Matthew Glenn Smith was a guard on the Vols basketball team, a second lieutenant, and editor-in-chief of the Orange and White newspaper when he graduated from UT in 1909. He taught English at Knoxville High School for two years before he was named a Rhodes Scholar in 1911. He graduated from the University of Oxford in 1914 with a bachelor’s degree in jurisprudence. After serving in World War I, Smith returned to his home in Fort Worth, Texas, where he practiced law and served in federal bankruptcy court.