Craig Smith is best known for his “Sideline Smitty” column on high school sports, which ran in The Seattle Times. He spent 32 years at the newspaper before retiring in 2008, following earlier journalism work at the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, Fairbanks Daily News-Miner, Charleston Gazette (West Virginia), and the Associated Press.

A graduate of Bothell High School, Smith played both football and tennis and jokingly claims to be the only player in school history to mishandle the center snap from both the quarterback and center positions. He went on to study journalism at the University of Washington, where he served as editor-in-chief of The UW Daily.

Throughout his career at The Times, Smith covered everything from hydroplanes to the Seattle Seahawks but found the most joy in writing about high school sports. He valued the lessons students could learn through interscholastic athletics and often cited the words of coach Dick Bennett, who said, “High school coaches are the most important because they can do the most good.”

Smith and his wife, Julie, have lived in Kirkland for decades and raised two sons.