Fred Smith, the founder and CEO of FedEx and father of Pittsburgh Steelers offensive coordinator Arthur Smith, died at 80 on Saturday night, the company said.
Smith stepped down as CEO of FedEx in June of 2022, was a minoroity owner of the Washington Commanders in the past. That connection with football was part of what prompted his son, Arthur, to get into coaching, where he has become a offensive coordinator and head coach.
A native of Memphis, Tennessee, he served there years in the marine corps and entered the aviation business before founding FedEx, which revolutionized package delivery.
Under Smith’s leadership, FedEx became one of the top global transportation and logistics company that scaled its business to well over 15 million deliveries every day.
Smith graduated from Yale in 1966, He saved FedEx with the last $5,000 in his back account, and eventually turned the business into one of the biggest in the world.
His business model changed how American businesses operated, with a great emphasis on time-sensitivie deliveries after FedEx expanded.
Arthur started as a defensive quality control assistant in Washington when his dad was a minoririty owner. In the past, Arthur talked about his start in the NFL, and how his dad helped jumpstart his career.
“We all have connections that help you, but with my dad’s involvement up there, and playing in FedEx Field, I just felt like when you’re the quality control, it’s fine,” Arthur Smith said to ESPN in 2021 . “You’re at the entry level, and they’re hard jobs to get and I was lucky to be in that, but to legitimately move up I knew I had to get away.”
It would take Arthur until 2019, over 12 seasons into his coaching career, until he landed a coordinator job. From there, Arthur would become the head coach of the Atlanta Falcons in 2021.