8/26/2004 - Football
Josh Smith: From Attica To Annapolis

Buddy Green has told this story before.

It's about someone, he says, who "came out of nowhere."

Someone whose name was somehow left off a list of more than a hundred returning players entering the spring of 2002, Green's first as Navy's defensive coordinator.

Someone who only sometimes got into junior varsity games as a freshman, his action so infrequent he remained invisible on any film Green and his colleagues reviewed from the previous fall.

Someone so anonymous in the earliest days of the Mids' first camp under a new coaching staff that while the so-called "A's" competed against the "B's", he was in the alphabet soup of scout team players sent to the side practice fields.

It wasn't long, though, before that certain someone stood out as somebody the coaches should know.

That someone, they'd soon discover, was a sophomore named Josh Smith.

"He's just a great example of a guy dedicated to making himself into a really good player through hard work, twelve months a year, " Green says. "That first summer he came into camp ready to take somebody's job."

That Smith did, playing well enough to complete an off-the-depth-chart ascent to starting safety. By season's end he delivered 127 tackles, 53 more than any other Midshipman. But any individual achievements, including All-East honors, were obscured by the team's 2-10 record.

Again as a junior - despite missing three games to injuries - Smith was the Mids' top tackler, only this time on the way to eight wins and the Academy's first Commander-In-Chief's title since 1981, the year before he was born.

With a postseason appearance and Navy's subsequent visit to the White House, he had emerged from the fringe of a once-struggling program to the forefront of a remarkable turnaround.

Smith has since been voted team captain, been recognized by The Sporting News as one of nation's best at his position and spent part of his summer feeling the rush of riding in an F-14 Tomcat taking off the deck of a carrier.

All for a kid who hails not from nowhere, but rather a small somewhere in Indiana, where early in life he absorbed the value of his parents' hard work.

"My mom (Amy) worked two jobs," Smith says of a youth spent among the fewer than 3,500 residents of Attica, a dot on the state map roughly 80 miles northwest of Indianapolis. "My dad (Robert) would get off work and coach my baseball teams."

Living in what he describes as a "close-knit" community, Smith is proof that it takes a village to raise a child.

"The community was always behind me, always supporting me," he says.

Smith rewarded such support by bringing athletic glory to Attica and a tiny high school whose top four grades enrolled roughly 250 students.

First in football, he nearly set a national scoring record with his 63 touchdowns, while leading the Red Ramblers into the Indiana championship game. Then in basketball, he lifted Attica to the heights of Hoosier hysteria and the school's first state title in any sport.

And since, Smith has given back in a different yet greater way, returning to visit with the kids who currently walk those same school halls. He's there to share stories, discuss goals or, if need be, even display the proper form in lifting weights.

Of course, they're well aware of both the career Smith had back home in Indiana and the one he enjoys today in Annapolis. A radio station in town even carries Navy broadcasts.

"It means a lot," says Smith, before adding - as if quoting from John Cougar Mellencamp, "I don't forget where I come from. "

Listening to Green, you get the idea the youngsters of Attica or the young men of Annapolis couldn't find a better role model.

"He shows great leadership because of the way he competes," Green said, before pointing out how precisely Smith executes drills each day in practice. "He's a guy you want to have a camera on. In drills, he goes 100 miles per hour."

What impresses Green as well isn't what Smith does in front of others, it's what he does in solitude.

"(Josh) studies the game during the season, summer and preseason," said Green. "Even if there are no team meetings, he's downstairs (at Ricketts Hall) watching tape on his own. Sometimes we've got to run him out of the film room so he can get dinner.

"He's a smart football player. He sees the game around him."

Which makes Smith, especially as captain, a logical source of information for teammates struggling to grasp what Green et al are coaching. And a more understanding one.

"It definitely means a lot to me," Smith says of his expansive role. "I can show what I can do on and off the field, not just on the field. Mainly, I try to lead by example. (But) if anyone has a problem, they can come to (offensive captain) Aaron (Polanco) or myself.

"The younger guys ask us what to do," he says with a chuckle, "rather than asking the big scary coaches."

An obvious intellect for the game puts Smith in the right place. What allows him to make the play is something else.

"He's as tough as any I've been around," says Green, a college coach since 1979.

Consider what transpired after and before Navy's two most important games of 2003.

In the waning seconds of a 28-25 win over Air Force, Smith recovered an on-sides kick to preserve victory. Moments later, he was hospitalized with a groin injury that forced him to miss the next two weeks.

Then while preparing for Army, Smith was struck down by a case of appendicitis. He was back by the end of December for the EV.1-net Houston Bowl, where Smith had 13 tackles and an interception against Texas Tech.

Still, while teaching others about toughness, he also was learning.

"It taught me how to play through adversity," Smith says. "You never know when your last game is going to be. I've to learned to enjoy (football) more while I have it."

And as much as it pained him not to be at the post-game celebration, Smith remains gratified simply by the win over the Falcons - Navy's first in seven seasons.

"My main goal was to beat them, not celebrate," he says with a clear sense of purpose.

It's that personal perspective Smith now tries to shape for the team as the Mids' captain.

"We're talking about team goals," he says. "Not just to go to a bowl game, but to win a bowl game. We have a chance to win each and every game. I try to keep (the team) focused."

What pushes Smith toward that end isn't necessarily duplicating the success of those eight victories from a year ago. It's eliminating the frustration and disappointment of the accompanying defeats.

"I can tell you exactly what happened in each of our five losses," he said. "The wins, I kind of brush them off. It just drives me to get better."

"He thinks like a coach," says Green. "When you've got someone who thinks like a coach, you've got one that's pretty special.

"(As a coach) you ask, 'What did we do wrong?' Those are the ones you remember, the losses. You find the true value of a player when he talks in those terms. It's a quality you wish all of them had."

And should you ask about any individual desires for the new season, once more the player will convey the thoughts of a coach.

"Do my job," says Smith of his lone goal for 2004. " If everybody on the team does his job, we'll be successful.

"Everything else will fall in place."

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