The last game former Houston Rockets coach Larry Smith coached in was in August on the island of Macao against the Chinese national team. Smith was in charge of the NBA Development League’s Ambassadors in the six-nation Stankovic Cup.

His next game will be with the St. Aloysius Flashes.

On Thursday, St. Al athletic director Jim Taylor said Smith had accepted the contract offer and will become the Flashes new boys coach. Carla Koestler was hired as the girls coach. The hires were made just days before practice starts on Monday. Both coaches were hired as para-professionals, coaches that are not on staff at the school.

Smith brings in a lofty NBA resume to the Vicksburg Catholic school.

He was one of the NBA’s most fearless rebounders during a 13-year playing career that began in 1980 when he entered the league after earning Southwestern Athletic Conference Player of the Year honors at Alcorn State. The 6-foot, 8-inch center/forward averaged 9.2 rebounds in 883 NBA games and earned the nickname “Mr. Mean” while playing nine seasons with the Golden State Warriors (1980-89), three with the Rockets (1989-1992) and his last season with the San Antonio Spurs (1992-93).

Smith’s 3,401 career offensive rebounds ranks sixth all-time in league history and for 10 years was ranked in the top 10 in all rebounding among the league’s greats playing at the time, including the likes of Moses Malone, Hakeem Olajuwon and Charles Barkley.

Repeated attempts to reach Smith were unsuccessful.

After his playing days, Smith joined Rudy Tomjanovich’s staff with the Rockets in 1994. Smith helped turn Olajuwon into a Hall of Famer as Houston won back-to-back NBA Championships in 1994 and 1995, his first two years as an assistant.

He spent eight more years on Tomjanovich’s staff, the last four as his lead assistant coach. In the 2003 season, Tomjanovich had a battle with bladder cancer and Smith took over as acting head coach for the last six weeks of the season.

Tomjanovich stepped down after the 2003 season and was replaced by Jeff Van Gundy, who brought in a new staff. Smith landed a job with the Atlanta Hawks for the 2004 season but left for the Los Angeles Lakers when Tomjanovich was hired to replace Phil Jackson as Lakers coach in 2005. When Tomjanovich stepped away, so did Smith. He he then coached with Michael Cooper with Albuquerque, helping that team to the D-League title in 2006.

Smith got his first head coaching job in the D-League for the 2006-07 season with the Anaheim Arsenal but left after going 10-15. Two months later in March, after the death of former Boston Celtic’s great Dennis Johnson in February, Smith replaced Johnson, who had been the head coach of the Austin Toros.

Throughout his coaching career, Smith has maintained a residency in South Vicksburg, spending most of his summers here. His wife, Belinda, is from Port Gibson and he is a native of Rolling Fork and played high school basketball at Hollandale-Simmons. After his return from the Stankovic Cup with the Ambassadors in Macao, Smith ran a basketball camp at Cooper-Bailey’s Loving Care Camp at the Raworth YMCA on Halls Ferry Road.

Smith’s hiring is the second straight year the Flashes have had to hire para-professionals. Drew McBrayer left two seasons ago to coach at New Hope, and last year’s coaches — Kyt Bonner and Penn Majors — are both in private business.

The Mississippi High School Activities Association generally frowns on hiring para-professionals as head coaches in football, basketball and baseball, but Taylor said St. Al had gotten permission to do it for a second straight year.

More than a half-dozen people interviewed for the basketball jobs over the last six months, but some turned down job offers and school officials decided others weren’t right for the job.

“It’s been a long process trying to hire someone, but we have people that are going to take on the task and do a good job for us,” Taylor said.

Taylor also said Thursday that Will Vollor will take over as St. Al’s girls soccer coach. In May, the school parted ways with Karen Carroll after four seasons and hired former Warren Central coach Kristin Gough, bt she resigned less than a month ago.

Vollor had been hired as an assistant soccer coach, and was simply promoted, Taylor said.

“We already had Will in place as an assistant before we lost Ms. Gough. So we just moved him right into it,” Taylor said.