Rex Smith taught math and coached tennis at Berlin High for 38 years. He directed state tournaments for the Connecticut Interscholastic Athletic Conference for over 25 years.

He was a graduate of Cheshire Academy and Central Connecticut State University. He served in the Navy for four years in Vietnam. He died November 2018, at age 71 of a stroke. Scott Trevethan had Smith for math and tennis. Tennis was the hard part. When he was a sophomore Smith kicked him off the team but was reinstated by the superintendent who was a tennis fan. Trevethan gave a humorous eulogy at Smith’s funeral.

Eileen Thurston was head of the math department. Her five kids called Smith, “Uncle Rex.” Two played tennis. “He always had an open door for kids” she said. “They could call him anytime. Talk about anything that was happening in their lives.”

Players used a variety of words and phrases to describe their coach; quirky, honest to a fault, mischievous, stubborn, he went to the beat of his own drum, every minute a story. Back when The Hartford Courant sent out information sheets to coaches for information about their teams for an upcoming season, Smith once wrote of his team, which had almost everybody returning, “there are no returning players who take the game seriously…” When asked for his coaching record, he said, “Not important.”

Sure, Smith taught the technical aspects of the game, but he found special gratification teaching other aspects like emotions and stress. Scott’s daughter, Stephanie who was captain of the girl’s tennis team, told The Courant, “in his way he had a gift in bringing out potential in people that they didn’t necessarily see in themselves.”

Smith lived long enough to coach on the new tennis courts for one season, but he didn’t like Berlin’s red and blue school colors on the court. He wanted traditional green.  Smith soon had his first state champion when Scott’s son Jon won the Class M title not long before Smith died. Six months after Smith died, Jon lost his first match in two years.

“I know coach Smith would have helped me mentally,” Jon said after the loss.  “He was very good with those matches. It wasn’t really tennis advice I needed. I just needed him to talk.”