Coach Jethro T. Smugg was considered a cruel coach, a mean bastard, and an tough SOB. However, what many people did not realize is that Coach Smugg had a softer side too.
Oh sure, there are the stories about how he refused to allow a player with a cut jugular vein to leave the game in order to get a bandage applied (true), about how he dumped scalding hot coffee in the face of a player who had pased out from dehydration and heat stroke (true), and of course the famous story of how he ran over the puppy of the sister of a player who wouldn't sign with his program (technically true although it was later shown that the puppy ran out into the street in front of the coach. Coach Smugg did, however, back over the dog, pull forward, back over the dog again, pull forward again, and back over the dog again, before finally driving off.) But those just reflect the gruff exterior of the personna he displayed to the public. The public never saw the man who loved opera ("Somebody always dies somewhere along the way," he was quoted as saying), who tended a flower garden ("Just don't go digging around in it until AFTER I'm dead," he told his landlord) and who shed a tear when reading the GUESS Reports ("How can than jerk expect me to click an ad after ranking me so low???" he was heard to cry.) All in all, he was quite a complex man. Coach Smugg died earlier this week when a Fathead peeled off the wall in his office and fell over his face while he slept off a drunken binge, smothering him. He was 14.