Editor's Note:  This is the most recent piece in a series of stories shared by Gorillas to Gorillas as we work through this new "season" in our lives. These certainly are unprecedented times, for young and old alike. Our hope is for Gorilla student-athletes, past and present, coaches and members of Gorilla Nation to read these pieces and awaken their Gorilla memories. There is strength in numbers.
 
 
I decided to become a coach during my years as a junior high school student in Arma, Kansas.  My coach, Estel Gilmore at Arma Elementary School was, I thought, outstanding along with my high school coaches Harry McDonald, Sam Nicoletti, and Lefty Hamm. They were excellent coaches and teachers and left no doubt in my mind that was what I aspired to be.

Then I had the good fortune to play for Carnie Smith and Joe Murphy at Kansas State Teachers College. Carnie was so far ahead of his time in teaching and coaching what future football fundamentals would become.

The letter, below, from Carnie to me convinced me even further that coaching was what I aspired to do and how best to know the game was to play it.

John Levra

 
10 May 1955
 
Mr. John Louis Levra
Arma, Kansas

Dear John Louis:
 
I wanted to take an early opportunity to let you know how pleased I was to see you at our intra-squad game last Wednesday night. I trust that on your next visit that I will not be so busy, thus affording more time for an old fashioned visit.
 
I am still convinced that you are not too small to play college football. And hope that you never feel that you are too small. The size of the heart is the size that I look for in a college football player, and I sincerely believe that your desire will play an important part in your progress in college football.
 
My admonition to you as a personal friend is this:  never become discouraged if things don't look up for you the first year or so. I don't mean that they won't, but at the same time you must stick it out just as you did in high school. If you want to become a football coach someday, and you have said that you do, the best place to learn the game is to play it, absorb all you can in technique and method, always with the thought in mid that someday you too will be coaching those same things. You have set your goal to this degree; do not let anything stand in the way of reaching that goal.
 
With kindest personal regards, as always, I am
 
Sincerely yours,
 
Carnie H. Smith
Football Coach


John Levra was a three-year letterman in football at Pittsburg State University and a member of the school's 1957 NAIA National Champion football squad. The Arma, Kan., native established himself as an "ambassador of good will" for his alma mater in the National Football League following his graduation. Levra's coaching career spanned more than four decades and included collegiate head coaching roles at New Mexico Highlands (1967-70) and Stephen F. Austin (1971-74) as well as assistant coaching roles in the NFL in New Orleans (1981-85), Chicago (1986-92), Denver (1993-94), Minnesota (1995-97) and Buffalo (1998-2002). He was inducted into the PSU Athletics Hall of Fame for Meritorious Achievement with the Class of 2000. John and his wife, Rosie, reside in Raymore, Mo.