TROY SMITH
Extra ordinary
With several influential experiences behind him, this product of East Cleveland has risen to the challenge of playing QB at Ohio State
Sunday, July 25, 2004
Ken Gordon
THE COLUMBUS DISPATCH
CHRIS RUSSELL | DISPATCH
Troy Smith had an offer to play at West Virginia but picked the Buckeyes. "Ohio State was a perfect fit for me," he said.
DORAL CHENOWETH III | DISPATCH
Troy Smith could have taken an easier road in college, but instead he welcomed the opportunity to prove himself with the Buckeyes.
he streets of East Cleveland shaped Troy Smith. They stamped toughness and resilience into him. Those traits have helped him overcome adversity and led him somewhere most people didn’t think possible a few years ago: Smith has a legitimate chance to be Ohio State’s starting quarterback this fall.
But, ironically, Smith didn’t fully grasp the lessons of the street until he left them.
Spending several years out of his neighborhood and his element led Smith to his lowest point — an ugly incident during a basketball game — and showed the youngster that he was not meant to flee his neighborhood, but embrace it.
Only after returning home did he begin to realize that for him, the tougher path was the one he must travel.
‘‘God chooses different roads for you — you’re put in different situations for a reason," Smith said. ‘‘That’s what separates the men from the mice."
Smith spoke for about 30 minutes after a recent summer morning workout, relaxing in a chair in the Woody Hayes Athletic Center players’ lounge. Smith is bright, engaging and surprisingly contemplative for someone who turned 20 on Tuesday.
He talks of his upbringing not with bitterness, but matter-offactly. Tracy Smith was a single mother (Troy’s father has never been part of his life), and she worked hard to give direction to Troy and older sister Britany, now 24.
‘‘I worked a lot with them at home," Tracy said. ‘‘I started early with them on the colors and the ABCs, like age 1 or 2."
Still, life beyond their door was not pretty. Troy Smith said he grew up witnessing fights, drug sales and ‘‘cops beating people up."
There was a code to follow, as well.
‘‘Being an African-American child growing up in the ghetto, it’s not easy," Smith said. ‘‘It’s not a cakewalk, because every day your character and your strength, all of that is going to be tested (by) your peers. You either show up or you stay in the house."
Fortunately for him, he found his life’s passion early. By 7, he was bugging his mother to let him watch practices of the local Cleveland Municipal League football team, the Glenville A’s.
At 9, he joined the club. Coaches Irvin White and Clay Thompson became Smith’s first male role models, demanding their players pull a B average in school or not play.
‘‘They always stressed being extra ordinary," Smith said, ‘‘and I say it as two words because they really were extra ordinary."
As high school approached, Smith was being wooed by parochial schools. His public school, Glenville, had an upand-coming football team, but Smith and his mother decided on Lakewood St. Edward.
Smith said he was seduced by St. Edward’s reputation and schedule, playing many of the powerhouse Cleveland schools.
And Tracy said, ‘‘I thought academicwise (St. Edward) would be a better surrounding."
Racial tension
Even though St. Edward is only about 10 miles west of Glenville, the schools are worlds apart culturally. Smith said he constantly faced racism.
‘‘There were a number of times where I would come back to my locker and there would be (a sign on my locker), ‘Go back to Africa’ — all types of crazy stuff," he said. ‘‘It was bad. I was filled with so much anger."
Smith did not tell his mother about these incidents, though.
‘‘I used to come home and tell my mom, ‘I do not want to be there,’ " Smith said. ‘‘She was like, ‘When you start something, finish it out.’ I wouldn’t tell her about the (racial) things that went on because she would’ve protested — came up there, did something."
Nor did he ever complain to a St. Edward coach or official.
‘‘I didn’t think they cared," Smith said.
Eric Flannery, Smith’s basketball coach at St. Edward, said that in general he did not think St. Edward had a race-relations problem.
‘‘The only thing I can say is that our school is not very diverse," Flannery said. ‘‘The student population is about 4 or 5 percent minority. So there’s no question (an African-American) is not the norm, and I’d be blind to say nothing like (Smith described) has ever happened.
‘‘But we’ve had a very successful rate of minorities come through school who have done very well without much complaint."
Smith starred on the football and basketball teams, but by the winter of his junior year his anger boiled over.
In a Dec. 16, 2000, basketball game against Toledo St. John’s, Smith said he endured constant taunting from St. John’s guard John Floyd. Finally, Smith leveled Floyd with a flagrant elbow to the head. Floyd left the game with a concussion.
Although the officials missed it and Smith finished the game, a later video review revealed the act. St. Edward principal Eugene Boyer kicked Smith off the team for the rest of the season.
Smith didn’t disagree with the punishment and was resentful that the story appeared in the newspaper on Dec. 24.
‘‘I’m getting ready for Christmas and that story broke," he said. ‘‘That hurt my family big time. My mother was crying."
Smith never returned to St. Edward. He enrolled at Glenville, where the student population is 99 percent black.
He had to apply to the Ohio High School Athletic Association in order to be reinstated for spring sports. Commissioner Clair Muscaro asked Smith to write a letter of apology to Floyd. Copies were sent to St. Edward and the OHSAA.
Smith and his mother recall him spending several hours composing the letter, which read:
‘‘I would like to apologize sincerely to you, your parents and everyone at Toledo St. John’s. It is a moment I have thought about over and over again. I regret my actions and your injury and am truly sorry you had to miss a game. I sincerely regret it. I understand now the magnitude and seriousness of the infraction and regret it not only athletically, but spiritually and from a moralistic standpoint, as well. I pray you can accept this in the manner it is given, and I wish you continued success in basketball and your future career. Sincerely, Troy Smith."
He was reinstated.
Flannery marveled at the letter.
‘‘That was very impressive, and speaks to what kind of kid he is," he said.
Looking back, Smith views the experience as happening for a reason. That reason might well have been Ted Ginn, Smith’s football coach at Glenville.
In a short time,
Ginn became a father figure to Smith, to the point that Smith now says, ‘‘I don’t make a move without consulting him. If it wasn’t for him, I wouldn’t have had anything now."
Ginn said that when Smith arrived from St. Edward, ‘‘He was just like a lemon — sour. We had to take that bitterness out of him before we could really see the real Troy Smith."
Perfect fit
Smith and his pals hit the football camps in the summer of 2001, and he performed well enough to be invited to the Elite 11 camp in California for top quarterbacks.
By February 2002, he was weighing college offers. Mid-American Conference schools and West Virginia promised him immediate shots at starting quarterback jobs. Ohio State was pursuing him ‘‘as an athlete," and also was wooing All-American Justin Zwick in the same class.
Smith, though, chose the Buckeyes. He did it to challenge himself.
‘‘There were situations where I could have gone in and been ‘The Man’ " Smith said. ‘‘But that’s not what I needed, that type of pressure on me. I needed to be where I can come and be comfortable within myself, where my coaches (and) my family can come (watch me play) because I need that backbone, I need that support.
‘‘Ohio State was a perfect fit for me."
Passing game coordinator and quarterbacks coach Joe Daniels said he thought the challenge of proving himself at OSU ‘‘actually intrigued Troy.
‘‘I think that Troy wants to play at the highest level he could play and challenge himself the most, and I believe that’s why he came here. He’s not going to choose the easy road."
Smith said he already is proud of himself for getting to where he is now: A close second to Zwick in the quarterback competition, probably a lot closer than most people predicted.
He has a burning desire to start but said he won’t pout if he’s No. 2.
‘‘(Backup quarterback) Scott (McMullen) came in and was very, very, very positive for the team last year," Smith said. ‘‘If we didn’t have Scott in a couple situations, we wouldn’t have been able to win a couple games we won. Regardless of if I start or Justin starts, we need a good, solid guy to back one another up.
‘‘That’s a team, because football is not going to be life-lasting. And how you tackle situations in football is the same way that you tackle situations in life. Because if I’m not the No. 1 guy in a business corporation, I’m still going to fight and pull for the corporation that I work for."
Smith and his mother look back and realize their error in deciding to have him flee East Cleveland.
‘‘His culture as a black young man, he needed to enhance that more," Tracy said. ‘‘You can’t do that by leaving the ’hood."
A communications major who made the dean’s list winter quarter, Smith is active in mentoring Glenville youths when he returns home.
He is passionate that his children one day will attend his alma mater, because now he appreciates the fire that forged him.
‘‘I don’t want my kids to have to go through a cakewalk," he said, eyes gleaming with conviction. ‘‘If they’re not faced with adversity, (then) when adversity comes, you don’t know how to deal with it. My kids are going to Glenville. That’s what made me who I am."
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