New Career on the Line : Smith Makes Transition From Basketball to Business World

When former Loyola Marymount basketball standout Keith Smith was projected to be among the top 20 selections for the NBA draft five years ago, he felt his future was financially secure: He thought he would be earning a living playing professionally for many years.

Today he’s competing in another game--the business world--as the vice president of a Beverly Hills-based cellular phone rental company.

But Smith--who also starred in his prep days at West Covina High--is finding that while there are financial rewards in his new life, there is a void without basketball.

He remembers the days he would drive downcourt with the grace of an artist, wait until the last second, and sink an 18-foot jump shot.

That was vintage Keith Smith, an integral part of the fast-breaking, high-scoring Loyola Marymount teams in the mid-1980s, even before the sizzling fast-break offense of former coach Paul Westhead.

Smith first generated such offensive excitement while playing for three years for Westhead’s predecessor, Ed Goorjian.

As a senior in 1985-86, Smith--with backcourt partner Forrest McKenzie--was the backbone of Westhead’s first team at Loyola and became a candidate for pro stardom when he was selected in the second round of the NBA draft by the Milwaukee Bucks in June 1986.

Although Smith’s transition as a pro wasn’t much different than most other rookies--he averaged 3.3 points as a reserve point guard with the Bucks--he did show flashes of his college success. But it would be a one-season NBA career for Smith, who soon after fell victim to what he said was politics, and a knee worn down by the punishment of many years of high school, college and off-season games and practices. Smith was the last player cut by the Bucks prior to the 1987-88 season opener.

He played more pro games afterward, but in less distinguished leagues. In the summer of 1988, he competed in the World Basketball League--also known as the “6-4 and under league”--and a few months later in the Continental Basketball Assn.

It appeared that signing to play with the CBA’s Albany Patroons, coached by former NBA Coach George Karl, would eventually provide Smith with another chance to play in the NBA.

“I went to a mini-camp of the Miami Heat (in the summer of 1988), and at the end, Karl asked me if I wanted to come to Albany,” Smith said. “He told me that if I played well, he had plenty of NBA general manager contacts he could call. When I was ready (to play in the NBA), he’d let them know.”

Twenty games into the season, with Smith averaging about 18 points, shooting 55% from the floor and leading the team in steals, his body, as well as his career aspirations, took a tumble.

That is when he literally bumped into an old friend and seriously injured his right knee during a game against Quad Cities.

“The thing that was so shocking about the knee injury was the way it happened, against (former Loyola guard) Corey Gaines, who I’ve known since we were 15 years old,” Smith said. “It was a fast-paced, fast-break game.”

Smith said that the collision occurred early in the third quarter after he had been successful on seven of 10 shot attempts.

“Then I got a steal and broke for our basket,” he said. “Corey ran up and tried to make a defensive play from the back. I slowed down, trying to get the three-point play, knowing Corey is aggressive and would foul me. I went up and he hit me from the rear. It was a good defensive play by him.”

But it turned out to be the end of Smith’s basketball career.

“I’ve never felt pain like that before,” he said. “It wasn’t the severity of the hit. It was the angle I jumped. When he hit me, it jarred something.”

Smith had torn ligaments and cartilage in his right knee. An Albany doctor determined that after arthroscopic surgery, rest and therapy, Smith could be playing again in six to eight weeks. Although Smith thought the injury was more severe than the doctor’s evaluation, he went along with the prognosis.

But after eight weeks, Smith said he “was nowhere near playing. I was still visibly limping. The doctor said, ‘Stick with it, stick with it’ . . . but I had serious doubts as to whether the inside of my knee was all right.

“I knew how it felt before, and suddenly it was feeling different. In the NBA, if you’re in perfect shape, you still have to have something extra.”

Convinced that the course of treatment would not restore his physical abilities, Smith returned to Inglewood for treatment and evaluation by the orthopedic specialists at the Kerlan-Jobe clinic. Physical therapist Clive Brewster oversaw Smith’s therapy.

“He put me on a more strenuous program than I was on in Albany,” Smith said. “My strength returned to where I should have been able to start playing again. I tried to play. I worked out with Danny Manning after he began rehabilitating from his knee injury with the Clippers. Mentally, all the instincts were still there. Physically, I couldn’t keep up.”

It became apparent that major reconstructive surgery on the knee would be necessary. But with no guarantee of full recovery, he decided against surgery. Today, Smith said he regrets that decision.

After enjoying an all-star high school career at West Covina, where he averaged 19 points and 6.7 assists and earned Times All-San Gabriel Valley honors as a senior, Smith wasn’t recruited by many major universities. Loyola was interested, as its style was well-suited to Smith.

As a freshman starter in the first four games of the season, Smith averaged 15 points. Then he was replaced in the lineup by a guard with three years of college experience, Greg Goorjian, the coach’s son. The younger Goorjian had just become eligible to compete after transferring from Nevada Las Vegas.

Smith would start eight more games down the stretch before becoming a fixture in the lineup the next three seasons.

With the high-scoring McKenzie red-shirting during the 1984-85 season, Smith--then a junior--became the offensive workhorse. He averaged 25 points and broke the Loyola single-season scoring record with 678 points.

He was the player Ed Goorjian turned to in crucial situations.

“We didn’t have the success under Goorjian that we had under Westhead,” Smith said. “But for me, Goorjian was great. He basically, from day one, gave me the ball and said that this was my team to run. He let me establish myself as a Division I college star. I was already established as a top college scorer when Westhead got there.”

As a senior under Westhead, Smith averaged 21 points and led the West Coast Athletic Conference in scoring and assists for the second consecutive season. McKenzie, who had been a prep standout at Pasadena High, returned and averaged 20 points.

In a conference game against San Diego late in the season, Smith attempted a jump shot on the first possession of the game and landed on a San Diego player’s foot. Smith sprained his left ankle and missed the next game, but he never seemed to be the same player after that.

“Keith was the ultimate threat as a player,” said Loyola Coach Jay Hillock, who for three years coached against Smith at Gonzaga and joined the Loyola staff as an assistant in 1985-86. “Keith was as good a college guard as I’ve coached against.”

A month after his senior season, Smith was invited to participate in the Aloha Classic in Hawaii, a showcase for top senior players in the country prior to the NBA draft.

But Smith broke his right foot “after showing I was one of the top guards, athletically, there. It was going well and I was projected to go among the top 20 players in the draft. Due to my being hurt, I ended up going 45th instead of in the top 20.”

He said favoring the ankle after it was sprained during the season may have indirectly led to the fracture of the foot.

“Besides costing me a lot of money, it deprived me of the situation of going in and getting a three-year guaranteed contract . . . when you go in the first round,” Smith said. “(As a first-round pick) you get time to learn the league as a rookie and have two more years to prove yourself.”

Although disappointed not to be a first-round pick, he was pleased to get drafted by Milwaukee, where he was coached by Don Nelson.

Smith feels that Nelson’s successor at Milwaukee, Del Harris, wanted to keep him, “but other factors and politics came into play. The coach doesn’t make all of the decisions. The general manager and player personnel director make a lot of those decisions.

After his release, Smith chose to spend time with friends on the East Coast and didn’t immediately pursue other opportunities.

“I wish I had handled all of that differently,” Smith said. “I didn’t want to deal with what had just happened.”

When he got inquiries later that year, Smith set them aside.

He later got back into shape working out with Loyola players after their season ended, and reported to the WBL and then the CBA.

Although he didn’t become a standout professional basketball player, Smith’s future in the business world appears bright. Smith, 27, returned to Loyola to continue work toward a bachelor’s degree in economics--he said he has a semester worth of classes to complete that goal--and is already directing office operations as vice president of the cellular phone company, which recently opened offices in New York and Washington.

He’s earning a living, but not the way he originally expected.

“I always thought that as long as I was healthy, I could play somewhere, whether it was in the NBA or in Europe,” he said. Smith said he would be interested in returning to the sport as a coach.

“I had a big interest at one point, and still do,” he said. “I feel that on the college level, I do have a lot to offer a young athlete, sharing mistakes I made and helping him avoid such mistakes.”