Most basketball players don’t play for high schools that win national championships. Most don’t play with NBA stars and powerful forces in college basketball. Most don’t go to college and become dominant players almost immediately.
Wesley Smith ’11 is not like ‘most’.
Smith is a graduate of Lawrence North High School in Indianapolis, and was a teammate of Greg Oden and Mike Conley. Both Oden an Conley dominated high school basketball before going onto Ohio State and then to the NBA Draft, where Oden was selected first overall and Conley was selected fourth. With a team like this, it’s easy for Smith to look back fondly on his high school years.
“Up until now,” he said, “they were probably the greatest years of my life so far. My junior year we won the national championship as the consensus number one team in the nation. We traveled everywhere –we went to Chicago, Las Vegas, California – it was a great team. We’ll go down in 25 years when we’re older and have kids in the Indiana High School Basketball Hall of Fame so that’s a good accomplishment, along with out three state championships.”
Smith has transitioned well from Lawrence North to Wabash, not only starting as a freshman but putting up big numbers for the team in scoring, assists and rebounding. His attributes have contributed greatly to the team’s impressive 13-6 overall record.
From the moment he got on campus, Smith developed a mentor in basketball player and Malcolm X Institute Chairman Earl Rooks ’08 and a friendship with his roommate Dominique Thomas’11.
“I came here,” Smith said, “on my first visit and I really bonded well with Earl Rooks who’s a senior on the basketball team right now. I also met Dominique Thomas. Me and him came at the same time for a basketball visit. We really pretty much gelled from there.”
As of this semester, Smith is a full member of the MXI. Smith’s transition from high school to college basketball came with some major lessons learned.
“I’ve learned about being humble,” he said, “and being humble is a big key that I have to adjust to. I’m adjusting pretty well I think. I was used to sellout crowds and here might get no more than 600 people. I remember our first game against Kentucky Christian and we were warming up and I could count maybe 15 or 16 people. It got to me, I’ll be honest.”
“I think it was coach who first said we need to start winning,” he continued, “and when we start winning, as we saw like we did this year on four or five game win streaks, people will come out and support us more. Just like the football team – they had a great season last year and I think in the NCAC they had the greatest attendance at home. So, I figure once we get that win streak going on and people will really get a feel for our basketball team and see we’re that good and what we’re capable of.”
Being able to start as a freshman necessitates not only innate talent, but competition amongst other talented players. For Smith’s basketball career from AAU to high school he has played some of the greatest basketball talent in the country.
“My conference in Indianapolis is the MIC,” he said, “and is one of the toughest conferences in the Midwest. We had some amazing players come out of this conference - Josh McRoberts from Carmel, Greg Oden from Lawrence North and Eric Gordon from North Central.”
“That shows you just how powerful that conference is,” he continued. “I’ve been used to playing against the top competition in the nation and in summer league AAU we traveled to Las Vegas, Arkansas, Texas, Florida and we played against number one, number two, number three guys in the nation.”
“I’ve got all of the jitters out by now,” he added. “As a freshman and being young people think I’d be rattled or something – that’s not the case, I actually just want to get out there if anything. I’m used to playing against the top people so the tempo hasn’t really changed.”
An event on campus did rattle Smith last semester though. On December 26th, when he returned to campus after Winter Break just before the basketball team went off to San Antonio, he found carved on his dorm room door in College Hall a two word threatening racist phrase.
“The first thing I did,” he said, “of course was call Earl. Earl comes over here and looked at it. At first, he couldn’t see it either. But when you saw it, you saw it – you couldn’t miss it. He called Dr. Lake, the Director of the MXI and he told us to call the police. The only people I could call on campus at that time was Coach Carpenter and Coach Petty. So I called Coach Petty and we talked and they gave me the option of getting a hotel, going to the MXI or staying with Earl.”
On January 3, President Patrick White sent out an email informing the Wabash community about this event but naming neither Smith nor Thomas as the victims of this message.
“We took it to the MXI when everybody got back and talked about it in the meeting,” Smith said. “What made me cringe my teeth was a guy that sent an email out and was complaining about his car that had been broken into five times. I know how he feels, but what he said about his door being broken into and in our situation was different - we had to call the FBI. He was making a joke online saying his car had been broken into five times and the FBI and CIA had not been called for his car.”
Smith noted the MXI decided to take action to remind students of what happened.
“The main thing with the MXI is that we are trying to make sure the thing does not go in the past,” he said. “It has been since December, but the door is still in front of my room. We want people to know what happened and how it affected us. We have a forum planned to get the whole school involved to get everyone more aware of what really went down. Our biggest thing is to make sure it never happens again.”
Smith’s uncanny basketball career and his strength of character through a difficult time seem to show that he is definitely not like ‘most’.