Catching Up With Larry Smith

William Lawrence Smith -- better known as Larry Smith and a member of The Tampa Tribune’s All-Century Team -- helped lead the Robinson High School Knights to the state championship game in 1963. The powerful running back earned All-County, All-State and All-American recognition during his renowned prep career. He parlayed that success into stardom at the University of Florida, where he earned fame while recording 24 career rushing touchdowns and garnered All-SEC honors from 1966-68. A first-round selection in the 1969 draft by the Los Angeles Rams, Smith spent six seasons in the NFL playing for the Rams and Washington Redskins before calling it a career. Smith recently sat down to talk about the 45th anniversary of Robinson’s memorable run to the state championship game, and set the record straight about the most memorable play of his collegiate career.

Q. What was it like playing high school football in Tampa during the early 1960s?

A. It was a lot of fun. It was pretty much what everybody did around here on a Friday night. At that time, we didn’t yet have professional football. The University of Tampa was still a small college program. Friday night was a pretty exciting time for high school games during that period. As I recall for one of our home games that year, we had some 10,000 people in the stands. The stadium was completely sold out.

Q. Robinson was still a fairly new school in 1963, but that season it certainly eclipsed nearby Plant High School on the football field. How did it feel to emerge from Plant’s shadow?

A. Plant was a big rival, but we were far enough from the split that formed Robinson that we had started to develop our own identity. The rivalry was big a thing, but our focus was bigger. We wanted to try and win the state championship.

Q. In November 1963, the assassination of President Kennedy cast a terrible shadow over the season. What do you remember about that day and did you agree with the decision to play football games that weekend?

A. I just remember everyone had a sick feeling in their stomachs. We were playing Chamberlain High School that night. Clearly everyone on both teams felt impacted by the event.

Q. Can you describe what it was like to play for a legendary coach such as Holland Aplin at Robinson, and what it meant to your career?

A. I was very fortunate to play for a bunch of outstanding coaches. Holland Aplin was a terrific coach, and he also had a great staff. As players, we were lucky to have such good coaches. They were very innovative for the time. We threw the ball a lot and ran some unusual formations. We were a bit different than typical high school offenses of the day.

Q. Is there a teammate you had at Robinson who you look back on now and say, “I couldn’t have done it without him?”

A. Oh sure, that’s all of them. I think if you looked at us across the board as individuals, we really didn’t match up that well with other schools. As a unit, however, we really gelled and played well together. Everyone was very important to our success.

Q. What do you remember about the state championship game against Coral Gables?

A. It’s kind of a blur. As I mentioned, we never had more than 30 or 35 people dress out for a game. For the state championship, there was a rule that you could only dress out a certain number of players. Well, Coral Gables typically dressed out 100, so the fellas who couldn’t dress out for the game they let stand on the sidelines wearing their jerseys. They lined all the way down the field! It was quite an impressive sight. Their quarterback, Larry Rentz, had a big night, scored a couple of touchdowns. We came out on the short end of the stick losing on a late field goal, but oddly enough Larry ended up being my freshman roommate at the University of Florida. He was a good athlete and a good guy, so it worked out fine.

Q. After the game, was there some satisfaction at what you accomplished as a team, or was there a greater sense of disappointment?

A. I think we thought we should have won the game. They were much bigger than we were, and probably deeper talent-wise, but we fought hard and played hard. There was a controversial call at the end of the game that could have changed things, but that’s football.

Q. You were a junior that season, so you still had another year to play at Robinson. How did the team fare the following season?

A. We had great expectations and I think we lost two or three games. We didn’t click quite as well. Everyone on the 1963 team participated, played a big role, and we had a close team atmosphere. We lost a number of key players, like quarterback Randy Smith, and some team leaders, like Jimmy Smith, Mike Godwin, and Mike Wall. So I think it was a typical turnover on a high school team.

Q. From Robinson to Gainesville to the NFL, your career has been filled with memorable moments. What is the most common play or game people mention to you about your career?

A. Everyone comes up to me and says they remember when my pants fell down at the Orange Bowl in 1967. It didn’t happen, and if everyone was there who said they were there, it would have been an overflowing stadium. We were playing Georgia Tech at the Orange Bowl. It was Steve Spurrier’s senior year and he’d just won the Heisman Trophy. We were actually just trying to move the ball out from our goal line a little bit, but I got some good blocking and broke free for a 94-yard touchdown run. We used to wear those old fashioned plastic hips pads that were separate from the pants. My hip pads started slipping up as I was running down the field. This created the illusion that my pants were falling down. I got a lot of press over this and I still hear it today, but it never happened.

Q. Do you still follow Robinson football?

A. I do, and I only live a few blocks from where I grew up, though I’m in the Plant district now (laughs). I follow the local football scene petty carefully. Even though I don’t go to many games, I’m very interested in the outcomes.

Robinson High's Run to State, 11/8/63

On Nov. 8, 1963, local politicians and business leaders prepared for a visit by President John F. Kennedy less than two weeks later. Meanwhile, the Robinson High School Knights, the top-ranked football team in Florida, prepared to host the Winter Haven Blue Devils in a battle of gridiron unbeatens. At 6-0, each school came into the game with championship hopes on the line.

Local interest in the contest bordered on a hysteria not seen since 1961, when 12,500 gathered for a game between Chamberlain and Lakeland high schools.

Robinson sold more reserved seats for this game in advance -- 2,510 -- than for any other game in school history, topping the previous high by nearly 1,900 tickets. A great deal of fans, in fact, were unable to purchase tickets, so many wondered why the game was not moved to the larger Phillips Field near downtown Tampa - but a previously scheduled game between Middleton and Blake high schools made this an impossibility. An additional 1,000 standing-room-only tickets, however, were made available to accommodate the masses.

Some enterprising Robinson students tried to take advantage of the situation as well by selling counterfeit tickets. The day before the game, however, school officials uncovered the scheme.

"The boys were caught and given proper disciplinary action," Principal Jack Marley said. "Not many tickets got out, and ironically, they sold them to their friends."

If the student scalpers understood the magnitude of the game, certainly Robinson head coach Holland Aplin did as well.

"Never have I had a game which means so much," Aplin said. "This game could mean everything. We feel like the game could come right down to the wire."

Winter Haven's head coach, Calvin Triplett, knew his squad would have their hands full in stopping Robinson's potent offense.

"It's going to be a rough one," Triplett said. "Frankly, Robinson has the best offense I've seen since I've been in Florida. There's no guesswork, they're a real fine ball club."

All told, more than 10,000 fans -- including Tampa Mayor Nick Nuccio -- packed into Robinson's Peters Stadium on Homecoming Night for what turned out to be a low-scoring, defensive contest. Robinson eschewed its aerial assault in favor of a running attack, attempting only four passes the entire game. Luckily, the Knights had a hammer of a halfback named Larry Smith to pick up plenty of yards on the ground.

"We felt we would have to run it down their throats," Aplin said after the game, "because we knew they would give our passers a rough time. That's the way we felt we could beat them."

The battles in this game took place at the line of scrimmage, and Smith struck the first blow for Robinson when he scored untouched on a 52-yard run with 9:37 left in second quarter. The score capped an 80-yard drive for Robinson and put the Knights ahead 7-0.

Robinson's defense truly helped carry the day by containing Winter Haven's running quarterback Bobby Downs. Downs, who would go on to play college ball for the University of Florida, entered the contest as his team's leading rusher with more than 500 yards and 10 touchdowns on the ground. The Knights held Winter Haven to just one scoring opportunity in the game while shutting down their star quarterback - his longest run of the day was 10 yards.

Winter Haven's defense came to play as well, holding in check a Robinson team averaging close to 35 points per game. As Aplin promised, his team concentrated on the running game to the exclusion of the pass. The strategy paid off throughout the game, but came to fruition in the third quarter when Larry Smith broke a 35-yard run down to the Winter Haven 6-yard line. Just two plays later, Smith scored on a 2-yard run to give Robinson a 14-0 lead that would hold to the final gun.

After the game, Aplin praised his team for giving a "110 percent effort. That's what it took to beat Winter Haven. They're the toughest team we've played this year and it took a great team effort on the part of our boys to win."

Robinson breezed through the remainder of its season, going undefeated en route to the regional championship. In the Class AA state title game on Dec. 13, Robinson squared off against Coral Gables High School at Phillips Field. In front of 15,000 fans -- the largest crowd to watch a football game in Tampa since 1949 -- Robinson appeared poised to win the state title as it held a 14-13 lead late in the fourth quarter.

With 20 seconds remaining in the game, however, a 35-yard field goal by Coral Gables kicker Larry Davidson cleared the uprights, leaving the capacity crowd stunned. The Cavaliers captured the game, and the state title, 16-14, ending Robinson's magical season in heartbreaking fashion.

Gators vs Air Force at Tampa Stadium, 9/21/68

Just one month after Tampa Stadium played host to its first NFL exhibition game 40 years ago, the stadium added yet another first: hosting a home game for a team other than the University of Tampa. In an event several years in the making, the Florida Gators took the field on Sept. 21, 1968, against the Air Force Academy Falcons.

As the Gators prepared for their season opener, the team entered the contest ranked sixth in the nation and a two-touchdown favorite over the Falcons despite a 1967 season that did not include a bowl game appearance.

Five days after presidential candidate Richard Nixon famously uttered "Sock it to me" on "Laugh-in," the Tampa Stadium crowd of 52,000 – mostly Gator partisans – surely expected a resounding triumph in their school’s first game in Tampa since 1949. But if the Air Force cadets were intimidated by the sea of orange and blue, they didn’t show it as the game got underway.

On his first ever kickoff return, Air Force sophomore Curtis Martin fielded the opening kick and sprinted 98 yards for a touchdown. The stunned crowd, which barely had time to settle into their seats, suddenly saw their Gators at the short end of a 6-0 score when Air Force missed the point after attempt.

A field goal by Gator Jack Youngblood cut the lead in half, but Air Force would add to their lead shortly before the end of the first quarter. With the ball at midfield, Air Force quarterback Gary Baxter found Charles Longnecker on a fly pattern that gained 44 yards to the Gator five yard-line. On the next play, Baxter scrambled left and outraced several pursuing Gators to the corner of the end zone. At the end of the first quarter, Florida trailed the Falcons 13-3.

The Gators clawed back into the game, however, when Steve Tannen electrified the pro-Florida crowd with a 64-yard punt return for a touchdown. Trailing 13-9 with the first half winding down, the Gators came up with another momentum-changing play. Bill Gaisford intercepted an errant throw by Gary Baxter and returned the ball 31 yards to the Air Force 26-yard line.

With time winding down in the 2nd, Florida advanced the ball to the 8-yard line, facing 4th-and-2. Rather than kick a field goal, Florida opted to go for the first down. Gator quarterback Larry Rentz then found wide receiver Guy McTheny at the 3-yard line to set up first and goal.

Running back Larry Smith – a product of Tampa’s Robinson High School– capitalized by scoring on the next play to give Florida a 16-13 lead at the half.

In an odd twist to a game that already featured the lack of a functional game clock, the halftime show was to highlight the Air Force’s live falcon mascot. Instead of returning to his trainer, however, the falcon took one lap around the stadium and then headed for parts unknown.

Although the falcon never came back, the same would not be said about the football team. Air Force scored on its first possession of the second half, driving 69 yards on three plays to reclaim the lead. Curtis Martin added his second touchdown of the day, this time a 3-yard run, to give the Falcons a 20-16 advantage.

Trailing by four in the fourth quarter, the Gators took advantage of another big play by their defense. As the Falcons attempted to run precious time off the clock, Florida recovered a fumble by Martin at the Air Force 23 yard-line. Set up with excellent field position, the Gators needed just five plays to put the ball into the end zone. Larry Smith added his second three-yard touchdown of the game to give Florida a 23-20 lead that would cap the day’s scoring.

Graves felt all along that Air Force was an underrated team – and that perhaps his Gators had been rated too highly – so he felt happy to come away with the 3-point victory.

“Even though we played sloppy,” he said, “it makes us proud of the boys that they were able to pull it out over a good football team.”

After the game, Gator players took little solace in their comeback victory. The overwhelming feeling among the players was that they were lucky to win the game and played far below their potential. Mark Ely, a graduate of Tampa’s Plant High School, perhaps put it best when he said, “Boy, we played bad.”

Still, the victory got Florida off on the right foot, as the Gators went on to win their first four games of the season. The Gators then endured a 0-3-1 streak capped by a humiliating 51-0 loss to the Georgia Bulldogs in Jacksonville. Florida finished on a high note by winning their last two, but a 6-3-1 record failed to earn the Gators a bowl bid for the second consecutive season.

The Gators were not through with Tampa, however, as the team would come back for games in seven of the following eight seasons, thereby turning Tampa Stadium into their home away from The Swamp.