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Monday, March 30, 1998

Tubby Smith: A journey to the top

By STEVE WILSTEIN

Associated Press

SAN ANTONIO - As a 14-year-old black farm boy during the civil rights movement, Tubby Smith saw something unique and wonderful on television: a team with all black starters beating all-white Kentucky in the NCAA championship.

Though Smith lived in Maryland and grew up a fan of the Terrapins and their first black player, Billy Jones, he couldn't help but be inspired by that 1966 championship team from Texas Western (later Texas-El Paso) upsetting Kentucky.

"Not so much that they were black, but seeing the underdog win the way they did," Smith said. "It gives all underdogs some hope. That's what it did for me."

An underdog no longer, Smith is the head coach of a Kentucky team that plays for the school's seventh national title tonight against Utah.

Smith spoke Sunday about how "it's just amazing for me to be sitting in this position," how "those opportunities that may not have been available once are available now."

He remembers those all-white Kentucky teams of the Adolph Rupp era and the memories are not fond ones.

"I would have to say most blacks in America had some real problems with Kentucky at the time," Smith said. "It was the time of the civil rights movement and our ideas were shaped by that. My perception of Kentucky was no different than it was for any school that didn't offer opportunities to minorities."

When Smith took the Kentucky job last May, there were concerns that as the Wildcats' first black basketball coach he would be treated especially hard if the team didn't measure up to Rick Pitino's national championship team of 1996 and runner-up team of last year.

The expectations and pressure would be so brutal that a black columnist for the Lexington Herald-Leader wrote: "I sincerely fear for your safety and the safety of your family. ... Kentucky fans aren't ready for a black head coach. ... The first time you lose a game, you will not be called a stupid coach. You will be called a stupid black coach."

Well, it didn't turn out that way.

Smith surely took some criticism when his Wildcats lost to Louisville, Florida and Ole Miss at home, but he knew that was to be expected from Kentucky's rabid fans.

"I wanted to call my own call-in show and say, 'Hey, you bum,' " Smith said.

But through it all, he said, he didn't feel any racism and didn't get any hate mail.

"The people of Kentucky are very passionate about basketball," he said. "They wanted to make sure the program was in good hands. ... I'm not perfect, but I know no one else is either. It's good to be accepted without one negative thing, other than losing at home."

Perhaps few other coaches were as suited to the Kentucky job as the soft-spoken Smith. During a game, he may scream and pop up and down and wave his arms like a traffic cop in rush hour, but for the most part he projects a relaxed, gentlemanly manner.

A man with Southern roots, a man of the soil, a man from a big family, Smith is more like Kentucky fans than his transplanted New York predecessor.

The inspiration Smith drew from Texas Western as a teen, the lessons he learned as one of Guffrie and Parthenia Smith's 17 children and working in the fields of rural Maryland served him well this season and throughout his career.

"I grew up working in the tobacco fields, tomato fields, plowing fields," he said. "You learn patience, discipline. ... It's a persistent thing. The work ethic, chores. Everybody had responsibilities and you have to get them done."

Not blessed with the greatest basketball talent, he nevertheless captained his high school team and High Point (N.C.) College team, then returned to Great Mills High School in 1973 to begin his coaching career.

It would be a career of slow, steady progress, winning wherever he went, learning more about the game and how to handle players, teaching them the X's and O's and how to deal with life off the court.

Four years at Great Mills. Two at another high school in North Carolina. Seven as an assistant at Virginia Commonwealth. Three as assistant at South Carolina. Two under Pitino at Kentucky.

All of that served as preparation for his first head coaching job at Tulsa, where he won two Missouri Valley Conference regular season titles and was named MVC coach of the year both times. Then he was off to Georgia for two years, becoming the Bulldogs' first black coach and taking them to the NCAA Sweet 16 in 1996.

Though he is living every coach's dream, perhaps more important to him Sunday were these words from senior Jeff Sheppard:

"He really does a good job of teaching us the game of basketball, but even a better job of teaching us how to be men."