The first, not the last

Strikes and fouls occupy most of Ed Smith’s, ’83, time these days. The former EOU quarterback founded and runs the Sports Umpires Association, training and mentoring referees across the Pacific Northwest. 

Smith was a member of Coach Don Turner’s highly ranked football team in the 1980s. He remembers the tumult of that era on campus. Turner recruited Black players from California, Pacific Islander players to hold the line, and white players from small, rural towns. 

“Coach Turner’s outlook on football, culture, and diverse nature of athletics seemed extreme at the time, but it was absolutely wonderful,” Smith said. “The old weight room had a long mirror and we’d do hours of circuit training with music blaring. We played two songs of R&B, two songs of country and two songs of Islander music in a rotation.”

Smith reunited with his teammates last fall when Turner was inducted into the EOU Hall of Fame. He said the relationships built in that tiny weight room have held firm. 

“It was amazing to me that after almost 40 years, there was not one iota of team spirit or camaraderie lost,” he said. “At the time in La Grande that team was all we had. It was a bit terse when these new athletes first showed up. It was a new horizon for the city and the school.”

With Coach Turner’s encouragement to get involved on campus and the activism modeled by his parents, Smith decided to run for student body president. He’d served on the presidential search committee and was politically motivated. 

“We were in a time of turmoil when they were talking about closing down either Western or Eastern—we were on the chopping block,” he said. “I picked up the mantle and decided to run.”

After initial pushback, Smith focused his campaign on building grassroots support. He found common ground with fellow non-traditional students, hanging around evening classes. Smith was an older student at 27, having served six years in the United States Marine Corps Reserve. He lived on campus and campaigned in the residence halls. Plus, he drew votes from student-athletes.

In 1982, EOU elected its first Black student body president and Smith was named Most Inspirational Player. 

“I was Obama before Obama was,” Smith joked. “I hosted a political forum with Gov. Vic Atiyeh and Ted Kulongoski in their debate on campus… and we successfully lobbied in the legislature to not close the school.”

He said his time as a Mountaineer and his role as a leader on campus transformed his worldview. Smith had grown up in Detroit and lived on military bases in California, but in La Grande he worked with a local farmer and bucked hay for the first time in his life. He said the experience connected him with teammates from Elgin and Cove. 

“I had no concept of where milk came from or what it was like to be in a rural place,” he said. “I went out to Baker City and would kick bales of hay out to cows at 4 a.m…. Every city kid should do that at some point. I learned about the lifestyle, and hopefully people learned about these strange kids from the city.”

Smith remembers women shuffling to the other side of the street and clutching their purses when he first arrived in La Grande. He figured he’s probably the first and only student body president to have received death threats while he was on campus. But by 1982, the football team was holding community car washes. 

“We opened the door for a lot of kids of color and different cultures starting to attend EOSC,” Smith said. “I really, really, really loved my school. It made a difference in my world.”

His recent return to campus showcased a much more ethnically diverse student body than the one he led decades ago. He reflected that although he may have been the first person from an underrepresented group to lead the student body, he’s glad to find that he wasn’t the last.