A legend to retire
Coach turned St. Thomas Aquinas team into a premier high school program
St. Thomas Aquinas athletic director George Smith, who helped turn the Raiders into one of the premier high school football programs in the nation and created a pipeline to major colleges and the NFL, will retire at the end of the school year.
The school hired Smith as a teacher, assistant football and track and field coach and head wrestling coach in 1972, and he was named the head football coach in 1975. Smith became the athletic director in 1982 and remained in the role after retiring from coaching in 2011 after 34 seasons. His career record as a coach was 361-66 with six state championships and a pair of national titles.
“He’s definitely on the Mount Rushmore of South Florida high school football, state of Florida football and possibly the Mount Rushmore of national high school football,” Deerfield Beach football coach Jevon Glenn said. “He helped to take Broward County high school football into a new stratosphere.
“If your object or one of your goals is to chase the one, to be the best that ever did it, then at the moment, George Smith is that standard,” Glenn added. “Although I doubt there will be anybody able to get there. It’s going to be a hell of a time trying to chase it. I know I’ll be one of the ones trying to chase it.”
Smith, who declined comment when reached Friday afternoon, was named USA Today Coach of the Year in 2008 and was a Sun Sentinel coach of the year multiple times. Smith, 72, is a member of the Florida High School Athletic Hall of Fame, the Florida Athletic Coaches Association Hall of Fame and the Broward County Sports Hall of Fame. He was named to the Florida High School Athletic Association’s All-Century coaching staff.
“He’s one of the best to do it at both
levels, when it comes to being the head coach and an athletic director,” said three-time state champion coach Dameon Jones of Chaminade-Madonna. “He started that program and built it up to what it is now. A lot of respect for him.”
During Smith’s coaching tenure, more than 580 of his former players went on to college football and 30 played professionally.
Atop the talent who played for Smith are Pro Football Hall of Famer Michael Irvin of the Dallas Cowboys, Cincinnati Bengals eight-time Pro Bowl selection defensive tackle Geno Atkins, New England Patriots Super Bowl record-holding running back James White and Los Angeles Chargers defensive end Joey Bosa, who was selected with the third pick in the 2016 draft.
“Winner — that’s what you call him, in one word,” said Cardinal Gibbons coach Matt DuBuc, who has led his Fort Lauderdale Catholic school to two state titles. “You can’t argue about what his teams have done, and he put kids in [college]. … He put St. Thomas on the map.”
It was under Smith when the now-commonplace idea of televised high school football games matching teams from different states bloomed, with the Raiders being the first Broward high school to be shown on an ESPN network when they opened their 2008 season against Cincinnati’s Elder High at Paul Brown Stadium, home of the Cincinnati Bengals.
Between 2008 and 2019, the Raiders were on national television at least once each season.
During Smith’s tenure as athletic director, Raiders teams have won dozens of state championships across all sports.
The football program’s successes also continued. Entering the 2020 season, St. Thomas had 15 players on NFL rosters, practice squads or reserve lists — more than any high school in the nation. St. Thomas has won six state titles in football since Smith retired.
Former Aquinas football players expressed their appreciation for Smith on Twitter on Friday.
“Believed In Me as a 14 yr old kid. Changed my life forever,” tweeted Northern Iowa defensive back Benny Sapp III. Oklahoma outside linebacker Nik Bonitto was among former Raiders to tweet a goat emoji to label Smith as the GOAT — or “Greatest of All Time.”
At the time of Smith’s becoming full-time athletic director a decade ago, thencoach at University School Roger Harriott, who was part of the Raiders’ first championship team in 1992, said: “Coach Smith is obviously a legend and an extraordinary personality, but what makes him so special is his selfless demeanor. He has an innate skill to make you feel at home.”
Eventually, Harriott returned to the Aquinas fold, becoming the football coach in 2015, and with their 2020 state championship, the Raiders have won more state titles than any program in the state. Smith has been there for all of them.