Mr. Smith Survives at Washington : Former Antelope Valley Standout Stays Eligible, Becomes Feared Safety

It is most peculiar.

Wide receivers, tall, rangy fellows with long limbs, blazing speed and sure hands, suddenly seem to lose those attributes once within earshot of the pitter-patter of Tommie Smith’s feet.

Their gait breaks. They flinch. They develop, as Smith’s former high school coach appropriately describes it, “alligator arms.”

Call them chicken, but never stupid.

Smith, strong safety for the top-ranked Washington Huskies, was rated as college football’s sixth “toughest hitter” in one preseason publication.

The former Antelope Valley High standout, 6-foot-2, 212 pounds, is fast like a deer and tough like a John Deere.

His image as a heavy hitter was born in the wind-swept high desert, where Smith broke up passes by hitting receivers like an 18-wheeler rolling over tumbleweeds on the highway.

“Tommie Smith,” Antelope Valley Coach Brent Newcomb said, “always brought a big punch to a party.”

He still does. If only he attacked schoolwork with similar fervor.

Smith, a senior, on Wednesday started his fourth academic year at Washington. It has been a long three years of classwork. Embarrassing for him, frustrating for his coaches, and disappointing for those who have followed his progress since high school. But through it all, almost miraculously, he has missed very little football.

Item: October, 1989--Smith, a freshman, is suspended for one game by Husky Coach Don James for missing classes. The game happens to be against UCLA at the Rose Bowl in Pasadena, an hour’s drive from Smith’s home in Lancaster.

Item: November, 1990--Smith misses the game against cross-state rival Washington State when he is suspended by James for missing class. His status for the Huskies’ Jan. 1 date with Iowa in the Rose Bowl remains in question until a final grade comes in two days before the game.

“I just have to make sure (missing class) doesn’t happen again,” Smith tells a Seattle newspaper.”

Item: April, 1991--Smith drops out of Washington until he can make restitution for overpayment of $1,800 in financial aid he received. For three months he toils as a construction worker in Washington to repay the debt. He then attends summer school in order to regain his eligibility.

“This isn’t going to happen again,” Smith tells a Seattle newspaper.

Item: July, 1992--Smith withdraws from summer school courses despite lacking the necessary units for eligibility for the upcoming football season. Smith later makes up the units by taking extension classes and attending a second session of summer courses. However, he is not ruled eligible to play until the week of Washington’s opener, Sept. 5, against Arizona State in Tempe.

Four seasons, four brushes with ineligibility. Yet when Washington (3-0) plays host to USC (1-0-1) on Saturday at Husky Stadium, Smith will be found in a familiar position--the starting lineup.

Physical ability overcomes irresponsibility. There is a trend here, one that started long before his days at Washington.

“Tommie has been that way from day one,” said Tim Cox, a former Antelope Valley High assistant. “He always waits until the last minute, then ends up somehow getting it done.”

Cox says Smith was required to attend summer school classes in order to stay eligible throughout his high school career.

Intelligence was not the problem. “He’s not stupid,” Cox said. “He just expects people to bend rules for him and it takes him a while to realize that people won’t.”

Cox should know.

For the past 10 years the junior high school teacher from Lancaster has served as Smith’s adviser and friend. They met when Smith was in seventh grade, under circumstances that would become all too familiar.

“He was having trouble getting the grades to play basketball,” Cox said.

Smith’s relationship with his father, Robert, is tenuous at best. Robert Smith lives in Texas and has spoken with Tommie only twice in the last eight years.

Cox, who no longer coaches football, became Tommie’s surrogate father. “Somebody had to make him do his homework,” Cox said, “so I’d sit him down at my house and feed him and make sure he did his work.”

Smith says he doesn’t know why Cox took a special interest in him. He’s just glad he did.

“I guess he saw something in me,” Smith said. “I never asked him. Maybe I should. He’s always been somebody I could talk to. He gives me advice.”

Unfortunately for Smith, when he left Lancaster, he also left a support group that included his mother, Earline, his now 4-year-old son, Tommie Jr., the boy’s mother, Mary, and Cox. He sees Cox only when Washington plays within driving distance--Tempe and Tucson, Ariz., included--but they still keep in touch by telephone.

The conversations aren’t always pleasant. Smith admits that Cox scolds him. Could it have been about academics? “Mostly. That’s usually it,” Smith said.

Smith links his transgressions in the classroom with his habit of procrastinating. “It’s my fault, just being lazy,” he said. “I don’t have anyone to blame but myself.”

Others are quick to agree. “Between the lines he’s never been a problem,” Huskies secondary Coach Chris Tormey said. “You never have a problem with him on the field. It’s when he gets off the field you have to worry a little bit.

“He just puts things off and puts things off until he’s right up against it. But when it gets to a point, he digs in and gets done whatever he needs to get done. We just wish he’d take care of those things a little bit sooner.”

Added James: “When he applies himself and tries, he can do it. And that goes both for in the classroom and out on the football field.”

Certainly, Smith’s contributions between the sidelines have left no cause for complaint. He is a three-year letterman who has been a starter more often than not. Washington has won three bowl games--two of them Rose Bowls--during his tenure.

James says he “rates right up there” with the best defensive backs to play at Washington.

Smith’s physical ability has been obvious since he was in high school. As a senior, he carried Antelope Valley--virtually one-handed--to a Southern Section Division II title. He rushed for 2,018 yards, had 13 receptions for 185 yards, averaged 43.4 yards in 13 kickoff returns, had seven interceptions, returned a fumble for a touchdown and scored 182 points. For good measure, he punted for a 38.6-yard average.

“You get a horse or a stallion and you ride him,” Newcomb said. “That’s what we did. We hopped on Tommie’s back and he took us all the way to the (Southern Section) championship.”

Before the title game against Canyon, Smith promised a 200-yard rushing performance. He delivered that and more.

In a 28-22 victory, he received the handoff on 32 of the Antelopes’ 39 offensive plays and rushed for 218 yards. He scored three touchdowns on offense, added a two-point conversion, and scored again on a 48-yard interception return.

“He did it all,” Canyon Coach Harry Welch said. “Had he been off the field for any extended period of time, we win.”

Welch had seen similar acts by Smith before. As a sophomore defensive end, Smith was in on the tackle that ended Canyon’s Southern Section record-tying 46-game winning streak in 1986. In the final seconds of Antelope Valley’s 21-20 victory, Smith helped drag down Cowboy quarterback Ken Sollom inches shy of the goal line on a two-point conversion attempt.

His first big high school game.

His first big play.

Even as a sophomore Smith was a two-way starter, playing tight end and defensive end on an Antelope Valley team that advanced to the Southern Section final before losing to Muir.

The stars of that team were running back Eric Mortensen, who played at Brigham Young, and offensive tackle James Richards, a two-year starter at California who is on the Phoenix Cardinals’ developmental squad.

“College scouts would come in here to watch film on those guys and they’d stop the film and say, ‘Tell me about your tight end,’ ” Newcomb said. “I’d say, ‘He’s a 15-year-old sophomore.’ They loved him even then.”

As a senior Smith was recruited by several nationally ranked teams, including USC. He said he decided on Washington because it was “not too far and not too close. I wanted a chance to grow.”

In August, 1989, during workouts before his freshman season, Smith’s rapid climb up the Husky depth chart at tailback stopped when he suffered a knee injury after he awkwardly caught his foot in the artificial turf.

In retrospect, he might consider the injury a twist of fate, for it led to his switch to the secondary.

Smith underwent arthroscopic surgery to repair a partial cartilage tear, sidelining him for three weeks. About the time Smith was back at full strength, Washington was hit by injuries to three of its safeties.

His first game was against USC in the Coliseum and he made a memorable debut. On his second play he blocked a punt, scooped up the ball and sprinted 32 yards for a touchdown.

His first college game.

His first big play.

Soon came his first big college disappointment. Only three weeks after the USC game, he was forced to miss the UCLA game as punishment for missing classes.

“When he gets done here and is able to concentrate on football eight hours every day, he’s going to get that much better, that much more consistent,” Tormey said.

Indeed, Smith is expected to be among the first defensive backs taken in the April NFL draft.

However, he has additional plans. He says he is going to stay in school and pursue a degree in African-American studies, although he doesn’t know how many units he needs to graduate.

“If I do get drafted I still want my diploma to fall back on,” Smith said.