Robert Smith may have hit the longest home run in the history of Drew baseball.
Even legendary Coach Sherman Plato "Doc" Young liked to tell of Smith's 1936 bomb that cleared the left field fence -- and the tennis courts beyond it. But Smith's contributions to Drew extend far beyond his athletic triumphs. In nearly 50 years of service as coach and professor, he touched the lives of thousands of Drew alumni.
As a student-athlete he batted clean-up for three seasons for Doc Young's Rangers and was the second Drew player ever to hit a home run. He earned four letters in baseball and captained the 10-2 team of 1936. He added three more letters in fencing, where his weapon was epée. An injury cost him his senior fencing season, but he helped found the Varsity Club and encouraged the creation of the Albert Ben Wegener Award.
Smith's substantial gifts to the life of Drew began after he earned a master's degree and a Ph.D. in history and government from Columbia University. He returned to Drew in 1940 to teach political science and also coached the men's tennis team. He came to his duties as a champion, having captured the 1937 and 1939 Morris County YMCA doubles championships and the 1937 and 1939 Morristown men's singles championships.
He led the 1941 Drew team to a 11-4 record in 1941 before enlisting in service for World War II. Upon his return Smith coached the tennis squad for four more seasons, adding another 22 victories for a career mark of 33-19 (.611). His 1950 squad went 9-2 after earning mention in American Lawn Tennis Magazine that spring as the best small-college team in the East. In the classroom, Smith was a giant. He founded Drew's undergraduate political science department and chaired the department for 25 years.
He also helped found the Institute for Research on Government; the London Semester, the Washington Semester, and the Semester on the United Nations; and the graduate program in political science. He consulted widely for city and state governments and universities and wrote three books on the use of public authorities by local governments. He also wrote portions of and edited Military Medical Manual, the Army's 1,000-page textbook on military medical administration.
His work attracted grants from prestigious foundations, gained him scholarly renown, and elicited such accolades as Drew's 1960 Alumni Achievement Award in the Arts and a 1977 honorary degree from the university. Now retired in Arnold, Md., with his wife, Lois, Smith is one of Drew's most beloved professors. Smith House, home of the political science department, celebrates his legacy as do scholarships in both the College of Liberal Arts and the Caspersen School of Graduate Studies.
