Yahoo showing love to Big Sandy [Archive]

charlesrixey

01-28-2007, 03:20 PM

Lessons learned in Big Sandy still serving Bears coach well

By JAIME ARON, AP Sports Writer
January 28, 2007

BIG SANDY, Texas (AP) -- Damontray Darty is bouncing on a trampoline outside his trailer home, parked amid the run-down houses in this one-stoplight town.

The 9-year-old is wearing a blue football jersey, clutching a big white teddy bear, and even bigger dreams.

"I want to play football," he said, "then be a coach in the NFL."

Why not? A guy who grew up 100 yards away did exactly that.

Lovie Smith is living proof that a little boy's dream can come true in small-town America.

"Everyone talks about him, looks up to him, wants to be like him," said 17-year-old Vanity Darty, Damontray's sister. "If he can do it, I can, too."

Sunday, Smith will be calling the shots for the Chicago Bears in the Super Bowl, across the field at Dolphin Stadium in Miami from Tony Dungy, who will be doing the same for the Indianapolis Colts. Together, they will make history as the first black head coaches on the sidelines of the National Football League's title game.

Lest anyone think the folks in Smith's hometown regard him differently now, perhaps as someone unapproachable, forget it.

"Around here, he's just Lovie," high school classmate Marie Rogers Dotson said.

"About the only thing that's changed in Lovie is his Afro," said Big Sandy elementary school teacher Lynda Childress, who befriended Smith during his year working there.

"What you see with Lovie is what you get," she added. "He's always been that way. He never had a bad word to say about anybody, just a positive attitude that would boost your spirits -- always. I cannot think of a better goodwill ambassador for Big Sandy."

To make sure he knows how important he still is back home, Childress faxed him some handwritten letters from her students.

Said one: "I'm so glad you are from Big Sandy. You have shown me that if I set goals, I can be anything I want."

Said another: "Everyone in Big Sandy is excited that you became the first Black American coach in the Super Bowl. It will be even better when you win the Super Bowl."

Heck, there's no telling how folks will respond if that happens. This little town hasn't had this much attention since murder suspect Jerry "Animal" McFadden escaped from the county jail in 1986, prompting the largest manhunt in state history.

Although Smith and Dungy are fast friends and forever locked in NFL lore by this turn of events, they grew up in places that are hardly comparable.

Big Sandy is 100 miles east of Dallas, roughly halfway to Shreveport, La. The name came from piles of beautiful white sand that long ago were sold and hauled away on the two railroad tracks that cross here.

The town was founded in the 1870s, when the first train chugged through. The population was around 1,000 in 1958, when Smith was born. The latest census counted only a few hundred more residents.

Driving across town on U.S. Highway 80, the main road, takes two minutes, three if you hit red on the town's only traffic light.

Although one of the city-limits signs boasts "Needlecraft Capital of the South," the biggest employer is a company that fills magazine subscription and catalog orders. There are no fancy neighborhoods, no major attractions. The movie theater left decades ago. The old roller-skating rink is now a dance hall for senior citizens. The Dairy Queen was replaced by a pizza joint that has since been abandoned.

There is one drawing card: booze.

Big Sandy is one of the few "wet" spots in East Texas, which explains why five liquor-wine-beer stores occupy the intersection of 80 and Texas 155. Two stores even offer drive-thru service.

"It doesn't pose any problems," Mayor Sonny Parsons said. "And it does play a great part in our economy."

Dungy hails from Jackson, Mich., a rust-belt town about 75 miles west of Detroit with 35,000 residents.

The town is hurting -- like the entire state -- because of a slumping economy that keeps taking hits from the sagging automobile industry. Many of the mom-and-pop shops that manufacture auto parts are idle.

Jackson would be even worse off if it wasn't for jobs provided by state-funded prisons and Consumers Energy, a utility company. Still, the town has two country clubs and the Cascades -- a concrete waterfall that is illuminated at night and has attracted visitors since 1932.