Gene Smith Is Hoping Defense Will Make Him a Shoo-In for Olympics

The question seemed simple enough. In one of his initial meetings with a group of Olympic men’s basketball hopefuls, John Thompson asked if anyone had a problem with the basketball shoes, which just happened to be made by Converse.

Thompson probably was talking about things like arch support and comfort, but Gene Smith spoke up and said, “Mr. Thompson, yes, I have a problem. I’m employed by Nike and I’d really rather not walk around in my competitor’s shoes.”

Smith, retelling the story a few hours later, laughed and said, “Now, I can’t imagine what in the world made me raise my hand, as if I hadn’t been around this man before.”

Thompson, the U.S. Olympic basketball coach, smiled and told Smith and everyone else to wear the Converse shoes. And Smith went back to the future--1980-84--when, in a previous sporting life, he was playing for Thompson and the Georgetown Hoyas. “I had a flashback to old times under Mr. Thompson,” Smith said. “When democracy breaks down, dictatorship takes over. Some things in life never change.”

Some things don’t change; Thompson remains a demanding coach, Gene Smith remains a relentless defensive basketball player.

Smith is 25 now, a valued employee for Nike, the athletic company, in Portland, Ore. But he’s here, competing for a spot on the Olympic team at Thompson’s request because he can stop virtually anybody wearing Nike, Converse, Reeboks, Pumas or jet-propelled Ballys if it came to that.

In his years as a Hoya, Gene Smith was to defense what Michael Jordan is to hang time. And Smith is back at McDonough Arena this week, trying not only to recapture enough of that secret formula to make the team, but also to infect the other Olympic hopefuls.

There are many outside the old campus gym wondering why Smith was invited at all, and why he has lasted this long. Anyone who has ever seen him play knows Smith is no offensive threat.

“You know what my highest scoring average was? It was 4.7 points per game, and I’m proud of it,” Smith said. “I only know that because Mr. Thompson told me the other day. My career high? It was 15 points, on nine for 10 at the free-throw line. How do you like that? It was against Villanova.”

But because Thompson is a defense-first coach, and because teams such as Brazil and Yugoslavia can strike so consistently from the wing, there is a need for Smith’s special skills. To accuse Thompson of cronyism in this case is to say that the best defensive guard on perhaps the best defensive team of all time (the 1983-84 Hoyas) doesn’t deserve an invitation.

Once, after watching Smith almost run his guards out of Madison Square Garden, St. John’s Coach Lou Carnesecca said, “If you’re not playing defense like Gene Smith, then whatever you’re doing isn’t playing defense.”

That’s why Smith is back, and that’s why if he makes the final 12-man team “it would be a storybook story,” Thompson said.

Instead of showing videotapes of “Gene Smith’s Greatest Hits” Thompson telephoned Smith and asked him to come on down, live and in color. “I can honestly say that if it wasn’t John Thompson who called, I would have deliberated a lot longer about trying this,” Smith said. “As it was, I think I took 10 seconds before saying ‘Yes.’ At first, I thought he might be calling me about coaching.”

Either way, Smith would have to take a leave of absence from his job. When Thompson called, Smith was running one of Nike’s stores in Portland, working about 10 hours a day.

He had been playing recreationally about three times a week after a couple of failed tryouts with NBA teams. “I jogged occasionally,” he said, “but I can honestly say it was to go girl-watching more than it was to stay in any sort of playing shape.”

Rex Chapman, the megatalent from Kentucky, had seen Smith only on television. Few other invitees knew Smith when the trials began at Colorado Springs in May, but they seemed to know him when the week was done.

“On the ball, he was better than anybody there, defensively,” Chapman said over the weekend. “He’s got a unique style of defense. He gives every drop he has on defense and that’s something that not a lot of players do.”

After he fired a classic Gene Smith brick during the trials, Thompson reminded his former star, “You don’t have to score to play for me.”

Should Smith make the next cut, and ultimately the 12-man team, the questions will start again. “Hey, where’s Gary Grant? Where’s David Rivers? Rod Strickland? Sherman Douglas?”

“All his career,” Thompson said, “people have been questioning his presence in a basketball group and not appreciating his talent. Nobody at the trials asked me that, though. The only thing they said was, ‘Take him off me.’

“I asked Gene to come to this thing and see what he could do. I got criticism for having Gene when he was playing at Georgetown. ‘Gene shouldn’t be starting, Gene shouldn’t be playing as many minutes as he is.’ He’s the kind of player who’s had to prove himself at every level because he doesn’t do the kinds of things people appreciate.

“The other thing I’ve liked is that Gene is a very realistic person. I knew that when I watched him practice at McKinley (where Smith attended high school). He didn’t have any idea that I was there to watch him. Morgan State was the only other school to offer him a scholarship and when I offered it, I said to him, ‘You’ll never start; your role is to come off the bench.’ He thought about it before saying yes.

“This situation (trying out for the Olympic team) was similar in a way. He’s still not certain of what will happen, but he understands he’s not guaranteed anything, and he can deal with the reality of that.”

First, however, Smith had to deal with the real question of whether he could play the way he used to. “I’m about seven pounds lighter now than I was my senior year,” he said. “But I think I’m a little quicker, even though I’m not running as well. I was just able to hang in there at Colorado.

“I worked out three times a day, and only once on the basketball court. My bosses were kind enough to let me cut down to two hours a day of work, and I’d do aerobics, then aeroflex. I know, it sounds corny but my game is based on stamina. Guts and desire. My whole philosophy is that I may not have the talent the offensive player has, but I’m churning. I’m going to get to the spot on the floor you want before you get there.

“I understood why some guys may say, ‘Hey, who’s this old man? Why is he out there instead of me?’ But it’s something you have to rise above. It’s okay for them to think that because it’s a very human reaction. If I go out there and don’t produce, then those feelings have validity. But so far, I’ve done what they’ve asked of me.”

So now, here is Smith back in the gym where he created and honed his craft. He says running sprints now feels different because he’s a man, and he appreciates why a coach wants players to run. He says he knows his future is in corporate America, not basketball, but how can you say no when someone asks if you’d like to star in your own dream?