Canes officially announce hire, clarify role of legendary high school coach Roland Smith
Roland Smith has been working with Mario Cristobal and the Miami Hurricanes for more than three months, but the university finally announced his hire Tuesday and clarified his role within the coaching staff.
Smith, who won seven state championships at Northwestern and Miami Central, is now officially the director of high school relations for the Hurricanes after spending more than 28 years working in Miami-Dade County Public Schools.
“It was the right time,” Smith said in a video accompanying the Hurricanes’ announcement on Twitter. “When Coach Cristobal got a chance to become the head coach here at the University of Miami, he gave me a chance to come back home to the place where I went to school at. I couldn’t turn it down.”
Smith played defensive back at Miami from 1987-1990 and won a pair of national titles. After injuries kept him from a professional career, Smith went back to his alma mater and spent more than a decade coaching with the Bulls, leading them to a state title in 2006.
Most recently, he was the coach at Central for nine years and helped turn the Rockets into a dynasty, winning six state championships. They’ve currently won three in a row.
Smith’s seven Florida High School Athletic Association championships are tied for the most in South Florida history and the seventh most in state history. It makes him a logical fit for this role, as do the connections he has across Miami-Dade County.
Currently, the coaches at Northwestern, Central, Booker T. Washington and North Miami were all assistant coaches for Smith, and the coach at Carol City played for him. Coaches at Edison and Killian can also trace their lineage back in Smith’s coaching tree, as can dozens of other assistant coaches across the county.
Smith said he originally hoped to work 30 years in Dade County Public Schools before moving on, but the opportunity with Cristobal came about at the perfect moment. Other colleges have approached him in the past, he said, yet he always opted to stay put.
“Having the opportunity to be here and to stay in the community, and to help bring this back to what it was when I played here was very important to me. That’s what made the decision a lot easier for me and my family because it was a different challenge,” Smith told the Herald. “Do I miss my team? Yes. Do I miss my program? Yes. Do I miss the community that I worked for and was in while I was at the high school level? Yes, but I love the city of Miami, as well, and I love my University of Miami because I was a graduate here. It was the best four years of my life when I was in college, winning two national championships here, and I think this city and I think this town need to experience this feeling again.”
This story was originally published June 7, 2022 at 5:14 PM.
