Smith maintains ties with school

John Smith is retiring. But he’s careful not to cut all the ties that bind him to Great Falls High School and his decades of coaching the Red Devils’ boys basketball team.

Smith, who turns 69 in July, announced this week that he intends to step down after his 47th year of coaching at Great Falls. Jimmy Duncan, formerly Smith’s assistant and coach of the girls’ varsity team for the past two seasons, will take over for Smith and serve as the school’s athletic director.

But Smith isn’t exiting the scene altogether. He plans to drive the team’s bus, as he has for years, and to become involved in other, unnamed activities at the school, according to Principal Brenda Fort.

That way, Duncan notes, he “can help when he wants and stay home when he wants.”

Smith’s desire to stay in the game, even if it’s on the periphery, is understandable. Coaching has been his life for nearly five decades, during which he became the winningest boys high school coach in South Carolina history.

His career is full of landmarks. He and the Red Devils have won 943 games and eight 1A state championships.

The team had a 55-game winning streak from 1996 to 1998. And Great Falls lost only seven games from 2008 to 2012, winning two state titles during that period.

Smith has had many moments in his career when he could have comfortably gone out on top. In 2009 when he posted his 800th win with an 81-30 rout of McBee, only 41 other high school coaches nationwide – none of them in South Carolina – had that many victories or more.

But, rather than bowing out, he went on to win 143 more games, putting him 21st all-time nationally. He also was inducted into the South Carolina Athletic Coaches Association Hall of Fame in 2004.

Recent seasons have not been as successful, including this year when the Red Devils failed to make the playoffs. But we doubt Smith regrets putting off retirement.

He is fond of noting that it’s not just the milestones or the records beaten, it’s the entire experience, the satisfaction of guiding young athletes. That is what has kept him going for 47 years and that is what will keep him driving the team bus when he feels like it.

This story was originally published June 22, 2016 at 5:18 PM with the headline "Smith maintains ties with school."