The tournament will present a tribute to Smith at 3 p.m. on Saturday, August 9 with a flyover of a FedEx Boeing 777 jet, with the initials FWS painted on the bottom of the plane.<\/p>\n
The U.S. Military will present a flyover honoring Smith at a future date when Smith\u2019s remains are laid to rest at Arlington National Cemetery.<\/a><\/p>\n \u201cThe tournament will stop for one minute and we\u2019ll have a moment of silence for Fred, and about that time we intend to have a flyover with FedEx aircraft,\u201d Sammons said. <\/p>\n The tournament has commissioned a memorial pin in the shape of a tail wing in FedEx purple. <\/p>\n \u201cThe tail is what provides stability to a flying aircraft,\u201d Sammons explained. <\/p>\n The initials FWS for Frederick Wallace Smith will appear on the pins to be worn by all the PGA Tour pros who qualify for the first stop of the FedEx Cup Playoffs, their caddies, 1,700 tournament volunteers and the tournament staff. <\/p>\n Smith served as a platoon leader on his first tour of duty in Vietnam in 1966, straight out of Yale University and then Company Commander (K Company 3rd Battalion 5th Marine Regiment K\/3\/5). <\/p>\n Smith was promoted to the rank of Captain in Vietnam and had such affection for what he learned in the Marines, he often signed internal communications to his FedEx top brass as \u201cCaptain Smith.\u201d <\/p>\n In his two tours of duty, Smith received the Silver Star, the Bronze Star and two Purple Hearts. <\/p>\n Read Smith\u2019s Silver Star Citation Here: <\/p>\n The President of the United States of America takes pleasure in presenting the Silver Star to First Lieutenant Frederick Wallace Smith, United States Marine Corps, for conspicuous gallantry and intrepidity in action while serving as Commanding Officer of Company K,\u00a03rd Battalion, 5th Marines<\/a>,\u00a01st Marine Division<\/a>\u00a0in connection with operations against the enemy in the\u00a0Republic of Vietnam<\/a>. On the morning of 27 May 1968, while conducting a search and destroy operation,\u00a0Company K became heavily engaged<\/a>\u00a0with a\u00a0North Vietnamese Army<\/a>\u00a0battalion occupying well-entrenched emplacements on\u00a0G\u00f2 N\u1ed5i Island<\/a>\u00a0in\u00a0Quang Nam Province<\/a>. As Lieutenant Smith led his men in an aggressive assault upon the enemy positions, the North Vietnamese force launched a determined counterattack, supported by mortars, on the Marines\u2019 left flank. Unhesitatingly rushing through the intense hostile fire to the position of heaviest contact, Lieutenant Smith fearlessly removed several casualties from the hazardous area and, shouting words of encouragement to his men, directed their fire upon the advancing enemy soldiers, successfully repulsing the hostile attack. Moving boldly across the fire-swept terrain to an elevated area, he calmly disregarded repeated North Vietnamese attempts to direct upon him as he skillfully adjusted artillery fire and air strikes upon the hostile positions to within fifty meters of his own location and continued to direct the movement of his unit. Accurately assessing the confusion that supporting arms was causing among the enemy soldiers, he raced across the fire-swept terrain to the right flank of his company and led an enveloping attack on the hostile unit\u2019s weakest point, routing the North Vietnamese unit and inflicting numerous casualties. His aggressive tactics and calm presence of min [sic] under fire inspired all who observed him and were instrumental in his unit, accounting for the capture of two hostile soldiers as well as numerous documents and valuable items of equipment. By his courage, aggressive leadership and unfaltering devotion to duty at great personal risk, Lieutenant Smith upheld the highest traditions of the Marine Corps and of the United States Naval Service.”[21]<\/a><\/p>\n Since Smith\u2019s passing, Sammons says he\u2019s been inundated with stories of Smith\u2019s service in Vietnam by Marines who witnessed his courage and brilliance. At one point, Sammons says the FedEx Founder\u2019s brothers in arms told him that Smith was placed in charge of a Marine supply hut, responsible for distributing ammunition, food and fuel to each company on schedule. <\/p>\n \u201cHe said the thing ran like a top and nobody had ever run it like that before,\u201d Sammons said. \u201cIt was only natural that Smith took his instincts for organization and deployment and invent the overnight delivery phenomenon that is FedEx.\u201d<\/p>\n Smith often credited the U.S. Marine Corps Leadership Manual as the source of his wisdom for FedEx managers.<\/p>\n Smith and Sammons were together on what turned out to be the last day of Fred Smith\u2019s life, June 21 at Baptist Memorial Hospital East. They were there together to check on the welfare of Smith\u2019s brother Gary who is Sammons\u2019 father-in-law. <\/p>\n While in the Emergency Department waiting area, Sammons says Smith saw a FedEx courier in uniform walk in and reported to the nurse at the front desk that he was having chest pains. <\/p>\n \u201cFred said, excuse me,\u201d Sammons said, \u201che got up and walked over and put his arm around the man. Later he told me that he\u2019d welcomed him to the fraternity,\u201d Sammons said. <\/p>\n Smith had undergone open heart surgery earlier in life and Sammons said Smith told him that he assured the FedEx courier that that company would take care of his delivery van filled with packages. <\/p>\n This episode reminds anyone paying careful attention that Fred Smith kept the instincts and leadership practices he embraced in the U.S. Marine Corps to the very end of his life. Sammons says Smith\u2019s brother was admitted to Baptist East that day and the FedEx Founder and Sammons parted ways about 1 o\u2019clock. <\/p>\n Smith was rushed back to the hospital later that evening and died shortly before 6 o\u2019clock in Room 43 of the Baptist ER, the same room where his brother Gary had been treated earlier in the day. <\/p>\n But on the morning of the last day of his life in the ER waiting area, Sammons said he and Smith engaged in hours of conversation and that Smith was the one who brought up the FedEx St. Jude Championship that Sammons has now led as General Chairman for fifteen years. <\/p>\n Here\u2019s how Sammons remembers Smith saying it: <\/p>\n \u201cSo pleased and proud of what you and all your volunteers and everybody has accomplished, taking this tournament to the level it\u2019s at. It\u2019s been great for FedEx; it\u2019s been right for golf. It\u2019s been great for Memphis, but mostly importantly, it\u2019s been great for the kids at St. Jude.\u201d <\/p>\n Sammons treasures that memory and now wants to do something very much in the style of Fred Smith, who made FedEx a global brand. <\/p>\n \u201cLet\u2019s make St. Jude the world\u2019s charity, you know, across the globe,\u201d Sammons said. <\/p>\n The golf tournament Sammons chairs has the perfect launching pad to advance St. Jude\u2019s global reach. <\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s shown in countries across the world,\u201d Sammons said. <\/p>\n In fact, TV coverage originating in Memphis this week will be presented in more than 100 countries with broadcasters delivering play by play coverage and commentary in thirty languages. The FedEx St. Jude Championship\u2019s website says elevated international coverage will be seen in the United Kingdom, Japan, Canada and across Europe.<\/p>\n Without a doubt, the FedEx St. Jude Championship owes its presence in Memphis to the FedEx Founder. <\/p>\n \u201cEvery time I talked to him, no matter how familiar we might be, I always felt like I was talking to Thomas Edison or some great American who altered history,\u201d Sammons said. <\/p>\n Sammons says after he decided against running for a fifth term on the Memphis City Council back in 2007, Fred Smith called him and ask about his plans. Sammons told the FedEx Chairman and CEO that he intended to start playing golf. <\/p>\n \u201cA colossal waste of time, yeah, you can be doing better things than that,\u201d is how Sammons remembers Smith\u2019s reaction. Smith was a tennis aficionado, who played regularly at The Racquet Club when it was in business and had a tennis court built in the backyard of his East Memphis home. <\/p>\n But Smith recognized the value proposition golf had for FedEx and how much the Memphis tournament meant to the city. <\/p>\n So Smith asked Sammons to join the board of Youth Programs, the organization that recruits sponsors and volunteers for the Memphis PGA Tour stop. <\/p>\n \u201cYou could be my eyes and ears on this thing. I\u2019m about to invest a lot of money in golf,\u201d Sammons said Smith told him only later revealing his company\u2019s mega-investment in the FedEx Cup, the PGA Tour\u2019s season long competition that brings its first-round playoffs to Memphis this week. <\/p>\n \u201cI was eminently unqualified to serve on the board; I didn\u2019t play golf and didn\u2019t know a bogie from a birdie,\u201d Sammons said. <\/p>\n Sammons now says he\u2019s a regular golfer with a fifteen handicap and membership at Chickasaw Country Club. <\/p>\n But Sammons became Chairman of Youth Programs in short order and revived the struggling Memphis tournament from the debacle of Stanford Financials\u2019 sponsorship (2007-early 2009). <\/p>\n That company\u2019s chairman, R. Allen Stanford, orchestrated an elaborate Ponzi scheme, defrauding investors–including many in Memphis–of approximately $7 billion<\/a>. <\/p>\n Stanford was convicted of financial crimes in 2012 and sentenced to 110 years in prison. He\u2019s now 75 yeas old and serving his sentence at the U.S. Penitentiary in Sumterville, Florida. <\/p>\n Sammons struggled with others on the Youth Programs board to find sponsorships and pro golfers willing to play in Bluff City. Sammons remembered the late tournament director Phil Cannon screaming in his office one morning.<\/p>\n \u201cI ran over,\u201d Sammons said as Cannon announced, \u201cPhil Mickelson just tweeted he\u2019s coming to the tournament! Phil (Mickelson) came and that seemed like it lit a fuse that created real momentum,\u201d Sammons said. <\/p>\n \u201cFred often said that success breeds momentum and I told Phil (Mickelson), you\u2019re a huge part of our success story,\u201d Sammons said. <\/p>\n FedEx returned ultimately as title sponsor and the tournament has grown in significance, gradually moving from a regular stop on the PGA Tour to the World Golf Championships level and now the first stop in the FedEx Cup Playoffs. <\/p>\n \u201cWe truly have the greatest golfers in the world. They are struggling to get here,\u201d Sammons said, \u201cwhich is the reverse of what it was fifteen years prior.\u201d<\/p>\n Sammons has a truly unique perspective on all of this as General Chairman of the FedEx St. Jude Championship, a close advisor to Smith, but also as a native Memphian who served four terms on city council and a long and ongoing stint on the Memphis Shelby County Airport Authority where FedEx is the prime tenant. <\/p>\n Sammons is also a successful business leader who has made his mark in the hair care products industry. <\/p>\n Before all of that, Sammons family owned hundreds of juke boxes that were placed all over the Southeast and Sammons says, \u201cElvis and his mother, Roy Orbison and Willie Nelson with short hair and a business suit would dine at our home and encourage my father to include their records in his juke boxes,\u201d Sammons said. \u201cThis is how you sold records in the 1950s and \u201860s \u2013 getting your record on as many juke boxes as you could.\u201d <\/p>\n Sammons turns 70 in September and has a ready smile and a story to share about every major Memphis event that\u2019s happened in his lifetime. <\/p>\n A little know fact is that Sammons worked on projects with the late Edward \u201cNed\u201d Cook during the last ten years of his life. Cook was a philanthropist, war hero, business and civic leader in Memphis during his 78 years of life. <\/p>\n \u201cNed was the Fred Smith of his day in Memphis business in the 1950s, \u201860s and \u201870s,\u201d Sammons said. <\/p>\n Sammons said Smith approached Cook in the early 1970s after his return from Vietnam to request a $500,000 venture investment from Cook for the company that became FedEx. <\/p>\n At the time, Smith founded and was operating a far smaller air delivery service in Little Rock. <\/p>\n Sammons says Cook reviewed Smith\u2019s FedEx business plan and said, \u201cSon, you\u2019re not asking for enough money.\u201d <\/p>\n Sammons says Cook, who was then Chairperson of the Airport Authority, promptly leased three U.S. Air Force hangars leftover from World War II to FedEx for a dollar a year indefinitely. <\/p>\n Sammons says Cook told Smith, \u201cWe have bonding authority at the airport, and we\u2019ve never issued a bond. We\u2019ll issue you a bond for $3 million and that\u2019ll help you get started,\u201d said Sammons, who heard this story from both Cook and Smith, two of Memphis\u2019 most respected and successful entrepreneurs. <\/p>\n Sammons says that $3 million bought the desks, papers and pens that started FedEx, now Memphis and Tennessee\u2019s largest private employer. That\u2019s how Memphis became the home of the overnight delivery and logistics leader. <\/p>\n Sammons says Fred Smith\u2019s mother, the late Sally Wallace Hook, recognized her son\u2019s brilliance early in his life. <\/p>\n \u201cOne year at Presbyterian Day School (PDS), Smith won every award the school gave away for his class,\u201d Sammons said of the story that is cherished by Smith\u2019s large family. \u201cAs they were driving away from the school, Fred\u2019s mother said, you know, son, something about you is really special. You may well be one of these people that changes the world Fred looked her right in the eyes and said, \u2018I think you\u2019re right.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n Smith overcame incredible obstacles in his young life. His father died just before his fourth birthday. Then he suffered from a bone disease as a child which required the use of crutches, \u201cfrom like first through fifth grade,\u201d Sammons said. <\/p>\n \u201cHe got to watch other boys participate in athletics that made him that much more interested once he was able to shed the crutches,\u201d Sammons said. <\/p>\n Smith had a deep and abiding love of the game of football and once owned part of the Washington D.C. NFL franchise and invested generously in University of Memphis athletics, especially football. <\/p>\n One of Smith\u2019s sons now coaches in the NFL. The day after the FedEx St. Jude Champion is crowned this year, August 11, a celebration of Fred Smith\u2019s remarkable life will be held at FedExForum. It would have been Smith\u2019s 81st birthday. <\/p>\n \u201cHe probably had more impact on Memphis, Tennessee, than any single person has had on any city in America and American history, \u201cSammons said. <\/p>\n![\"The](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/golf\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/UFOBFKNHXNHUXLDTYXWHPD4FMM.PNG\")
The FWS pin(FedEx St. Jude Championship)<\/p>\n![\"Jack](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/golf\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/QFZVWW5X4RFHZBVIUCS6OM4PDM.jpg\")
Jack Sammons and Fred Smith(Jack Sammons)<\/p>\n![\"The](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/golf\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/QWO2ZHQJHNF6ZKI3DFVA2O3GBQ.png\")
The FedEx St. Jude Classic is back for 2023.(Action News 5)<\/p>\n![\"R.](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/golf\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/2XKDKVYFZBENJLWTYYEYRZE7SE.jpg\")
R. Allen Stanford \/ Courtesy of RNW<\/p>\n![\"Jack](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/golf\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/OLKRD2Z745B7HKZWQP53G6DS5U.png\")
Jack Sammons(Action News 5)<\/p>\n