Springfield High School Athelete

Odis won many metals competing in olympic type games

Football

Odis Swallows No. 46
Played for Coach Boyce Smith

Coach Boyce Smith dedicated over sixty-five years of his life to athletics and young people. Smith coached football at Springfield High School for forty-four years (1928- 1972), winning 288 games, losing 116, and tying 34. His teams in 1935, 1937, 1939, 1941, 1942, and 1943 finished the season undefeated. At one point Smith's Spring- field team won an amazing thirty-two straight games. He led his team to fourteen bowl games, compiling a 10-1-3 record, and in 1937 his team led the nation in scoring and was featured in Ripley's Believe It or Not as "Point a Minute Team." Smith also coached basketball for thirty years from 1928-1958. As a basketball mentor, he led his team to the regional tournament twenty-one times and the state tournament four times.
A native of Tippah County, Mississippi, Smith graduated from Union University in Jackson, Tennessee, in 1928. Upon his graduation he immediately began coaching at Springfield High. Married to the former Delorese Goolsby Smith, Smith was a 1983 inductee in the National High School Sports Hall of Fame. He died on July 4, 1992, at the age of 90.

Odis Unley Swallows Sr.

This was an article found in a 1944 Springfield High School Souvineer Program

Football patch awarded Odis

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Disclaimer: The purpose of this Web Page is to share information for the purpose of research. I have not proved documentation of all genealogy material, nor have I kept source notes as I should. But I had lots of fun and met some great people along the way..

If you find any mistakes please contact the Web Page creator, Trisha Carden , and I shall try to correct them.