Kevin Smith story

GreenMachine · Dec 1, 2007

I know there is already a thread, but this story is amazing!

http://www.miamiherald.com/sports/story/326464.html

BY ISRAEL GUTIERREZ
igutierrez@MiamiHerald.com

Remarkable story, isn't it?

A high school football player from the heart of Miami who gets largely overlooked in recruiting and goes to a school he has never heard of to become arguably the most productive runner in college football three years into the process.

Not really.

At least not compared to the complete story. The one that starts with his family.

Kevin Smith is the University of Central Florida running back who refuses to be ignored, leading the country in rushing yards, rushing attempts, scoring and 100-yard games.

Smith's mother, Pam, and brother, Cedric, are the reasons Smith is in that position.

The reasons include more than just nurturing and encouragement and family bonds.

They include miracles (plural) and faith and patience and homemade plastic helmets that had nothing to do with football and overcoming Hurricane Andrew and separation anxiety and a shared enthusiasm that is unmatched.

If Kevin Smith is a product of his surroundings, then he always has been bound for great things. Because determination always has surrounded him.

Pam Smith wanted five boys, all close enough in age so that one day they could be announced as starters on the same basketball team. An athlete herself growing up in the Jamaica neigborhood of Queens, N.Y., it was an idea she had even before she moved to South Florida in 1982.

She would soon decide to stop at just one boy. She couldn't possibly handle this much stress four more times.

Cedric Smith was born in 1984 and had spinal meningitis at 5 months. After an initial 30-day treatment, Cedric had a triple-digit fever that wouldn't break for a week. The germ spread to his brain, and the prognosis was bleak.

''He was 7 months now, and there were no medicines,'' Pam Smith said. ``He was on the ward with 22 babies. Every morning I woke up another baby was dead. Only two of them went home.''

Cedric was one, but his condition wasn't pretty, and the care instructions sounded almost impossible to maintain.

''They had to remove half his skull,'' said Pam, who happened to be a teacher for students with special needs. ``He had brain fluid, blood and skin, that's it. He was 11 months by the time we got out.

'They talked about, `Take him home, but don't let him hit his head.' ''

TAKING NO CHANCE

Pam wouldn't leave it to chance. She fashioned a helmet made of a milk jug and foam rubber, one resembling a baseball helmet with a flap that protected Cedric's head.

And, in time, and with the help of a bone graft, Cedric's skull grew back.

Two years after being told her son might not survive, Pam had a son whose main concern was potential seizures, for which he was medicated.

No more children were in the plans. Not after that trauma.

But during the process, Cedric had asked for a little brother. And after everything he overcame just to reach that point, Pam couldn't help but grant his wish.

So Kevin was born in December 1986. No miracle recoveries necessary.

Cedric had one more in the cards, though. When he was 6, Pam moved from an apartment to a house in Perrine. Cedric rode his bike out of the driveway and into the street.

''A car hit right across the back of his bike,'' Pam said. ``His brain smacked that new piece of bone and he had artery and brain bleeds, and they couldn't stop them.''

He probably won't live through the night, Pam was told. Even if he does, he might never speak again.

''No problem, I could sign,'' Pam said.

No need. Cedric awoke from surgery with no such complications.

All of the problems Pam was told to prepare for were never an issue. Miracle recovery No. 2 was complete.

''All he has is a scar,'' Pam said.

There was one more potential catastrophe in the works.

The heart of Hurricane Andrew was headed directly to the Smiths' hometown. As the historically powerful storm was determining its path, Pam, Cedric and Kevin (the boys' father, Mario, had left by then) were camping in West Virginia.

Upon hearing of the storm's projected path, Pam figured she'd stay away from South Florida until it blew through. But she needed more of Cedric's seizure medication, so they family had no choice but to return home and ride out the storm on the floor of the bathroom.

The aftermath was enough to force Pam to do the unthinkable. She had to let her boys go for a while.

''Actually the turning point was when I was trying to shovel space for them to be able to play,'' Pam said. ``[Kevin] came walking down the street with a Styrofoam
. I'll never forget it to this day. He said, `Mama, I brought you something to eat.'

'I thought, `OK, that's enough. You've got your babies trying to feed you. That's enough. They've got to go.' ''

So Pam sent her boys, then 8 and 5 years old, to live with her mother in Delaware. She missed Kevin's first year in school while she picked up the pieces.

''At the end of that year, the house was [being] rebuilt, and they came back home,'' Pam said. ``Ced would get upset if it would rain at all. Kevin would get upset if it would rain with wind.

``I probably still need therapy.''

But the three were hardly defeated. Pam did everything she could to raise two boys who were balanced and thoughtful and kind and actively involved in sports, of course.

And Pam was always in attendance, usually holding containers filled with orange wedges or sandwiches or anything else the kids needed.

''My mother, growing up, was always the team mom,'' Kevin said. 'So when we had `Air it Out' or 'Hoop it Up,' she's the mother that packs up everybody in the van, she's going to Winn-Dixie to get the lunch meat, she's going to get the juices, she's going to bring her [video] recorder. She has always been that.

``She has a passion for the game, kind of like she wants to play.

``I'm proud that I get a chance to make her proud.''

GREAT ACCOMPLISHMENTS

Not even through his junior season -- and he has said he's returning for a fourth year -- Kevin already has a rsum filled with make-mom-proud accomplishments.

He has more rushing yards in a season than Emmitt Smith, Edgerrin James, Willis McGahee or any Florida collegiate running back has had, and recently surpassed Errict Rhett for career yards. With 219 yards last week against Texas-El Paso, he became one of just 12 collegiate backs to surpass 2,000 yards in a season.

This year he was a semifinalist for the Doak Walker Award, given to the nation's best running back, with the national anonymity of his university probably the only thing keeping him from being a finalist.

He even attracted Heisman hype in a season where he rushed for 217, 219, 223 and 320 yards in separate games.

But it's Kevin's path, not the results, that make his mother most proud.

After a coaching change entering his senior season at Miami Southridge, Kevin was asked to play safety rather than running back.

He accepted the switch, but when it came time to look for a college, Kevin wasn't about to settle for playing defensive back.

He received some interest from schools such as Colorado State and Rutgers, but each viewed Kevin as a defensive back with running back dreams.

It was at UCF where he believed the coaches were most willing to let him play running back.

So UCF, a school he'd never heard of but couldn't be all that bad because his mom could easily get to games, would be his choice.

Getting readjusted to the running back position required random workout sessions with his younger cousin, Donovan Varner, now a senior cornerback at Miami Gulliver Prep, so he could ''educate'' his feet.

He came to UCF with his feet reeducated, but with his dreads and gold teeth and Miami arrogance, he'd have to reeducate himself entirely.

It started with his roommate, cornerback Joe Burnett, helping him shave the dreads and sport the close, shaped cut he features today.

There were lessons in humility that came from living with Burnett, who didn't speak much, and playing for a running backs coach who initially insisted he wouldn't play much as a freshman, and suffering through a sophomore-year curfew violation that cost him a one-game suspension.

'He said, `Mom, what am I doing? I'm not a follower,' '' Pam said of Kevin's reaction to the suspension. ``He was so broken up about that.

``His character has developed. And that's the part that makes me proud.''

ALWAYS IN TOUCH

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GreenMachine · Dec 1, 2007

ALWAYS IN TOUCH

Of course, his mother was there for every step of the development.

Pam and her mother attend every UCF game, home and away, and not a day goes by that Kevin doesn't call his mom.

It's no wonder, then, that Kevin has the words ''Mama's Boy'' tattooed across his stomach -- a marking he has no problem showing off.

''Anything that happens, anything that goes wrong, he's got to call his mama,'' Burnett said. ``Any little thing.''

Like when Burnett hid Kevin's laundry and the running back figured it was stolen.

''And these were all my boxers,'' Kevin said. 'I was out of boxers and T-shirts, and they were gone. I called her and was, `Mom, someone stole my laundry.' ''

Once Burnett was revealed as the playful thief, Pam retaliated with a quick but powerful jab to the cornerback's chest the next time she saw him.

Despite the abuse he took from Kevin's mother, Burnett considers Kevin one of his best friends, and a ''totally new person'' than the mouthy Dade County back who first appeared on campus.

That transformation has been just as impressive as his rushing numbers.

''He's not just a special athlete, he's a special individual,'' UCF senior quarterback Kyle Israel said. ``He came here and had to play very young, and I've seen him mature so much the past three years.

``I'm amazed that he's running for the averages that he's running.''

Amazing, yes. But not nearly as incredible as the fact that his big brother Cedric now has a 2-year-old boy of his own, Jacob, and lives near Kevin in Orlando.

Or that Mom has seen it all happen and remains something of a team mom from almost 300 miles away and still teaches children with special needs. And she seems to have energy to spare because Pam doesn't take a moment to sit down, whether at her son's games or in her Cutler Ridge Middle School classroom telling her family's story.

With support like that, Kevin isn't about to let his family down. The remarkable story continues with him.

''He wants to just do the right thing regardless of what anybody else thinks,'' Pam said. ``And that's what I tried to raise my boys to do, is just to stand for something and don't waver. Do it all, or don't do it at all. Ain't no half-steppin'.

``I'm real proud of the decisions that he has made.''

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