Brian Smith doesn’t sound like your average football coach. He’s not on the phone every day with his athletes, exhorting them to follow a strict program while they’re in a period of undermined quarantine.
“What I tell them all is to just do what you can,” said Smith, head football coach at C.E. Murray High School in Greeleyville, S.C. “I’m not one of those coaches who’s going to force them to do a program at a time of tragedy. Sports have their time and place. We’ll get back to it when it’s time. Now it’s not appropriate.
“A lot of (players) live in situations where it’s not conducive to force them,” Smith said. “I’m not going to hold them accountable.”
If the name Brian Smith sounds familiar to football fans in the Lynn area, it should. Smith comes from football stock. His grandfather was Mickey Smith, a longtime Classical sports figure; and his father, Patrick, still lives in the area and gets to as many local athletic events as he can. Smith himself played for Classical’s 1990 team that came out of nowhere to finish 9-1 and challenge Gloucester for a league title and Super Bowl slot.
If Smith is conceding that his players have more important things to worry about than football as thousands of their fellow U.S. citizens die from the COVID-19 virus, he does not cut himself anywhere near as much slack.
Ever since the Greeleyville school system shut down, Smith has been volunteering to deliver breakfasts and lunches to students in the system who need them. And while others may think of him as a hero, he does not think of himself that way.
There are a couple of reasons why.
“I’m a familiar face for everybody,” said Smith. “And I’m one of the younger people in the system, and I consider myself to be kind of healthy.
“I looked at the situation and figured it was better for me to be the front-person, and not someone who’s older. This isn’t to say that young people can’t get this and die, but it’s better for someone like me to be doing this.
“And,” he said, “we can’t starve the children, can we? They need these meals.”
But the heroes in this are bus drivers “who are out there every day to do this,” and the cafeteria workers in the school system.
“They are putting in, in some cases, 18-hour days,” said Smith. “Without them, there are no buses, and there are no meals. They are phenomenal.”
Smith is also keenly aware of the safety measures he must take if he’s to continue to do this.
“My wife is a Type 1 diabetic,” he said (diabetics and other already-immunocompromised people are more susceptible to catching the disease and having it wreaking more havoc with victims). “I make sure my hands are sanitized. I take every precaution I know how. I don’t come into contact with her until I’ve washed my hands, and taken other measures.
“So far,” he said, “it’s worked out. I don’t have any symptoms, but you can be asymptomatic and still spread it. So I’m doing everything I know how to do not to bring this home.”
Smith hasn’t totally divorced himself from sports. These days, he’s focusing on finding colleges for his junior football players — something he feels is a very important part of his job, and something the graduate of The Citadel attributes to what he learned from former Classical coach Dave Dempsey.
“I draw a lot from my northeast roots,” said Smith.
He says he is fortunate his seniors are pretty much taken care of, so he can focus on his underclassmen.
Track is a little harder.
“I coach track too, and these kids haven’t had a meet this spring,” he said. “I wish it wasn’t that way, but there isn’t a lot we can do about it.”
As a coach, Smith is no slouch. He was the South Carolina High School Coach of the Year in 2015, and his team finished 9-2 and made it three rounds into the state playoffs this season.
Still, he knows what’s important.
“We’re also trying to teach life lessons too,” he said. “We have to prepare these kids for the real world. You know, I love sports. I’ve loved it all my life. But it’s not the most important thing in life, and you have to remember that.
“Maybe if someone sees me on a bus delivering lunches to families, someone will make that connection.”
