Larry Smith

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

For other persons named Larry Smith, see Larry Smith (disambiguation).

Larry W. Smith (born 1951 in Hudson, Quebec) is a Canadian athlete and businessperson. He is currently the president of the Montreal Alouettes.

He graduated from Bishop's University with a degree in economics before going on to be a professional player in the Canadian Football League. Smith earned a Bachelor of Civil Law from McGill University in 1976, having undertaken his studies for law while playing pro football.

Smith later became the league's commissioner and oversaw the league's ill-fated attempt to expand to the United States. Smith then oversaw the re-location of the Baltimore Stallions to Montreal, where they became the Montreal Alouettes for the CFL's 1996 season. After resigning as commissioner, Smith served as president of the Alouettes from 1997 to 2001 and has again served in that role since March 2004. He became president and publisher of the Montreal Gazette newspaper from 2002 to 2004.

He considered running for leader of the then new Conservative Party of Canada in 2004 and was widely reported by Canadian press at the time to be on the verge of entering the race before finally announcing he would not be a candidate. It was rumoured he took a pass on the race because Belinda Stronach had better financing and had attracted most of the support of Quebec Red Tories close to former prime minister Brian Mulroney.

Smith is often compared to Mulroney. Prior to Mulroney's election as leader in 1983, both had similar resumes. Smith, like Mulroney, is a bilingual anglophone Quebecer with lots of business experience but little political experience. Some hope that, after Stephen Harper's term as leader is complete, that Smith can resurrect the party's winning coalition of Quebecers and Western Canadians that was so successful in the 1958, 1984 and 1988 elections.

[edit] References

This article or section does not cite its references or sources.
Please help improve this article by introducing appropriate citations. (help, get involved!) This article has been tagged since July 2006.