John G. Smith (coach)
John G. Smith (November 24, 1924 – June 10, 1998) was an American college baseball coach, the head coach at the University of Idaho for fourteen seasons. He also coached football and basketball. Early years Born in Tipton, Oklahoma, to Will and Margie Smith, he attended its public schools. Smith enlisted in the U.S. Navy during World War II as a teenager and served on PT boats in the Pacific. He returned to Oklahoma to attend college at Central State University in Edmond and lettered in four sports. Coaching Smith was a coach at Capital Hill High School in Oklahoma City and then returned to his alma mater in Edmond in 1958 as head coach in basketball and baseball at the NAIA level, and an assistant in football. Idaho Smith moved his family to southwestern Idaho sight unseen in 1962 and coached at Caldwell High School before moving north to the Palouse at Moscow. After a short stint in private business, he was hired at the University of Idaho in early 1965 as an assistant coach in football, leading the defensive line under newly-promoted head coach In September 1966, Wayne Anderson was promoted to head basketball coach, and stepped down