INDIANAPOLIS – Ron Smith, who in the 1970s starred for Furman University in both basketball and baseball, and for the past 20 years has served as head baseball coach at his alma mater, was inducted into the Indiana Basketball Hall of Fame in ceremonies Wednesday evening.
Smith, a native of Elkhart, Ind., and product of Elkhart Memorial High School, where he was a standout in basketball, baseball and tennis from 1972-74, was among 12 former Indiana basketball greats enshrined at the 53rd annual banquet attended by approximately 1,000 fans of Hoosier State basketball.
Smith started for three seasons at Elkhart Memorial and was named to the Indiana All-Star Team in 1974, his senior year. In 1999 he was selected to the Indiana Basketball Silver Anniversary Team along with French Lick, Ind., favorite son and former NBA great Larry Bird.
Signed to a basketball scholarship by Furman coach Joe Williams, Smith served as the Paladins' starting point guard for four years (1975-78) and played on squads that twice won Southern Conference championships and competed in the NCAA tournament. As a senior, he captained Furman's 1977-78 team that defeated Clemson, as well as North Carolina and NC State in the North-South Doubleheader. Those wins still stand as the last Furman triumphs over the Tigers, Tar Heels, and Wolfpack in basketball, and his 446 assists and 172 steals rank third and fourth, respectively, in program history.
In addition to his exploits on the hardwood, Smith was a three-year starter and three-time letterwinner as a shortstop for the Paladins from 1975-77. As a junior in 1976, he helped lead Furman to a 23-16 record, a SoCon title and an appearance in the NCAA Atlantic Regional, where the Paladins defeated both Virginia Tech and South Carolina. That season still stands as one of the finest in Furman baseball history and was only finally surpassed in wins by the 1997 Paladin squad – coached by Smith.
Following the 1977 baseball season, he was selected by the Philadelphia Phillies in the ninth round of the Major League Baseball Draft and played on various minor league squads that also included future major leaguers Ryne Sandburg, Lonnie Smith, Ozzie Virgil and Bob Walk. He advanced as high as the Phillies' AAA Oklahoma City affiliate before retiring as a player in 1981. He remained with the Phillies organization for the 1982 season, managing squads in both Sarasota, Fla., and Helena, Mont.
In 1981, Smith was named head basketball coach at Miami University in Middletown, Ohio, and from 1981-87 posted a 116-59 record and won three conference championships. While there, he also began his career as a teacher and administrator in the public schools and in 1984, assumed the baseball head coaching duties at Middletown High School, where he directed the program to a 42-32 record over a three-year period.
In 1989, he took over as head basketball coach at Middletown High School, and in five seasons guided his squads to a 75-42 record, including Greater Miami Conference, sectional and district championships in 1989, for which he was named conference coach of the year.
Smith was named head coach at Furman in 1993, and in 20 seasons has guided the diamond Paladins to some of the program's greatest moments, including a 2005 Southern Conference tournament championship and NCAA tournament appearance.
Owner of more than 500 collegiate victories, the most in Furman history, he has coached the Paladins to six 30-win campaigns and 15 victories over top-25 rated opponents since 2001, including seven triumphs over South Carolina and five wins over Clemson. In 2013, Furman went 32-24 and beat both South Carolina and Georgia – the latter for a third consecutive season. Seventeen players recruited by Smith have been drafted and/or signed professional baseball contracts, and Furman has registered the SoCon's highest average NCAA Graduation Success Rate (GSR) over the last nine years (length of NCAA tracking period).
In addition Smith has been the driving force and chief fundraiser behind projects that included the installation of lights at Latham Stadium in 1993 and construction of the program's new 11,000-square foot, $2 million Furman Baseball Complex, which opened last year.
He continues to stay connected to Furman's basketball program, having served a color analyst on the school's radio broadcast for many years.
Smith earned his bachelor's degree in political science/education from Furman in 1979 and later added a master's degree in educational leadership from Miami (Ohio) University. He is married to the former Beth Jordan of Houston, Texas, and has a daughter, Emily, and three sons: Devin, Blake and Peyton.