave Smith, I believe, was like that. He tried to instill in the players more than how to run plays.

God bless.

I only met Smith once, when SMU came to Little Rock to play the U of A. I read where he was taking the team to the Arkansas Children's Hospital here in Little Rock on Friday night before the game, so I went there too. He had the team going through the hospital greeting the little ill kids, some of whom would not survive very long. It was touching to see, I believe, Ricky Wesson, carrying around a little sick girl, about 3 years old, with a huge smile on his face. Dave Smith, I believe, was like that. He tried to instill in the players more than how to run plays.

God bless.

Condolences to the family. Dave Smith was always friendly and respectful of me though I meet him years after playing. He was very positive and delightful to talk to.

CalallenStang wrote:We should honor him by wearing throwback uniforms at some point this year.

If we were to wear the uniform of his coaching regime, that would be punishing the current team. Coach Smith's Ohio State-inspired game duds were an abomination.

Bergermeister wrote:

CalallenStang wrote:We should honor him by wearing throwback uniforms at some point this year.

If we were to wear the uniform of his coaching regime, that would be punishing the current team. Coach Smith's Ohio State-inspired game duds were an abomination.

They definitely were unique, but Coach Smith was, by all accounts, a great man who loved SMU. I can't think of a better way to honor him than to have the team wear those uniforms.

The other option is to wear throwbacks to the time that Coach Smith was the O-Line coach (mrydel's era)