Vernon "Catfish" Smith (January 14, 1908 – September 29, 1988) 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 ...

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 ...

, and

baseball Baseball is a bat-and-ball sport played between two teams of nine players each, taking turns batting and fielding. The game occurs over the course of several plays, with each play generally beginning when a player on the fielding tea ...

player, coach, and military officer. A three-sport athlete at the

University of Georgia , mottoeng = "To teach, to serve, and to inquire into the nature of things.""To serve" was later added to the motto without changing the seal; the Latin motto directly translates as "To teach and to inquire into the nature of things." , establ ...

, Smith was named to the

1931 College Football All-America Team The 1931 College Football All-America team is composed of college football players who were selected as All-Americans by various organizations and writers that chose College Football All-America Teams in 1931. The seven selectors recognized by the ...

as an

end End, END, Ending, or variation, may refer to: End *In mathematics: ** End (category theory) ** End (topology) **End (graph theory) ** End (group theory) (a subcase of the previous) **End (endomorphism) *In sports and games **End (gridiron footbal ...

. After his playing days, he served as the co-head basketball coach at his alma mater during the 1937–38 season. Smith was also the head baseball coach at Georgia from 1934 to 1937 and at the University of South Carolina from 1938 to 1939 and again from 1946 to 1947. He was inducted into the

College Football Hall of Fame The College Football Hall of Fame is a hall of fame and interactive attraction devoted to college football. The National Football Foundation (NFF) founded the Hall in 1951 to immortalize the players and coaches of college football that were vote ...

as a player in 1979.

Early life and playing career

Smith was born

Macon, Georgia Macon ( ), officially Macon–Bibb County, is a consolidated city-county in the U.S. state of Georgia. Situated near the fall line of the Ocmulgee River, it is located southeast of Atlanta and lies near the geographic center of the state of Geo ...

. His nickname of "Catfish" is attributed to a story in which he bit the head off of one as a 25-cent bet while a student at Lanier High School in Macon. He and a friend were fishing in Walnut Creek. Smith played football at the

from 1929 to 1931 and was named an All-American in 1931. In 1929, he scored all 15 points for Georgia in an upset of

Yale Yale University is a private research university in New Haven, Connecticut. Established in 1701 as the Collegiate School, it is the third-oldest institution of higher education in the United States and among the most prestigious in the wor ...

—scoring one touchdown by falling on a blocked punt in the end zone and another by receiving a pass, kicking an extra point and tackling a Yale player for a safety. The game was the first-ever played at

Sanford Stadium Sanford Stadium is the on-campus playing venue for football at the University of Georgia in Athens, Georgia, United States (also known as UGA). The 92,746-seat stadium is the tenth-largest stadium in the NCAA. Architecturally, the stadium is kn ...

. Smith wore number 9, and stood 6'2" and 190 pounds. He made an all-time Georgia Bulldogs football team picked in 1935. He was nominated though not selected for an ''Associated Press'' All-Time Southeast 1920-1969 era team. Smith was a member of the

Sigma Chi Sigma Chi () International Fraternity is one of the largest North American fraternal literary societies. The fraternity has 244 active (undergraduate) chapters and 152 alumni chapters across the United States and Canada and has initiated more tha ...

fraternity. Cleveland 1935

Coaching and military career

After completing his Georgia career as a football player in 1931 (he graduated with a

B.S. A Bachelor of Science (BS, BSc, SB, or ScB; from the Latin ') is a bachelor's degree awarded for programs that generally last three to five years. The first university to admit a student to the degree of Bachelor of Science was the University ...

in 1933), Catfish Smith went into coaching from 1932 to 1941 and coached football at Georgia, the University of South Carolina and the

University of Mississippi The University of Mississippi (byname Ole Miss) is a public research university that is located adjacent to Oxford, Mississippi, and has a medical center in Jackson. It is Mississippi's oldest public university and its largest by enrollment. ...

. He was also the head baseball coach at the University of Georgia and the University of South Carolina. He then joined the

United States Army Air Forces The United States Army Air Forces (USAAF or AAF) was the major land-based aerial warfare service component of the United States Army and ''de facto'' aerial warfare service branch of the United States during and immediately after World War II ...

, retiring in 1963 with the rank of colonel.

Honors

Smith's sports honors include induction into the

Georgia Sports Hall of Fame The Georgia Sports Hall of Fame is located in Macon, Georgia. It is the largest state sports hall of fame in the United States at . Exhibitions The Hall of Fame houses over of exhibit space broken down into sections including Hall of Fame Induc ...

in 1966 and in the

in 1979. His military honors included the

Legion of Merit The Legion of Merit (LOM) is a military award of the United States Armed Forces that is given for exceptionally meritorious conduct in the performance of outstanding services and achievements. The decoration is issued to members of the eight ...

Air Force Commendation Medal The Commendation Medal is a mid-level United States military decoration presented for sustained acts of heroism or meritorious service. Each branch of the United States Armed Forces issues its own version of the Commendation Medal, with a fifth ...

World War II Victory Medal The World War II Victory Medal is a service medal of the United States military which was established by an Act of Congress on 6 July 1945 (Public Law 135, 79th Congress) and promulgated by Section V, War Department Bulletin 12, 1945. The Wor ...

National Defense Service Medal The National Defense Service Medal (NDSM) is a service award of the United States Armed Forces established by President Dwight D. Eisenhower in 1953. It is awarded to every member of the US Armed Forces who has served during any one of four sp ...

, Air Force Reserve Medal and Air Force Longevity Medal.

References

Sources

*Charles E. Martin, ''I've Seen 'Em All: Half Century of Georgia Football'', p. 57, The McGregor Company, Athens, Georgia, 1961. *

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Smith, Vernon 1908 births 1988 deaths All-American college football players All-Southern college football players American football ends American men's basketball players United States Army Air Forces personnel of World War II Basketball coaches from Georgia (U.S. state) Basketball players from Macon, Georgia College Football Hall of Fame inductees Georgia Bulldogs baseball coaches Georgia Bulldogs baseball players Georgia Bulldogs basketball coaches Georgia Bulldogs basketball players Georgia Bulldogs football players Ole Miss Rebels football coaches Recipients of the Legion of Merit South Carolina Gamecocks baseball coaches South Carolina Gamecocks football coaches Players of American football from Macon, Georgia United States Army Air Forces officers United States Air Force colonels Baseball players from Macon, Georgia