{"id":1745,"date":"2012-01-06T17:24:04","date_gmt":"2012-01-06T22:24:04","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.archives.nd.edu\/about\/news\/?p=1745"},"modified":"2012-01-06T17:24:04","modified_gmt":"2012-01-06T22:24:04","slug":"charles-lefty-smith","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sites.nd.edu\/ndarchives\/charles-lefty-smith\/","title":{"rendered":"Charles “Lefty” Smith"},"content":{"rendered":" <\/a>
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Charles “Lefty” Smith<\/a>, a long-time fixture at Notre Dame, passed away Tuesday, January 3, 2012.\u00a0 In 1968, the club hockey team, then coached by students, was on the verge of becoming varsity, after a long history oscillating through non-existence, club, and varsity status.\u00a0 Notre Dame snagged Lefty Smith as the first varsity hockey coach in the modern era.\u00a0 He was coaching the South St. Paul High School team and was “considered the top high school coach in the state [Minnesota], and has produced teams with impressive records” [Dome<\/em> yearbook 1968, page 197].<\/p>\n

\"\"Hockey Coach Charles “Lefty” Smith, c1970s<\/em><\/p>\n

Lefty coached the varsity hockey team for 19 seasons, racking up a number of accolades<\/a>.\u00a0 His demeanor was relaxed and approachable, yet he held high expectations on and off the ice.\u00a0 It was important to Lefty that his student athletes earn a college degree, more important than winning games.<\/p>\n

\"\"Hockey Coach Charles “Lefty” Smith teaching techniques to a group of boys on the ice during a youth sports camp, 1978\/0720<\/em><\/p>\n

Lefty was also instrumental in facilitating youth hockey camps, which opened the world of hockey to a new generation of athletes in the South Bend community.\u00a0 Undoubtedly, he instilled in them the same virtues of sportsmanship, competition, discipline, and respect that he left with many of those with whom he interacted.\u00a0 In a 1974 interview with Scholastic<\/em>, Lefty said, “You know the old, shopworn cliches between sports and life; well, it seems to me there is a definite correlation between the discipline and attitude which good competitive sports breed and the principles by which I wish to live by.”<\/p>\n

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Sources:
\nDome<\/em> yearbook
\n“More than a Hockey Coach,” by Bob Kissel, Scholastic<\/em>, 12\/13\/1974, pages 16-28
\nGASI 6\/33<\/a>
\nGPHR 35m\/05511<\/a><\/p>\n ","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" <\/a>

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Charles “Lefty” Smith, a long-time fixture at Notre Dame, passed away Tuesday, January 3, 2012.\u00a0 In 1968, the club hockey team, then coached by students, was on the verge of becoming varsity, after a long history oscillating through non-existence, club, and varsity status.\u00a0 Notre Dame snagged Lefty Smith as the first varsity hockey coach in … Continue reading “Charles “Lefty” Smith”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n ","protected":false},"author":4370,"featured_media":1747,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[40,71],"class_list":["post-1745","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-nd-history","tag-hockey","tag-sports"],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-09-07 04:42:26","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.nd.edu\/ndarchives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1745","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.nd.edu\/ndarchives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.nd.edu\/ndarchives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.nd.edu\/ndarchives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4370"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.nd.edu\/ndarchives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1745"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/sites.nd.edu\/ndarchives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1745\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.nd.edu\/ndarchives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1747"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.nd.edu\/ndarchives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1745"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.nd.edu\/ndarchives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1745"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.nd.edu\/ndarchives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1745"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}