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Craig Smith Honored with 2008 Tony Gasparovich Award

Craig Smith was was honored with the Tony Gasparovich Memorial Award at the 2008 Scholar-Athlete Awards ceremony on December 14, 2008.

Craig Smith is best known as “Sideline Smitty” of The Seattle Times. He attended Bothell High School where he played football and switched positions every year to try to get on the feld. He played quarterback as a sophomore and the greatest athletic accomplishment of his life to this day 43 years later is throwing a 40-yard touchdown pass in a junior- varsity game against Issaquah. He jogged to the sideline and his hard-nosed coach greeted him by saying, “Next time,
pump fake, freeze the cornerback, THEN go deep.”

Craig majored in journalism at the University of Washington and was editor of the UW Daily. After a year in the domestic Peace Corps (VISTA), he began a 41-year journalism career. He worked at The Charleston Gazette in West Virginia, the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, Associated Press, Fairbanks, Alaska, Daily News-Miner where he switched to sportswriting and has been at The Seattle Times for 32 years. He has accepted a buy-out offer from The Times and will be leaving the paper this month.

Craig lives in Kirkland with his wife Julie. Their oldest son, Stuart, was a football co-captain for Lake Washington High School in 1998 and their youngest son, Elliott, swam for the Kangs and was student-body president.

Craig’s favorite thought about high-school football and the Friday night lights: “Any sport that teaches young men to get up when they have been knocked down has to be a good.”