Gil Smith, whose full name is Gilbert Emerson Smith, was a graduate of Defiance High School in 1924 and Defiance College in 1928.

At DC, Gil earned four letters in football, four in baseball, two in basketball and two in track. He went on to attend Ohio State before earning a Master's Degree from Columbia University in 1937.

Before that, Smith coached two sports at Delphos Jefferson for five years with his football teams going 36-9 and baseball teams 80-5, winning the state tournament in 1931 and finishing as runners-up in 1933. Smith then went to Defiance College as athletic director and head coach of football, basketball and baseball for three years.

Gil returned to coaching at the high school level across town at Defiance High School where he coached basketball and football. The head basketball coach of the Bulldogs from 1936-41, Gil's teams had a record of 84-20, the third-highest win total and second-highest winning percentage of 80.8 percent in DHS history. The Bulldogs won two NWOAL titles and one co-championship in his time as head basketball coach, winning the 1940 district championship before a first-round loss in the state tournament (16 teams at the time).

As head football coach at Defiance from 1936-40, Smith had a career record of 28-19-2 with one NWOAL title and one co-championship.

He then became head football coach at Van Wert in 1941, going 7-0-2 and winning the Western Buckeye League championship in his first year at the helm. Van Wert also won the WBL the following two seasons. In 19 years in charge of the Van Wert football program, Smith had a 130-30-10 record including a 47 game winning streak from 1953-58, before a 20-20 tie with unbeaten St. Marys ended the streak. In that era, the mark was surpassed only by Massillon's 52-game winning streak.

Gil won 11 outright WBL football championships at Van Wert and shared another.

In 1972, Gil was inducted into the Ohio High School Coach's Association Hall of Fame and he is also member of the Defiance College Hall of Fame and the Prep Division Hall of Fame at Rutgers University. GIl, who married Virginia Immel of Defiance on Aug. 4, 1941, retired as Van Wert football coach after the 1959 season. Smith passed away at the age of 76 on Jan. 1, 1980. His wife Virginia,.a teacher at Defiance City School's Fourth Ward for four years prior to marriage, passed away on Sept. 10, 2005 and they are buried in Riverside Cemetery in Defiance.