By John Antonik

 

Bob Smith, a standout member of West Virginia University's 1959 NCAA runner-up team, has died.

 

Known as Bobby Joe during his playing days – a nickname legendary "Voice of the Mountaineers" Jack Fleming began calling him on the radio – the charismatic Smith started 97 consecutive games during an outstanding three-year career that included Southern Conference titles in 1957, 1958 and 1959.

 

He scored 1,127 career points in a supporting role for All-American players Hot Rod Hundley and Jerry West.

 

The 6-foot-4 forward from Charleston was an outstanding leaper who helped key coach Fred Schaus' vaunted fast break offense. One rival coach considered Smith the "most underrated player in the Southern Conference."

 

"From what I can remember, Jerry loved having Bob as a teammate," Mountaineer Sports Network from Learfield IMG College radio analyst Jay Jacobs recalled. Jacobs and Smith were WVU teammates in 1958-59.

 

Smith scored a career-high 29 points in a 72-70 loss to NYU during his senior season in 1959 and also had a pair of great games against arch-rival Duke.

 

He produced 24 in a 72-68 loss to the Blue Devils in Durham on Jan. 27, 1958 – one of only two defeats that year for the No. 1-ranked Mountaineers. The following year, West Virginia got payback at the Field House by blowing out the Blue Devils 101-63. West scored a game-high 29 points and Smith contributed 26.

 

"After we got beat down at Duke – and Fred would never do something like this – but before the game he told us, 'If you get them down you can run it up!' He had never said that before. He wanted their asses bad, and we stuck it to them," Smith recalled a few years ago.

 

A Stonewall Jackson High product, Smith was part of a run of great Kanawha Valley basketball players who came to West Virginia University in the 1950s, including Mark Workman, Hundley and West. 

 

With the exception of Hundley and Smith, the vast majority of West Virginia's players during its "Golden Era" in the late 1950s came from small, West Virginia mining towns. 

 

WVU publicist Eddie Barrett took advantage of this by calling them the "country slickers" – which many major metropolitan newspapers picked up when WVU rose to No. 1 in the polls after defeating Kentucky and North Carolina in the 1957 Kentucky Invitational Tournament.

 

An injury to guard Don Vincent in the 1958 Southern Conference Tournament was a big factor in the Mountaineers' stunning NCAA Tournament first-round loss to Manhattan, considered one of the biggest upsets in NCAA Tournament history.

 

Years later, Smith thought Schaus erred when he moved him from forward to guard to replace Vincent.

 

"I had played forward, and he probably should have kept me at forward and brought somebody else in with Joedy (Gardner) to play guard," Smith said.

 

He also thought West Virginia didn't respond well to the officiating in that stunning defeat to the Jaspers. A combined 61 fouls were called and key players West, Gardner and center Lloyd Sharrar fouled out in the five-point loss.

 

"I'll never forget, we thought we were fouled bringing the ball up the court, and they really roughed us up and we basically sort of stopped like there was a foul, and no foul was called," Smith said. "It was our fault, and we should have found out pretty quickly and played that kind of ball, too. 

 

"In the Southern Conference, they called it very closely and when you went against New York teams they were tough kids – we were tough kids too – but we were not used to playing against people like that," he added.

 

A year later, West Virginia was able to pivot from that great disappointment to enjoy its finest hour when it reached the NCAA Finals, losing by one point to California in the national championship game.

 

The '59 team wasn't as good as '58, in Smith's opinion, but it did have an assortment of characters who became known as the "Cardiac Kids."

 

Fourteen times that season, West Virginia overcame second-half deficits to pull out games by using a zone press defense that Schaus had borrowed from West Virginia Tech coach Neal Baisi. The biggest comeback win of the year came in the NCAA Tournament second round in Charlotte, North Carolina, when WVU edged 14th-ranked St. Joseph's 95-92. Backup guard Ronnie Retton stole an inbounds pass and made a driving layup with 23 seconds left to produce the game-clinching score.

 

West Virginia played its best game of the season in the national semifinals by defeating Louisville 94-79 on its home floor, Freedom Hall.

 

A Jerry West-Oscar Robertson matchup in the finals was wiped out when Cal upset the Bearcats in the other semifinal game.

 

"We were pulling for Cincinnati to beat California because we wanted Jerry to go against Oscar – the two best players in the country at that time," Smith recalled. "I think deep down we were disappointed that Jerry didn't get a chance to go against Oscar, although that didn't have any bearing on the championship game."

 

Smith was named to the Southern Conference All-Tournament Team in 1958 and was a second team all-conference choice in 1959.

 

"When Fred recruited, he didn't go out and try and get five All-Americans," Smith said. "He had somebody that he wanted to be a scorer, somebody he wanted as a rebounder and somebody he wanted that was a fast-break person or a defensive specialist. 

 

"And of course, Jerry was our Mr. Everything."

 

Bob SmithSmith played parts of two seasons with the Lakers, one year in Minneapolis in 1960 and another in Los Angeles in 1961 when Schaus coached the team. He also played one season for the Pittsburgh Rens in the American Basketball League.

 

After graduating from WVU in 1961, Smith spent 15 years as a high school basketball coach at George C. Marshall High in Falls Church, Virginia, before joining Gale Catlett's Mountaineer basketball staff in 1978.

 

He worked seven seasons with Catlett before entering the real estate business in 1985 in Naples, Florida.

 

Smith and his wife, Jean, continued to reside in Naples until his death last weekend.

 

Bob remained involved with the Mountaineer program through the years, participating in The Bob Huggins Fantasy Camp in 2016 and also attending West Virginia's games in the Orlando tournament a year later.

 

He was inducted into the WVU Sports Hall of Fame in 2009.

 

Smith is also survived by two sons, Steve and Scott. He was 83.

 

Editor's Note: Photo of Bob Smith, left, with Jerry West courtesy of WVUSports.com.