Douglas Smart, husband of Emily Smart and loving father of Lukas and Lindsay Smart, died on July 17th 2021. He was born in Phoenix City Alabama in 1946 and raised in Ohio by his grandmother along with his 13 siblings. A fan of good eating, he would fondly recall his grandmother’s vanilla wafers banana cream pudding and feign ignorance when accused of eating grits with grape jelly. 

He loved football, a sport that took him to Muskingum college where he was inducted into the hall of fame. After Muskingum he went on to play professional football in Canada for the Saskatchewan Roughriders. When his athletic career ended, he went on to spend time in the US Airforce (honorary discharge) and then into insurance; which took him to Detroit where he met his wife, then Emily Updegraff from Arizona. The married on July 6th in 1970 and remained lovingly together for over 50 years. A lover of art and economics and helping kids, Doug went on to get his teaching credentials which would be his life long career. 

He and his wife moved to Coronado California where they had, son, Lukas and, daughter, Lindsay who were very fortunate to have as devoted and caring parents. He was so very very proud of our children and their children (Maxwell, Amelie, Jakob, and Mila). Emily (who worked in healthcare) describes Douglas as “the most engaged father a child and teenager could have!”  He chauffeured daughter Lindsay from San Diego to Orange County for competitive soccer practices (after school twice a week) for years and volunteered to donate hundreds of hours to the local little league and the high school football program when son Luke played baseball and varsity football. Once the kids flew the nest and he had retired in 2006 he traveled frequently with wife Emily when she traveled to work in fun places like Hawaii, wine country- California, Camano Island in upstate Washington, and Nevada (he loved the quarter slot games in Vegas). 

Doug was an accomplished computer geek!  He enjoyed photography and road biking.  There was no soccer match anywhere in the world that he did not know about.  He loved music of all kinds, anything to do with Star Wars, science fiction reading (no matter how terrible), old westerns, and grilling.  He could really dance!!  The grandkids can attest to the fact that he could break out in a dance anywhere—even elevators! No doubt at all: Doug left giant footprints in the sands of life. He taught his kids the value of integrity, hard work, and not taking yourself all that seriously. He knew that sometimes it’s cheaper to “buy once, cry once”, how to work a deal, and had an uncanny ability to find high quality and rare whiskeys at store price. He was, and is still, loved by his whole family and will be missed tremendously.