To understand the passion and focus Bob Smith has for wrestling, consider his upbringing.
When Smith was coming through the high school and collegiate ranks, his mentors were coach John Hancock at Colorado State Teachers College in Greeley and B.O. Moles at Denver North High School. Hancock already was known as the “father of high school wrestling” in Colorado and as the architect of the first state tournament in 1936.
Moles, a quiet and unassuming figure, led North to nine state titles, including six in a row when competition was in one classification.
Smith wrestled for Moles and Hancock from 1952-58. He won a third and fourth place in state at North.
In college, he won a Rocky Mountain Athletic Conference title at 115 pounds and two AAU championships.
“It gets in your blood and you love it,” Smith said of wrestling. “I still do.”
Smith packed his passion for wrestling into a bag after college and took it to the state’s Eastern Plains, where he became wrestling coach at Wray High School in 1958. For the next 33 years, his Eagles were among the best in Colorado. They won 10 state championships and placed second seven times. Smith’s teams produced 39 individual champions.
Although he cherishes the records, Smith may have won his biggest trophy for wrestling in the meeting room. For the first 29 years of his term at Wray, the state tournament had a variety of formats and was conducted at various venues. Smith argued that the state tournament should be held on one weekend at the largest venue available.
“It took about five years of discussion to finally get it through,” he said. “The new format has been great, and the state wrestling tournament has become one of the premier sports events of the year. It’s kind of my baby. I know the little schools really ate it up.”
In 1987 the state tournament was conducted for the first time in Denver’s McNichols Sports Arena, a venue that could seat 18,000 fans. The tournament is now held at the Pepsi Center.
Smith will be there this year, too, for the 56th consecutive year.
His success as a coach and as an administrator was based on enthusiasm, ability and sincerity. Wrestling is a demanding sport for coaches and participants.
“I believed in the kids, and I got them to believe in me,” Smith said. “We developed trust in each other. The state titles were memorable, but it also was rewarding to help make a gentleman out of a young man on and off the mat.”
After leaving Wray in 1991, Smith stayed out of coaching for a year. He then took the wrestling coach’s job at Fort Hays State in Kansas, where he stayed for nine years and produced 13 All-Americans before retiring and moving back to Colorado. He now lives outside of Fort Collins.
But he hasn’t retired his interest in wrestling. He is active in coaching clinics and the state tournament, and he follows the career of Shaun Smith, his youngest son and a state champion at Wray who is the wrestling coach at Durango High School.
Bob Smith won’t soon forget the sport that helped him through the toughest time of his life.
Smith returns to Wray two or three times a year to visit the grave site of his oldest son, Scott, who died in an automobile accident in 1982 while attending Chadron State College in Chadron, Neb. Smith and his wife, Marilyn, started a scholarship fund in 1983 in Scott Smith’s name. It has provided financial help each year to a deserving wrestler in Colorado. The only stipulation is that the recipient has to wrestle in college.
“If it wasn’t for wrestling, I don’t know if I would have survived the loss,” Smith said. “My coaching kept me busy. When I go visit him, those feelings return for an instant. But I can get through it.”
The sport of wrestling gave something back to one of its biggest givers.
Smith / bio
Born: Nov. 27, 1935, Denver.
High School: Denver North, 1952-54.
College: Colorado State College of Education, Greeley, 1954-58, 1963.
Family: Wife, Marilyn; sons, Scott and Shaun; daughter, Marti.
Hobbies: Making golf clubs, restoring cars. He once restored a Model A Ford.
