Mr. L. T. Smith

L. T. Smith

            I was probable not the best student ever to attend Western Kentucky University.  But I did have a good time there.  I had a good job working about forty hours a week, making good money, along with carrying usually about nine credit hours a semester.  That left very little time for the social life.  Yeah, right! I played and partied every chance I got.  And as a result, as you might expect, that showed up on my grades, to the point that I became discouraged as being a student at all.  So after two years there, in the middle of a semester, I quit.  No big deal.  I simply stopped going to any class.

            That is when Mr. L. T. Smith came on the scene. If you ever visit the campus of Western Kentucky University and attend a football game there you will be sure to notice that they play that game in the L. T. Smith stadium.  You see Mr. Smith was well known over the entire area around Bowling Green.  He had been a football coach at Western.  He was the department head of the Industrial Education Department and was remembered among other things as the one who, using a small group of students in their spare time, built what was known as the Barn.  For those who might wonder what the Barn was, it was the first basketball arena at Western. Mr. Smith was a big man, an excellent teacher, and one who put up with no petty stuff at all.

            And he thought my quitting was petty.  I didn’t know how he even knew that I had quit.  I certainly didn’t tell him.  But he was one to keep up with everything and took a genuine interest in every student under his care. I didn’t know I was under his care but I now know better.   I had never been in one of his classes but I did briefly meet him when I first enrolled. And that meeting was not even at the school.  He came into the architectural office where I was working as a draftsman, not to talk to me but to talk to the architect I worked for.  I was introduced to him and he asked me a lot of questions about what I wanted to do as far as my education was concerned.  He listened to my meek answers and left.  I assumed that it would be the last contact I would ever have with him.  But I was wrong again.  And now the real story:

            The morning I stopped going to classes my phone rang where I was working.  It was Mr. Smith.  It was a short conversation.  He simply told me to leave where I was and come to meet him at Cherry Hall – NOW! I didn’t get to say anything.  I may not have been the best student but I was not completely crazy.  I did what he told me to do.  When I met him he was brief as always. He said, “Bill, you have the rest of the day to get to all three teachers you are now taking classes with, apologize for quitting, and beg them to let you back in class.  I will know by the end of this day if you have done it.  If you haven’t done it, I will personally kick your ass around this campus until I get some smart in you.”  That was it. And believe me it worked.  It didn’t take me long to get myself back in all three classes.  By the way, all three teachers were expecting me.  Mr. Smith had told them I would be there and not to be too easy on me but to make me tow the mark.  I went home with mixed emotions but one thing was for sure.  Mr. Smith was not going to have to kick my ass around the campus.

            On graduation day two years later Mr. Smith was standing as I came off the podium with his hand stretched out to congratulate me.  He just smiled and said, “I knew you had it in you.”  That was all I needed to hear.  Even though I barely knew him he stands as one of the finest people I have known.  He really did care about everyone, even me.

Thank you, Mr. Smith!