Along the Way: Smith’s presence still felt at Wildcats’ camp

He’d position himself like an infielder — bent over, hands on knees along the sidelines — and gaze across the field at his padded warriors, preparing for the opener.

Squinting into the monsoon microwave, he kept an eye on his little army.

Over here, heavy linemen grunting and galumphing through drills. Over there, wasp-waisted backs and receivers darting, twisting, pirouetting. Everywhere, defenders smacking each other.

In a couple of weeks they’d rush onto the Arizona Stadium turf and a new adventure would begin against a Western sunset of tie-dyed orange and crimson and turquoise.

It is six months now since Larry Smith died after a bout with leukemia and lymphoma, and football at the University of Arizona will never be the same.

Even though he sent his last Wildcat squad onto the field in a season opener 22 years ago (they beat Houston, 37-3), Smitty’s presence was felt. He was always a Wildcat, even on other fields in other colors.

He retired in Tucson, as he always said he would, after coaching Southern Cal to three consecutive Pacific-10 Conference championships and Rose Bowl appearances, then resurrecting a dilapidated Missouri program.

In retirement Larry was an excellent color-analyst for Wildcat broadcasts and a regular in the press-box roost.

Always — always — he saw things no one else could see from the press box. Usually little things — “they’re coming off the ball too slow” — or “that strong-side safety is playing way to the outside. Can’t they see he’s telegraphing a zone defense?”

The boy from Ohio coached Arizona from 1980 through the 1986 season, won 48 games, lost 28 and tied three. In his final game, the Wildcats defeated North Carolina, 30-21, at the Aloha Bowl in Hawaii.

By the time the UA program slogged its way out of NCAA investigation and punishment for irregularities under the previous coaching staff, Smith would coach the Cats two more seasons and take them to bowl games both times.

No matter. His real bowl games were against the hated rival, Arizona State — and he left here after five consecutive wins over very good Sun Devil teams.

Smitty was a coach who invented a coach, and a damn good one at that.

He played under the great Doyt Perry at Bowling Green University because he knew he would learn the game. He coached under Bo Schembechler at Miami of Ohio and at Michigan.

Then he coached under another legend, Jim Young, at Arizona before setting out on his first head-coaching assignment, Tulane.

Larry came to Arizona after building a strong program at Tulane. He re-built football teams everywhere he went.

But the strongest structures were Smitty’s friendships.

The best coach, he’d tell you, is the one who never lets his players discover he’s as dumb as they are. But make no mistake, Larry was tough-minded and schooled in fundamentals, yet he was extremely smart. And he was as quick to innovate, to try a new wrinkle, as anyone.

Speaking of wrinkles, he crimped, creased and crumpled cliches as no football coach who ever lived. He spoke of an opponent “girdling their loins,” and saw a succession of injuries as “an albacore around our necks.”

He invented a make-believe “whopper-jawed six” defense and described shifty ball-carriers as “jicky-jack runners.”

But that was mostly for the benefit of sportswriters who playfully egged him on, such as Dave Petruska of the Tucson Citizen and Lee Shappell of the Arizona Republic.

On the field or inside a locker room smelling of feet and liniments and balms, or in his office planning strategy or talking to reporters, Larry was always thinking ahead.

He was like a potter thumping wet clay, always working to improve his team.

And what he did was improve the world he lived in.

“His love for college football,” Arizona athletic director Jim Livengood said, “was as big as the emotion Larry wore on his sleeve.” How true.

Smitty wasn’t the best college coach I ever met; that would be Jim Young. He wasn’t the best recruiter; that would be Tony Mason.

And he wasn’t the warmest, most intimate buddy his players would ever encounter; that was Dick Tomey.

But he was head and shoulder pads above them all when it came to getting the most effort out of athletes who didn’t appear to have that much to give.

For toughness, winning attitude, support of his players and building pride in the program, Larry Smith stood alone.

Here was, in the final analysis, the best of the best.

Corky Simpson’s column “Along the Way” runs every Friday in the Green Valley News.