The Adventures of John L. Smith
by: Steve Silverman©
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He is a man who believes in the basic lessons of life – strength, discipline, love and respect – but don’t think for a second that Louisville head coach John L. Smith is willing to go through life being satisfied with the routine and mundane.
“The teams in the power conferences (the ACC, Big East, Big Ten, Big XII, SEC, Pac-10) have different agendas. They want to be in a position to play for the national championship. As a result, it’s getting more and more difficult to get games with those schools. If they put us on the schedule, it’s an opportunity for them to lose and miss out on the national championship. Teams from our conference and some of the other mid-majors don’t have the chance to play for that honor and in that respect it can get frustrating."
Football coaches are often known for their tunnel vision and their devotion to their careers. It’s not unusual these days for coaches to spend every waking moment in their office trying to figure out a new play to get an edge on their opponent or slaving over game film trying to pick out that one tendency that could mean the difference between victory and defeat.
Some coaches – like Tampa Bay Bucs boss Jon Gruden – are known for waking up with the birds and getting into the office two hours before dawn. Miami’s Dave Wannstedt is so focused on his job that he often has no clue as to what is going on in the outside world. “Titanic?” he croaked when asked if he had seen the Oscar-winning movie from a few years back. “Isn’t that about a boat that sunk? Did they make a movie about that? Sounds pretty good.”
But Smith is not one of those coaches. He understands there is more to life than preseason practice, film study and in-game adjustments. Smith is a man who takes advantage of his downtime and takes a bite out of everything life has to offer. One year it may be running with the bulls in Spain, another it may be working on a cattle drive. This past July – shortly before his football team came to camp – Smith skydived from a height of nearly 14,000 feet with the Army’s Black Knights.
Smith has a need to challenge himself and take a big bite out of life. Jumping out of a plane may not be the easiest thing to do, but at the end of the day you have eaten from the smorgasbord of life when you complete an exercise like that.
“It was absolutely an incredible feeling and an incredible rush,” Smith said in an exclusive interview with American Football Monthly. “You have these questions going on inside your own head as you are in the airplane and climbing. You have on a parachute and you wonder why you are taking on such a risky proposition. You ask yourself every question imaginable.
“But then as you go on with the jump, you realize how much fun it is and how much you’ve gotten out of it. Some people get enough out of competing at one phase in their life – like playing football in your teens and 20s. I don’t have the opportunity to play any more. I’m well past the age but I still want to compete and I still want to challenge myself on a regular basis.
“I can’t play football on an every-week basis. The challenge I get from coaching is an intellectual and emotional one, but it certainly isn’t a physical one. It is for my players and every other young man that plays this great game, but it is not a true physical challenge for the coach.
“As a result, I’m looking for those kind of challenges. It’s not on an every-week basis any longer, but it is still meaningful.”
When Smith took his freefall with the Black Knights, he had never jumped from a plane before. Normally, free-falling comes after a jumper has been at it a while. But Smith went past parachute jumping and right to free-falling after taking a half-day course on what to do and what to expect at every turn. On his jump, cameramen jumped right alongside of him and filmed every second.
As the plane climbed in the sky, Smith felt his heart beat stronger and his senses heighten. “Once you climb to 6,000 feet you know the jump is getting closer,” Smith said. “As you approach 12-14,000 feet you wonder why you ever agreed to do it. But you don’t hesitate and you go.”
While Smith is tethered to expert jumpers from the Black Knights, he still has to go out on the wing of the plane before jumping. “You feel like you could fall off at any second,” Smith said. “The wind hits you like nothing you’ve ever been through. You’re waiting to go and then you finally jump.
“At first, you feel like you are in a wind tunnel and you have a difficult time getting your senses. But at a certain point you get your bearings and you start to stabilize. That’s just an incredible feeling when that happens. Your senses are completely overloaded and it’s like you are overflowing. Then it’s time to reach back and pull the ripcord when you get down to about 5,500 feet.”
Smith was supposed to check his altimeter three times during the jump. At least that was the plan as he went through jumping school. But because he was caught in the whirling wind and the excitement of the moment, he didn’t check until the point he was supposed to deploy his chute. While he was tethered to experts who would have pulled the chute if he hadn’t, Smith did not want to go that route.
“Don’t get me wrong,” he explained. “I was glad they were there and they brought a lot of security in the knowledge that they would help me if anything went wrong, but I wanted to do it myself. It was an incredible feeling when the chute opened and we began the final phase of the jump. You still have this heightened sense of everything around you and it’s an incredible feeling. The landing went perfectly and I loved the experience.
“We all want to keep our juices flowing and I think it helps get you ready for the season. It’s helps keep you focused and sharp.”
Smith makes no bones about the fact that he challenges himself physically for the rush it brings and the excitement it gives him. If it also helps inspire his players, so much the better.
“That’s not why I do it, but if my players see some of the things I’ve done and it makes them think I’m not an average coach, so much the better. They see that I will push myself and it helps when we have to push them on the practice field.
“I just hope they get the message: There’s so much more that life has to offer besides watching TV and playing video games. So many young people today are content to do just that. They don’t go into the army any more. Things like physical education are not even a requirement. As a result, some people will just get by and not find out what they are capable of doing. It saddens me a great deal.”
As a head coach at a mid-major level program, Smith sees himself as an educator and enjoys the opportunity he has to influence young lives. “I want to teach our players how to play the game and I definitely want to win,” Smith said. “I don’t think I’m different from too many of my contemporaries in that way.
“But when you are in a position to work with young people, you get the chance to teach them what you have learned along the way in life. You get to teach them how to be a real person by the way you deal with situations. People hear about the lessons of life all the way from childhood on up. ‘Be honest, do the right thing.’
“It takes a while to learn that, but people know when you’re being straight with them or being phony with them. If you being yourself and showing them who you really are, then you are influencing their life and hopefully teaching them something. It may not show up today or tomorrow, but eventually the message will get through.”
During the last four-plus seasons, Smith has enjoyed tremendous success with the Cardinals. He has turned the mid-major program from a 1-10 laughingstock to a consistent winner that finished with an 11-2 record last year and a victory over Brigham Young in the Liberty Bowl. However, Smith knows that mid-major programs that are in the process of climbing the ladder may be facing some difficulties in the next couple of years.
“One thing we want to do is constantly challenge ourselves and see where we stand against the other teams around the country,” Smith said. “The teams in the power conferences (the ACC, Big East, Big Ten, Big XII, SEC, Pac-10) have different agendas. They want to be in a position to play for the national championship. As a result, it’s getting more and more difficult to get games with those schools. If they put us on the schedule, it’s an opportunity for them to lose and miss out on the national championship. Teams from our conference and some of the other mid-majors don’t have the chance to play for that honor and in that respect it can get frustrating.
“However, if you get the chance to play the top teams during the season, you at least get a chance to find out where you stand. Now it’s getting more difficult to schedule the better teams. They don’t want to take a chance on losing and with the BCS (Bowl Championship Series) formula being what it is, that’s not likely to change any time soon.”
Smith’s Cardinals have gotten off to a bit of a slow start in 2002 as they absorbed losses to Kentucky and Colorado State sandwiched around a win over Duke. Smith is not the type to panic, but he is definitely the type to turn off the intensity level.
“We’ve changed practice and switched things up as coaches,’’ he said. “But maybe we haven’t given the kids enough credit... so we have to stop trying to make excuses for them and why they’re not getting it done and just force them to get it done.’’
Smith said he plans to demand more of his players and to get them to refocus in order to get their season back on track.
‘’The effort part of it is as much as anything,’’ he said. ‘’We had real good effort in certain areas but not even poor effort in other areas. That’s a compliment, to say it was poor.’’
Against Colorado State, special teams were a special disappointment, giving up a punt return for a touchdown. And the Cardinal running backs produced just 64 yards on 23 carries. Smith also expressed surprise that his defense was ineffective against the Rams.
“Our defense knew that they were going to have to carry us for the first half of the season, and that’s who we have to appeal to,’’ he said. “They’ve got to find a way to dig down and keep us in ballgames. We tried to sit down and make a point to the team that it’s not offense (at fault), it’s not defense, it’s not special teams, it’s not one person. It’s all of us that have to do our jobs, starting with the coaching and all the way through.’’
As a football coach, Smith has an original style and commands a very creative offense. His one RB set is one of the major reasons the Cardinals have gone from also-rans to the upper level of the mid-majors. Impressive offensive numbers became a trend for Smith when he was coaching at Utah State from 1995 through 1997. The Aggies became a prolific offensive team after Smith got there. They ranked ninth in total offense, 14th in passing offense and 19th in scoring during his tenure.
Prior to his stay at Utah State, Smith spent six seasons as the head coach at Idaho. His teams posted a 46-21 recording that time. The 1-AA school was ranked in the top 13 during five of those years. Smith coached 12 first-team All-Americans, including QBs John Friesz and Doug Nussmeier. Both of those players were drafted into the NFL.
When he got to Louisville, the Cardinals were coming off a 1-10 record. The team immediately turned around in 1998 and ‘99 with 7-5 records that included bowl appearances.
The 2000 season saw the Cardinals improve to 9-2 overall and capture Their first Conference USA title while Smith earned Conference USA Coach of the Year honors. The 2001 campaign, one of the best in school history, saw the Cardinals become the first team in C-USA history to win outright back-to-back league titles on their way to a convincing 28-10 victory over BYU in the Liberty Bowl.
The 2001 team was ranked among the Associated Press Top 25 for seven consecutive weeks to end the season. Eight Cardinal players were named to Conference USA’s first team.
Two of those players – QB Dave Ragone and DE Dwayne White – won C-USA offensive and defensive player of the year awards. Smith won his second straight C-USA Coach of the Year honors, the first coach in league history to do that.
But Smith would tell you that while winning awards is nice, it’s not the reason to be in the coaching profession. It’s the influence and impact on young people’s lives and so far Smith has excelled in those areas.
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