Milburn Albert "Catfish" Smith (July 24, 1912 – November 29, 1994) was an
American football
American football (referred to simply as football in the United States and Canada), also known as gridiron, is a team sport played by two teams of eleven players on a rectangular field with goalposts at each end. The offense, the team with ...
and
basketball
Basketball is a team sport in which two teams, most commonly of five players each, opposing one another on a rectangular Basketball court, court, compete with the primary objective of #Shooting, shooting a basketball (ball), basketball (appr ...
coach in the state of
Texas
Texas (, ; Spanish language, Spanish: ''Texas'', ''Tejas'') is a state in the South Central United States, South Central region of the United States. At 268,596 square miles (695,662 km2), and with more than 29.1 million residents in 2 ...
.
Smith began his coaching career in rural
West Texas
West Texas is a loosely defined region in the U.S. state of Texas, generally encompassing the arid and semiarid lands west of a line drawn between the cities of Wichita Falls, Abilene, and Del Rio.
No consensus exists on the boundary betwee ...
, where in 1936 he led Carey High, a school with less than one hundred enrollment and no basketball court, to a fourth-place finish in the Texas Schoolboy state basketball tournament, including a twenty-six-game winning streak. He followed that with a 50–2 season and the state championship, back when the smallest schools competed against the largest for the coveted title.
In 1943 he was called to
Mount Vernon, Texas
Mount Vernon is a town and the county seat of Franklin County, Texas, United States. The population was 2,491 at the 2020 United States census.
History
Mount Vernon started as a settlement near the Fanning Springs (on Holbrook Street south of th ...
to temporarily fill a coaching vacancy. Seven years later, with two hundred fourteen victories and over twenty titles, including district, bi-district, regional, and state crowns, he was one of the most recognized high school coaches in the state of Texas. His football teams won four regional titles, a state finalist, a state championship, and ten district crowns in seven years with a record of 60–5–1. In 1948 he became the only Texas high school coach to ever go undefeated in football and basketball in the same academic year, as
Mt. Vernon won the 1-A state basketball championship at 30–0 and won the regional (as far as 1-A went in 1948) in football at 11–0.
In 1951, East Texas State (now
Texas A&M University–Commerce
Texas A&M University–Commerce is a public university in Commerce, Texas. With an enrollment of over 12,000 students as of fall 2017, the university is the third-largest institution in the Texas A&M University System. Founded in 1889, the inst ...
) named Smith their new head football coach. He guided the Lions to a 30–2–1 record, including a 29-game winning streak starting in October 1951 and ending in 1953 that brought them invitations to the 1953 and 1954
Tangerine Bowl in Orlando, Florida.
Despite his success in the collegiate ranks, Smith chose to return to high school coaching, as he became head coach at
Longview High School
Longview High School (colloquially known as LHS) is a public high school located in the city of Longview, Texas, in Gregg County, United States and classified as a 5A school by the UIL. It is a part of the Longview Independent School District ...
in 1954. Smith guided the Longview Lobos to a 27–16–6 record in four seasons.
Smith has been inducted into four halls of fame, including the Texas Sports Hall of Fame. He was a member of the inaugural class of the Texas A&M–Commerce/East Texas State Athletic Hall of Fame in 1978.
Political career
Smith served as a
Waco, Texas
Waco ( ) is the county seat of McLennan County, Texas, United States. It is situated along the Brazos River and I-35, halfway between Dallas and Austin. The city had a 2020 population of 138,486, making it the 22nd-most populous city in the ...
city councilman from 1973 through 1977 and as
mayor of Waco in 1976.
Head coaching record
Further reading
*
References
External links
*
{{DEFAULTSORT:Smith, Milburn
1912 births
1994 deaths
Texas A&M–Commerce Lions football coaches
Texas A&M–Commerce Lions men's basketball coaches
High school basketball coaches in Texas
High school football coaches in Texas
Mayors of Waco, Texas
People from Titus County, Texas
Coaches of American football from Texas
Basketball coaches from Texas