Every week or so Mike White’s phone rings, or equally often he is doing the ringing – just to chat with a past player.
But the word “past” wouldn’t be fair or accurate here . . . not when that player is so tied to the present and often credited for helping pave an incredibly bright future.
But let’s first go back to last week’s press conference and Mike White addressing his team’s immediate future and its presumed reliance on freshman point guard, Andrew Nembhard.
“How often have you had to rely on a first-year point guard,”White is asked.
It’s a seemingly simple question, and one that causes Coach White to reflect.
“It would be my first year as a head coach, a kid named Speedy Smith, who is a big reason I’m at Florida today,” he respondswithout hesitation, and while flashing a prideful smile.
Kenneth “Speedy” Smith is that past player – back from White’s La-Tech days. But White is mentioning Speedy here and now… at Florida’s Media Day.
Again.
And again offering credit.
Gators fans perhaps first heard the name “Speedy” at White’s introductory press conference in May, 2015.
“Over the last four years I’ve had a special point guard in Speedy Smith,” White said, noticeably slowing his pace at ‘special’, and shaking his head as if in reflective awe. “I hope he’s watching. I owe him a lot of thanks,”
It was the first hint of something special indeed . . . something more than the remarkable success shared by Coach and playerduring their 4 years together.
Something so special that neither “past” nor “player” seem adequate descriptors . . . something defined by more than a game.
“The relationship Coach White and I have is a real brotherhood,” Speedy says. “He and I check in with one another about every two weeks just to ask how our families are doing and how life is in general.”
As Smith continues to pursue his NBA dream, and White patrols the Florida sideline – ‘life in general’ keeps both men close to the basketball court – the place their ‘brotherhood’ started.
Though rather inauspiciously.
“I remember the first scrimmage of my freshman year . . . Coach White literally sent me to the bench 30 seconds into the scrimmage,” Smith recalls. “And I couldn’t believe it”.
But White did believe. He believed in Smith . . . despite that scrimmage and despite an even rockier opening stanza to his freshman season. Smith missed his first twenty . . . . TWENTY . . . shots from the arc. It was the type of start that could crush confidence and kill a career.
“But he loved my energy, how hard I worked and how tough I was,” Smith recalls. “His best attribute is making you feel like you are the greatest at whatever it is – and he builds you up. He gives you confidence. If you are good at something, he makes you feel great about it”.
Smith, of course, would become legitimately great — his conference’s Player of the Year. And though ‘credit’ is rarely a two-way street, he credits his ascension to White as much and as often as Coach credits Speedy for his own successes.
“If there was something I needed to be better with, he would set me down and have a plan,” Smith says “and it would be for any aspect in the game.”
But as any athlete knows, the games played on the court can be undermined by those within one’s mind.
“When things went wrong in a game or during the season, the first thing he always did was check on how I was doing mentally,” Smith says.
And much like the past . . . so too is the present.
“When I’m frustrated I still call Coach White and ask him his opinions on tons of things – – not just basketball,” Smith reveals. “We have more conversation on just life”.
Life, and lives . . . past, present and future . . . made better by one another.
“To be under his wing is the best thing God has ever done for me in my life,” Smith says. “To have someone believe in me when nobody did, and still, to this day believe in me – is one of the greatest things in the world”.
And Smith, during his basketball travels, is spreading that message across the word.
“When I talk with teenage athletes around the world, I tell them . . . you only need one person who is honest and believes in you, who has a passion for the game, who will work with you each day and can not only guide you to your great potential on the court . . . but the day you leave his team, he will still call you as if you were late for practice,”.
Why does Smith feel so compelled to speak of his coach years later? And why does that coach so often mention and credit his past player?
Ahh . . .because it is no longer ‘coach’ and ‘past player’. It’s that ‘brotherhood’.
And maybe it’s something even simpler.
“I just love Coach White, man” Smith says.
And that seems another two-way street, Speedy.