Honorees

Jonathan Smith

Michigan State’s Men’s Football 2023-Present

A significant new presence on the state’s sports scene will headline the 36th Inning – the 36th annual Fr. Vincent Welch Memorial Dinner, Feb. 8, at the Polish American Cultural Center in Troy. Jonathan Smith, who in November became Michigan State’s new head football coach, will make one of his earliest public appearances at a fan event when he highlights the annual dinner that has been steadily vital to Loyola High School, which has had a generational imprint on under-served Detroit boys.

Smith, 44, was a dramatic choice to lead the Spartans after he had been the architect of a program turnaround at his alma mater, Oregon State. In the final three seasons of a six-year rebuild, Smith’s teams finished 25-13, played in three bowl games, and were ranked as high as No. 17, nationally. He was a prime target for Alan Haller, MSU’s athletic director, who saw in Smith a man, and coach, who could reassemble a MSU football team that in 2023 had run aground.

Smith’s decision was made possible by the disintegration of the Pac-12 Conference, which had left the Beavers on a lesser elevation and allowed Smith to consider a move from Corvallis, Ore., the campus and community with which he had enjoyed a deep affection dating to his playing days, as a quarterback, at OSU. Smith is a native of Pasadena, Calif., and has been a West-based coach since he began his career two decades ago at OSU. He has also coached at Idaho, Montana, Washington, and Boise State, which offered Smith in 2012 a first taste of Spartan Stadium when Boise State played Michigan State in East Lansing.

“I think Michigan State is a place where you can build a program of substance, on and off the field,” Smith said at his Nov. 30 introductory media conference. “These decisions are not easy,” he added, explaining the emotional tug of leaving his alma mater for a new challenge in East Lansing. “But I want to chase championships at the highest level, and at the same time, create an atmosphere for my family that’s special. That’s why I go back to this being a fit (Michigan State).”

Smith’s appearance at The Fr. Vincent Welch Memorial Dinner maintains a tradition, nearly four decades running, of celebrating and honoring the region’s most indelible sports people and celebrities. The Dinner was founded by Fr. Donald Worthy, who with his great friend, Fr. Welch, in 1968 began an annual pilgrimage to the World Series – a run that now for Fr. Worthy has reached 50 years and 262 World Series games.

The Dinner is overseen by Michael McNamara, whose family, after Fr. Welch’s death in 1986, began joining Fr. Worthy on annual World Series forays that for McNamara now totals 175 games. Proceeds, which are made possible by a generous audience that often exceeds 400 guests, are boosted by a Silent Auction that each year features an extraordinary array of sports memorabilia. More than $3 million has been donated to Loyola High since it became the Dinner’s chief beneficiary.

Loyola High was founded in 1993 as a Jesuit-led secondary school renowned for instructing and enriching young men with an education and ethic that can transform lives as well as the greater community. In this spirit of appreciating the blessings sports uniquely offer as part of life’s grander mosaic, we are happy and grateful that Jonathan Smith will be featured at The 36th Inning of The Fr. Vincent Welch Memorial Dinner.