By Andrew Joyner- Daily Progress staff writer
Doyle Smith, a legendary and well-admired figure in both UVa athletics and the sport of lacrosse in particular, passed away early Tuesday morning in his Charlottesville home. Smith was 60.
Smith had battled against Parkinson’s disease, a progressive disorder of the nervous system, for much of the past 20 years. He was able to watch the NCAA men’s lacrosse title game Monday on television, one of the few he was unable to attend since the tournament’s inception in the early 1970s. Smith, who quite literally wrote the book on lacrosse rules and statistics, was widely considered the most influential non-coach and non-player in the sport’s history.
Smith worked in the University of Virginia sports information office from 1968-1999 and his service to both Virginia athletics and the sport of lacrosse were unmatched. He was a two-time recipient of UVa’s Buz Male Service Award and was the United States Intercollegiate Lacrosse Association’s Man of the Year in 1984 and 1993. For his dedication and commitment to the sport of lacrosse, he was inducted into the U.S. Lacrosse Hall of Fame in October 2000. He also served as the coordinator of official statistics for the semifinal and championship games of the NCAA Men’s Lacrosse Tournament for many years, and was one of the first 10 individuals selected to the Virginia Lacrosse Hall of Fame in 1995.
In 1995, when the NCAA celebrated the 25th year of holding the lacrosse championship, Smith was named the team manager along with all the other great players and coaches selected to the team.
“Doyle was certainly by all measures a unique man. He established himself as a leader and prominent figure not only here at the university in media relations but nationally in terms of his knowledge and expertise in the sport of lacrosse. He became during his career the expert on the game and the person who literally wrote the book on the sport,” said Virginia Athletics Director Craig Littlepage. “Doyle fell in love with the sport, dedicated himself to promoting the sport and became one of the sports most prominent figures. He is a remarkable man and remarkable story.”
Added Rich Murray, Virginia’s director of athletic media relations since 1983: “One of the first things that comes to mind about Doyle was his loyalty. Both his loyalty to the University of Virginia and to the athletics department. There is not a day that goes by where we don’t come across something that Doyle has worked on whether it be statistics or media guides or files from years past. He was here a long time. Folks remember him for his work with lacrosse and that was certainly understandable because he loved lacrosse. He was such a great and endearing figure that was so committed to what he loved and again was such a loyal person and such a person of integrity and that’s one of the things I remember most.”
Smith discovers lax at Hopkins
The game of lacrosse’s foremost authority, Smith’s beginnings with it were indeed humble. A native of Corvallis, Ore., Smith was completely unaware of the game before arriving at John Hopkins University in 1962. At Hopkins, where the sport has a religious-like following, students were required to play lacrosse as part of a physical education requirement. With his slight frame, Smith wasn’t well suited for playing and found a way to avoid it: He became the team manager.
“It was more accident than anything else,” Smith said in the May 28, 1999 edition of The Daily Progress.
Thus, began a more than 40-year association with the sport.
Smith, a 1966 Phi Beta Kappa graduate of Johns Hopkins, became involved in the statistics keeping and other behind-the-scenes sides of lacrosse. He was Hopkins’ manager for six years, the last two as a graduate student. He came to UVa in 1968 to pursue his doctorate and expected to become a history professor or get involved in foreign affairs. Smith once quipped he sought to be the “ambassador to the UK.”
Any ambassadorship or professorships would take a back seat to lacrosse. Smith became first a part-time employee of the Virginia sports information office and continued to become more and more involved in the game. He continued to keep stats for the lacrosse team and eventually became a full-time member of the Virginia sports information staff in 1972. Shortly after that, Smith became the sports information director for the USILA.
“He first came here while I was athletics director and Doyle was a student here working on his doctorate. He started becoming more and more involved in lacrosse and within a short time became someone the sport couldn’t do with out,” said Gene Corrigan, the former UVa AD and lacrosse coach, ACC commissioner and fellow member of the U.S. Lacrosse Hall of Fame. “Doyle was so unselfish. He would do every task imaginable and never seek thanks or recognition for it. He was a person of tremendous integrity and unmatched honesty. He had such a great affection for the coaches and players and just about everyone he came into contact with.”
A first-class, professional man
Smith’s encyclopedic knowledge of the game, its rules and its statistics eventually earned Smith the nickname “Mr. Lacrosse.” Smith wrote the Lacrosse Statistician’s Manual, which is included in the NCAA Lacrosse Rule Book. Before the NCAA officially began keeping lacrosse statistics in the early 1990s, Smith had done the job himself for nearly 20 years.
Smith frequently took the time to pass along his methods for taking statistics to many at UVa and in the Charlottesville community, including this reporter.
“My very first impression of Doyle was his professionalism. He had a genuine concern for making lacrosse statistics correct and that added such an importance to the game. Doyle is the one person who raised the level of statistics and that really helped make the game what it is today. No one has been as exact as Doyle has,” said Doug Tarring, a member of UVa’s 1972 national championship team and currently the head lacrosse coach and athletics director at St. Anne’s-Belfield. “I feel Doyle is the most important non-player, non-coach in the history of the game. Every thing he did was service. … I can’t think of anyone that has had more of an impact on the game in a non-field way than Doyle. When you think that USILA’s top award is the Doyle Smith Media Award, that pretty much says right there how Doyle is viewed in the lacrosse community.”
Myron Ripley, a knowledgeable local coach and expert of the sport in Charlottesville who has served as the official scorer for UVa games since the 1980s and tutored under Smith for many years, often shares an anecdote to relate Smith’s thorough knowledge of all things lacrosse, especially the rules of the game.
During a Virginia-John Hopkins game in the early 1990s, Virginia had scored a goal just moments after a Hopkins player was released from a penalty. Ripley and the Johns Hopkins scorer proceeded to argue whether the goal should count as an extra-man goal. Ripley said yes while the Hopkins’ scorer said no.
“Doyle was standing next to us and you could tell he wanted to say something,” Ripley remembered. “He was fidgeting a little and finally Doyle just said, ‘He’s right.’ She [the Hopkins scorekeeper] just looked at him skeptically and said, ‘Why are you so sure?’ Then Doyle said, ‘I wrote the rule.’ That’s how Doyle was. He wasn’t egotistical or anything like that. Really, he was far from that. He just wanted to be precise and accurate. He was a man of integrity at all times.”
A fond farewell from UVa
The Cavaliers, who captured NCAA titles in 1972 and 2003, dedicated their 1999 title run to Smith, who that year was retiring from the athletic department. Along the way to the championship, many players wore shirts with “EDS” for Edward Doyle Smith on the front and the phrase “This Run’s for You” on the back.
“People see him keeping stats but they don’t see what he does for the players. He invites us over to his house. He always has a good word for us. It’s really special because you can tell he really cares about us,” said Henry Oakey, a Charlottesville native and UVa midfielder, in 1999.
Smith held such a highly respected position in the lacrosse world that when current UVa coach Dom Starsia first came to Charlottesville in 1992, intimidating described his disposition upon first meeting him. Starsia, as many others before him, would soon learn that intimidating and Smith were rarely words that met in the same sentence.
“One of my first memories of Doyle was really thinking whether he would like me. I was intimidated a little at first because he was such a legend and an icon of the sport. … Doyle had such a soft and very human side. He cared deeply about the university, about Virginia lacrosse and the sport of lacrosse,” Starsia said. “His contributions were so appreciated. Perhaps the fact that you’d only have to mention his name, ‘Doyle’, and everyone knows who you were talking about says so much about the esteem in which he’s held in our game.”
Two sisters, Debbie Cunningham of Seattle and Laurie Filstrup of Patchogue, N.Y, survive Smith. In lieu of flowers, the family asks donations be made on Smith’s behalf to the Virginia Athletics Foundation. Earlier this year, VAF established the Edward Doyle Smith Jr. Men’s Lacrosse Scholarship, which will be awarded annually to that player who embodies dedication, precision and integrity on and off the field.
Hill & Wood Funeral Service is in charge of the arrangements. Visitation will be Friday from 2 to 5 p.m. A memorial service will be scheduled for a later date.