THE SAMURAI FADED AWAY

**** A Samurai is a warrior who lives by a personal code . The Samurai follows his Bushido . Bushido means the way of the warrior .

Leland Smith was a football Samurai . He lived true to his Bushido . Smith left the football battlefield 17 years ago this week . He is still strong in the memory of many .

Leland was a mass of contradictions . He was intelligent , inspirational , & loved his players beyond all .

Smith was also moody , temperamental , & prone to depression . Most really smart people walk the dark halls of depression .

For a man who was super attractive to women , Leland sure had a lot of woman trouble . 3 marriages prove that .

Sometimes Leland let anger over - ride his intelligence . He would get mad & decide to walk to home or work . This was a distance of 5 to 10 miles depending on where we were coaching at the time . We all tried to give him a ride but he insisted on walking . I guess it gave him time to think .

Leland learned hard nose intensity from Elmer Ray & defensive concepts from Ken Netherland . Charlie White & Jim Elgin really poured gas on Leland's fire when they coached with him on defense .

I coached with Leland for 7 years . He worked on defense ,while I worked on offense . Every day was a learning experience .

One of us left mad every day . Our practices were lab experiments gone berserk . We worked hard to stay ahead of the other . And learned a lot of football in the process .

I learned how to deal with 4 - man pressure from the weak side , over shift fronts , & coverages that seemed to rotate the wrong way .

Leland got a dose of wide line splits , unbalanced lines , & pass routes that changed according to coverage .

The lessons we learned in practice sure helped us out in a lot of games .

The Rhodes guys asked me once " How can you & Coach Smith yell & scream at each other all practice & then go eat together , tell stories , laugh & high five ?" I said that is just us .

Before the game Leland would say to me " You score once & we will stop them once " I always laughed & said okay .

I wish I could have one more round with the old Samurai warrior . After all , the old Mystic has a lot of new ideals to throw on him at practice .

Sun Tzu had a lot of the answers ,Leland, but Houseman had them all in "IS MY TEAM STILL PLOWING ?"

THANK YOU FOR READING !!!!