BILLYFRED0000
01-29-2007, 11:51 AM
One of Texas HS footballs heros......
BIG SANDY, Texas -- It is lunch hour in this sleepy east Texas town, and one by one the police officers, factory workers and engineers from the local oil refinery stroll through the glass door of a downtown diner to re-stock their bodies for the afternoon labor.
Super Bowl XLI is more than a week away, yet that's all anyone wants to talk about. In the heart of Cowboy country, four guys sit at one table and critique Bears quarterback Rex Grossman. Two guys sit at another table going on about "that Urlacher." And no one can stop talking about the homemade sign that made its way onto the NFC Championship broadcast two days earlier. It read, "Big Sandy Loves Lovie Smith."
The tie that connects these folks to the Chicago Bears head coach sits on the south side of this two-stoplight town, in a neighborhood once dubbed "the flats." There, just around the corner from the faded gray house with the caved-in roof, down the road from the house with 12 junked cars in the driveway and the mobile home with the four pit bull puppies, is where Smith's boyhood home once stood.
The house is long gone; it burned several years after his family moved out. But that doesn't minimize the importance of this 40-foot-by-60-foot plot of empty land, now nothing more than an assorted mix of leaves, sand and thick-bladed grass.
The lot where Lovie Smith's childhood home once stood is now a sandy lot with patches of thick-blade grass. The home burned several years ago.It is here the people of this 1,288-person town look to for hope, this place the adults point to when they want the town's youth to dream.
Last summer, when the local Chamber of Commerce contacted the Bears coach about naming one of the main downtown streets in his honor, Smith refused, insisting the only street that would carry his name would be the 200-yard long glorified bike path that ran in front of the house where he grew up.
Yes, it was once on the "wrong side of the tracks." Yes, it was down the street from the town's original "black" elementary school. Yes, it's barely wide enough to fit a car. The only structures still standing on the street today are a vacated church and a condemned home, but Lovie Smith didn't care.
"Tell me -- where else would I want it to be?" Smith said this week. "Those are my roots. That's where I grew up. Most of who I am today came from that street. There's no other place I would want a sign with my name on it. I'm proud of where I came from."
It's that sense of humility, that connection with his past, that resonates so strongly with the folks in and around this blue-collar town. They've had heroes before -- prior to being killed in a car accident in 1984, David Overstreet scored 56 touchdowns for Big Sandy High in 1975 and was a star running back at Oklahoma and a first-round draft pick of the Miami Dolphins.
But now one of their own has made it to sports' grandest stage -- the Super Bowl -- and he's kept a big place within himself for his little hometown.
"I'm from Big Sandy, I love Big Sandy and most of what I am is because of Big Sandy," Smith said.
"Most of who I am today came from that street," says Lovie Smith."There's no other place I would want a sign with my name on it. I'm proud of where I came from." So it shouldn't be much of a surprise that when you bring up the name Lovie Smith in these parts, when you ask questions about what he was like, what this all means and how people feel, the most common answer is tears.
"Let's face it -- Big Sandy isn't much more than the intersection of two not-so-major highways with a couple of beer stores and a stoplight," said Jim Norman Jr., who played with Smith at Big Sandy High in the mid-1970s. "And here's this guy, from the wrong side of the tracks, without any money, without anybody expecting much of him, and he made it. He really, truly made it.
"And you know what? There isn't anybody I've known in all of my life who deserves it more."
A man of determination
To those who know Lovie Smith best, making it was no surprise. During Smith's senior year, his 36 classmates unanimously voted the kid who didn't swear, didn't drink and barely raised his voice as "Most Likely to Succeed." He and best friend Gary Chalk were Big Sandy's first two African-American members of the National Honor Society.
Growing up in a house where the word "lie" was a curse word, Lovie, the middle of Mae and Thurman Smith's five children, was the one who organized who did what chores when. And then he double-checked that everything was finished, said his older sister, Sandra Davis.
"He was always just so particular," she added. "Always very focused." It was the same way on the football field, where Smith insisted he and his high school teammates hold hands in the defensive huddle.
His first crack at coaching came sooner than anyone expected. The second game of Smith's junior year, head coach Jim Norman had to attend his father's funeral, so he gave specific instructions to his assistant coaches. If the team was trailing at halftime, "let Lovie coach the defense and Gary coach the offense."s
Gary Chalk is Lovie Smith's second cousin and best friend growing up. They are still close. Chalk plans to attend the Super Bowl. With the team trailing 6-0 at the break, Lovie and Gary were asked to run the show. They did and Big Sandy won, 12-6.
Later that year, when the team was again trailing 6-0 at halftime on a bitterly cold night against Axtell, Norman asked his team if they would rather pack up, get a hot meal and warm up than play the second half. The coach stormed out of the locker room, leaving his players to decide what they wanted to do. Despite having frostbite on multiple fingers, Smith stepped forward.
"I'm not going be a loser," he said.
Before Norman returned, the entire team already had its helmets on. The Wildcats went back on the field and won, 14-6.
"He wasn't somebody who said a whole lot," said Jim Norman Jr., the coach's son. "But when he did, you knew he had something important to say. So you always listened."
These are the tales they love to tell about Lovie Smith in these parts. Some come with smiles, some come with laughter, some come with tears. But they all come with pride.
"He was just one of those guys you knew was going to do something with his life," Chalk said. "Maybe not lead the Chicago Bears to the Super Bowl something, but something. Every goal he ever set in his life he always seemed to achieve."
BIG SANDY, Texas -- It is lunch hour in this sleepy east Texas town, and one by one the police officers, factory workers and engineers from the local oil refinery stroll through the glass door of a downtown diner to re-stock their bodies for the afternoon labor.
Super Bowl XLI is more than a week away, yet that's all anyone wants to talk about. In the heart of Cowboy country, four guys sit at one table and critique Bears quarterback Rex Grossman. Two guys sit at another table going on about "that Urlacher." And no one can stop talking about the homemade sign that made its way onto the NFC Championship broadcast two days earlier. It read, "Big Sandy Loves Lovie Smith."
The tie that connects these folks to the Chicago Bears head coach sits on the south side of this two-stoplight town, in a neighborhood once dubbed "the flats." There, just around the corner from the faded gray house with the caved-in roof, down the road from the house with 12 junked cars in the driveway and the mobile home with the four pit bull puppies, is where Smith's boyhood home once stood.
The house is long gone; it burned several years after his family moved out. But that doesn't minimize the importance of this 40-foot-by-60-foot plot of empty land, now nothing more than an assorted mix of leaves, sand and thick-bladed grass.
The lot where Lovie Smith's childhood home once stood is now a sandy lot with patches of thick-blade grass. The home burned several years ago.It is here the people of this 1,288-person town look to for hope, this place the adults point to when they want the town's youth to dream.
Last summer, when the local Chamber of Commerce contacted the Bears coach about naming one of the main downtown streets in his honor, Smith refused, insisting the only street that would carry his name would be the 200-yard long glorified bike path that ran in front of the house where he grew up.
Yes, it was once on the "wrong side of the tracks." Yes, it was down the street from the town's original "black" elementary school. Yes, it's barely wide enough to fit a car. The only structures still standing on the street today are a vacated church and a condemned home, but Lovie Smith didn't care.
"Tell me -- where else would I want it to be?" Smith said this week. "Those are my roots. That's where I grew up. Most of who I am today came from that street. There's no other place I would want a sign with my name on it. I'm proud of where I came from."
It's that sense of humility, that connection with his past, that resonates so strongly with the folks in and around this blue-collar town. They've had heroes before -- prior to being killed in a car accident in 1984, David Overstreet scored 56 touchdowns for Big Sandy High in 1975 and was a star running back at Oklahoma and a first-round draft pick of the Miami Dolphins.
But now one of their own has made it to sports' grandest stage -- the Super Bowl -- and he's kept a big place within himself for his little hometown.
"I'm from Big Sandy, I love Big Sandy and most of what I am is because of Big Sandy," Smith said.
"Most of who I am today came from that street," says Lovie Smith."There's no other place I would want a sign with my name on it. I'm proud of where I came from." So it shouldn't be much of a surprise that when you bring up the name Lovie Smith in these parts, when you ask questions about what he was like, what this all means and how people feel, the most common answer is tears.
"Let's face it -- Big Sandy isn't much more than the intersection of two not-so-major highways with a couple of beer stores and a stoplight," said Jim Norman Jr., who played with Smith at Big Sandy High in the mid-1970s. "And here's this guy, from the wrong side of the tracks, without any money, without anybody expecting much of him, and he made it. He really, truly made it.
"And you know what? There isn't anybody I've known in all of my life who deserves it more."
A man of determination
To those who know Lovie Smith best, making it was no surprise. During Smith's senior year, his 36 classmates unanimously voted the kid who didn't swear, didn't drink and barely raised his voice as "Most Likely to Succeed." He and best friend Gary Chalk were Big Sandy's first two African-American members of the National Honor Society.
Growing up in a house where the word "lie" was a curse word, Lovie, the middle of Mae and Thurman Smith's five children, was the one who organized who did what chores when. And then he double-checked that everything was finished, said his older sister, Sandra Davis.
"He was always just so particular," she added. "Always very focused." It was the same way on the football field, where Smith insisted he and his high school teammates hold hands in the defensive huddle.
His first crack at coaching came sooner than anyone expected. The second game of Smith's junior year, head coach Jim Norman had to attend his father's funeral, so he gave specific instructions to his assistant coaches. If the team was trailing at halftime, "let Lovie coach the defense and Gary coach the offense."s
Gary Chalk is Lovie Smith's second cousin and best friend growing up. They are still close. Chalk plans to attend the Super Bowl. With the team trailing 6-0 at the break, Lovie and Gary were asked to run the show. They did and Big Sandy won, 12-6.
Later that year, when the team was again trailing 6-0 at halftime on a bitterly cold night against Axtell, Norman asked his team if they would rather pack up, get a hot meal and warm up than play the second half. The coach stormed out of the locker room, leaving his players to decide what they wanted to do. Despite having frostbite on multiple fingers, Smith stepped forward.
"I'm not going be a loser," he said.
Before Norman returned, the entire team already had its helmets on. The Wildcats went back on the field and won, 14-6.
"He wasn't somebody who said a whole lot," said Jim Norman Jr., the coach's son. "But when he did, you knew he had something important to say. So you always listened."
These are the tales they love to tell about Lovie Smith in these parts. Some come with smiles, some come with laughter, some come with tears. But they all come with pride.
"He was just one of those guys you knew was going to do something with his life," Chalk said. "Maybe not lead the Chicago Bears to the Super Bowl something, but something. Every goal he ever set in his life he always seemed to achieve."