Frank Smith’s CIS football career may be summed up as having been the man who put UBC football on the map. He was head coach of the Thunderbirds program from 1974 to 1994 winning five Hardy Cup championships and two Vanier Cup titles – the first in 1982 and then again in 1986. He was voted CIAU Coach-of-the-Year on two occasions (1978 and 1987) and was inducted into the UBC Sports Hall of Fame in 2012. His CFL career has included 11 training camps as a Guest Coach, split between the BC Lions (76, 83-85, 87, 91), Edmonton Eskimos and Saskatchewan Roughriders. He was involved as a coach in the 1988 CFL All-Star Game. In 1995, Smith was the Roughriders Offensive Backs and Receivers Coach. Smith, a Vancouver native, started 3 games for the BC Lions in the 1956 season as a guard wearing #55. He also spent four other seasons in the CFL starting with 16 games as a Calgary Stampeder in 1953, with the Edmonton Eskimos in 1954 and the Winnipeg Blue Bombers in 1955 before retiring after the 1956 season with a log of 30 career games in Canadian football. Frank Smith began his coaching career at Vancouver’s Notre Dame High School in 1956 and spent many years working at the high school level before moving on to UBC in 1974. Smith was inducted into the Canadian Football Hall of Fame as part of the Class of 2019.
