Paul Washington High School.Īfter one year of college, Smith enlisted in the Army Air Corps in September 1942. Paul, the second of three sons of Robert and Edith Smith. He was one of a kind, and a true Hall of Famer in every aspect of his life.” “I feel so fortunate to have gotten to know him and call him a friend. “Granny is a Park legend,” said Phil Kuemmel, Park’s assistant principal for activities. Smith is a member of four Halls of Fame - the Hamline Athletic Hall of Fame, the Park High School Hall of Fame, the Minnesota State High School League Hall of Fame and the Minnesota High School Baseball Coaches Association Hall of Fame. We would talk about how the game and athletes had changed. “He was very supportive of Park baseball. “Granny would come out,” said Ligtenberg. Paul Saints pitching coach Kerry Ligtenberg, who graduated from Park before playing eight years in the major leagues, didn’t play for Smith, but got to know him when he coached the Park team for two seasons. “And, if it was a rainy day and he couldn’t practice, he had the team in the classroom working on something,” Kroschel said. Kroschel said another thing that set Smith apart was that “he had to be one of the first coaches to have his kids go to clinics.” And he got a lot of good players from that program.” “He developed a feeder program before other coaches did.
“He was way ahead of his time,” said Kroschel, who played for Smith. In 1975, Smith told the Minneapolis Tribune that his main goal each season was “to let the kids know I’m interested in them as a person.” When he retired as baseball coach in 1978, he was the third-winningest high school baseball coach in the state. His teams finished first or second in their conference 25 of his 32 seasons. Over 32 seasons at Park, his baseball teams compiled a 328-133 record (.711 winning percentage) and won 14 conference championships. In addition to teaching history at Park, Smith also had a Hall of Fame career as the school’s baseball coach. Granny could have gone to Woodbury, but he loved it at Park and stayed.” “Teachers had the option of going to the new school. Then in the 1970s, the district opened a new high school in Woodbury. Paul Park to neighboring Cottage Grove in 1965. “He started at what was a small, rural high school,” said former Park student and teacher Bill Kroschel. He continued to serve as a substitute teacher at the school until 1990. Smith began teaching there in the fall 1945, retiring from full-time teaching in 1983. It would be the only teaching position of his four-decade career in education. Paul Park High School in Washington County.
After graduating from college, Granville “Granny” Smith’s first teaching job was at St.
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