SIOZY
CoAch RAy Lee...
SmiTh's Hope
For tNe Future
I he people were coining up to Ray Lee,
shaking his hand, giving him hugs. Everybody
was smiling in his face. Who were these peo
ple, he wondered to himself. He also wondered
something else: Where had they been all
along?
This was October 1992, and Lee, 33,
4ohnsonC- Smith's football coach, a man
who'd never coachcd a college team before,
had just watched his team beat nationally
ranked Glcnvillle State at Memorial Stadium.
The win was significant.
It was homccoming, for one, and in the
past. Smith.'* homecomings had ever been
pleasant things. The Bulls had lost four of them
in a row and had been outscorcd in them 142
38. *
But the '92 season, so far, had been a little
different. Smith had been close in games; there
were no 80-6 type finals that had so littered
Bulls hoxscorcs in years past.
The fans were coming back, loo, sensing a
renaissance in a team thai many had written off
for dead. At Smith, fall had become little more
than a waiting period for the Bulls powerhouse
basketball team to get started. Pans from
opposing teams would ridicule Smith fans dur
ing football games, and the Bulls fans would
always reply, "Wait til basketball season." .
But now, hoops were a long way off.
Smith had just beaten Glenville 13-10 in front
of about8,000fans, one of lhe Bulls largest
crowds in several years. The fans were begin
ning to believe again. The players, now, most
certainly did. They raised fingers high in the air
? coaches, players and fans alike. Finally,
they all knew it: the Bulls could beat anybody.
"That was the biggest turning point in our
season," Lee said.
He says it now, with hindsight, knowing
what happened. Lee went on to lead the Bulls
on a four-game winning streak, the school's
longest since 1970, and a 5-5 record.
This was no longer that same ole Smith
that showed up, got blown out, but always had
the best band on the field (fans used to actually
come to watch the first half, the band at half
time and then leave). Somehow, Lee had found
a way to make a team that had gone 2-16-1 in
its past two seasons competitive. This was sig
ni 4 icant, too.
"What he was doing," said Delano Tuck
er, Livingstone's head coach and Smith's
CIAA conference member, "was unbeliev
able."
For background,
consider these facts:
In the 1990 season,
under coach Horace
Small, Smith, had been
outscored 305-95 and
finished 0-9. In 1991,
under coach John Wright,
the Bulls were outscored
291-140 and finished 2-7-1. And
after the '91 season, Wright
deduced that winning
at Smith was impos
sible. The Bulls had.
too few
scholarships,
he said,
and
morale
was
Sivmh's ForFeIt CoNfusiNq
In what could Milt he a season lo
remember, Johnson C. Smith coach Ray
Lee has had an awful start.
The Bulls were forced to forfeit a
game with Morehouse to start the season.
Smith is protecting the game.
What happened was this: with the
game tied at 14 and eight seconds left,
Morehouse kicker Eddie Rhodes lined up a
17-yard field goal attempt. It was blocked
by Smith's Kwame Shaba/7, and the clock
eftpired. The players began to leave the
field.
But the referees had thrown two flags:
one, an illegal procedure on Morehouse,
and the other, an offsides against Smith.
The officials ultimately ruled this
game a 1-0 forfeit f<* Morehouse after
Smith didn't return tafSpfield for the extra
play they ruled to be warranted by the
infractions. But Bulls coach Lee said that
was never clearly explained to him.
The ref told me he had offsides and
illegal procedures," Lee said, "So, I said.
Fine that's it. I asked (the official). Is that it,
is it over? He turned and walked away."
Lee felt that action meant the game was
over. Obviously, the officials disagreed.
they met with Morehouse coaches and gave
ihe Maroon Tigers a win.
"1 think in the best interest or the
schoqls and the community that you just
play (the extra mandated play) and then
protect the game," said Morehouse coach
Craig Cason.
NCAA football rules secretary John
Adams said there are several different sce
narios which could occur whee those two
penalties called and the game conti ued or
the game he over . It really depends, he
said, on what the refs called.
In this case, we don't know. SIAC
commissioner Wallace Jackson, at press
time, hadnl released the officials report nor
made a statement on the game. Smith offi
cials had hoped to obtain a copy before
making their announcement to protect pub
licly, but Elliott Robinson, the school's vice
president for financial affairs, said the
SIAC office hadn't made the report avail
able to them before that time.
Because Morehouse was the home
team, (he protest letter will be filed to Jack
son's SIAC office, not the CIAA office of
which Smith is a member.
Coach Ray L** Smith
take a miracle," to change the program.
And Wright, trying to spread 12 scholar
ships among 46 players, felt he had no such
miracle. But Lee was a little different
"I looked at all the negatives as a chal
lenge," Lee said.
Challenges. You try recruiting high
school players with just 12 scholarships to give
out, and nearly e.very other recruiter can
promise the kid everything north of Egypt.
You end up getting fewer and fewer star
players, and you end up losing more and more
games. Losing builds on itself. No one wants to
play for a losing program, and you try telling a
kid that, yes, he can have the opportunity to
help turn something around, but before he can
do so. he'll have to qualify for financial aid.
So coaching at Smith is tough. There are
no secretaries to answer calls and handle prob
lems or specialists to make sure the field is
shiny and clean. Coaches do all of that. And
when Lee got to Smith last year, this is just
some of what he was faced with. All that and
this, too:
M1 saw a team full of talented players in
certain spots and players waiting for someone.
to grab them and take them somewhere,"
Lee said. "Some looking for leadership and
guidance and others just looking for someone
to sit down and listen to their problems."
Lee talked and Lee listened. He also put a
poster of championship rings on the wall
in his
office. Every time a player came to see
him, he had them look at the poster.
"Why?" he'd say to them. "Why can't we
order some rings like those one day?"
The players would always begin to offer
an answer but find themselves choking on the
words.
"There's no reason you can't," Lee would
tell them over and over and over again.
"All 1 can do is prepare the players I've
got to perform/' Lee said. "The way you do
that is with attitude. If you get your players
believing they'll make a play, and that they'll
win, their perfornuuite will go up. When that
happens, you'll win." And Lee hales to loae.
"You kAow I go to all of the games, and I
often think that if those players only knew how
he is after they lose, they'd never lose," said
Lee's wife. Sue.