Military Service and Coaching Career
Smith taught and coached for a year at Firth in southeastern Idaho, then married fellow 1939 UI graduate Maria Raphael of Weiser in 1940 and returned to Moscow to work in private employment in auto sales. He became head coach at Moscow High School in the spring of 1941 when Babe Brown crossed town to coach the Vandal freshmen. Smith entered the U.S. Navy in June 1942 during World War II.
Smith served primarily as a physical training instructor, and returned to Moscow and completed his master's degree in education in 1946. He was to return to the high school as head coach, but resigned in August to accept an offer to be an assistant football coach at Boise Junior College, and became its head coach the following year. Riding a 31-game winning streak, the team moved into a new 10,000-seat stadium in 1950. With the outbreak of the Korean War, Smith missed all but the first three games of the 1950 season and the entire 1951 season due to military duty. He returned in 1952 and was a leading candidate for the vacant job at his alma mater Idaho in 1954, but withdrew his name from consideration, content at Boise. Boise won thirteen conference titles in football under Smith and the NJCAA National Football Championship in 1958.
Read more about this topic: Lyle Smith
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