Leonard Smoot, Miles College Golf Coach (Photo by Johny Zotic)
BY AAGD STAFF
May 2, 2019
Congratulations to Miles College Head Golf Coach, Leonard Smoot on being named SIAC 2019 Coach of the Year. The announcement was made on April 14, 2019 by SIAC Men’s Golf All-Southern Intercollegiate Athletic Conference.
In 2013, for the first time in school history, Miles College began offering golf as a sponsored sport and the Golden Bears began its inaugural season during the 2013-2014 school year. Coach Smoot had initiated the establishment of the program.
“This new golf team is a great opportunity for Miles College to show yet another component of the culture, class and civility that we instill in our students,” says President George T. French at the time. “It is a testament of the standard of excellence that we expect from our students academically and holistically.”
“It’s always an honor to receive recognition like this. I am grateful,” says Coach Smoot, 57, via telephone today to this publication. He has received the “Coach of the Year” honor by SIAC for the last four consecutive years. “It’s all about setting a good example, doing good by the school, and doing good by the kids–giving them a conversation to get them thinking about how they should approach things in life.” Within the last two years, students in Miles College Athletics have had the highest GPA within the conference, and in all sports, they carry a 3.2 GPA.
At that time Coach Smoot was a 24-year retired veteran of the United States Marine Corps (USMC) with over 20 years of competitive golf experience. Smoot was also well-versed in competitive golf and had achieved several top-10 finishes in tournaments throughout Southeast Asia and Europe, including wins at the Wago Championship (Okinawa, Japan), as well as the Staff & Officer Championship (Awase, Japan). For Coach Smoot, the collegiate terrain became his new battlefield where his strong military background, leadership abilities and coaching skills would be put to the test.
The native of Flint, Michigan attended Flint Beecher High School and earned his Bachelor of Science degree in Business Management from Huntingdon College. Since then Smoot has achieved a strong history of excellence in golf. In 2002, he became just the third African American to make the United States’ Marines Golf Team. He has also served as a mentor/coach for the Professional Women’s Golf Association since 2008, while also previously serving in various roles for many regional golf tournaments, including the South Region Minority Supplier Development Council Golf Classic (SRMSDC), the Museum of Urban Art Golf Tournament, the Stillman College Scholarship Golf Tournament, and Alabama Leadership Foundation Golf Classic.
The first Head Golf Coach of Miles College has a passion for his profession and continues to provide golf instruction to all levels of golfers while helping them grow through a positive mental attitude. Smoot has been the only coach in the Miles College golf program’s six-year history, and in the metro Birmingham community. He has won one SIAC championship and finished second three times while also winning the last three SIAC Coach of the Year awards. In December 2018 Coach Smoot was selected to serve on the PGA Minority Collegiate Championship Advisory Council, a 15-member board, which will oversee the 33rd PGA Minority Collegiate Championship and PGA Works Career Expo taking place May 9-12, 2019 at PGA Golf Club in Port St. Lucie, Florida. This coming May, Coach Smoot will be inducted into the African American Golfers Hall of Fame in West Palm Beach, Fla.
ABOUT MILES COLLEGE
Miles College was founded in 1898, is a premier liberal arts institution located in metropolitan Birmingham within the corporate limits of the City of Fairfield. The noble founders of the institution saw educated leadership as the paramount need in the black community. As a senior, private, liberal arts Historically Black College with roots in the Christian Methodist Episcopal Church, the institution motivates and prepares students, through committed faculty, to seek knowledge that leads to intellectual and civic empowerment.
