OK, my age is starting to hit home. During Thursday night's Game 1 of the NBA final, I thought I heard that former NBA player Randy Smith had passed away and then the phone rang. It was University of Toronto head coach, and former National Team assistant, Mike Katz. He asked me if I heard what Mike Breen had said and then there was silence on the phone for a second.
Katz, an outstanding shooter and great player in his days at the school he now coaches remembered playing against Smith.
"He turned out to be a pretty good NBA player for a late (7th) round pick," said Katz.
Smith was one of my first basketball heroes. My brother and I shared a room when we were kids and with no desk, we regularly did our homework at the kitchen table while listening to Van Miller, the voice of the Buffalo Braves, call the game with names like Smith, Bob McAdoo, Ken Charles, Jim McMillan and the like scrap with the NBA's best. A local guy and Buffalo State grad, Smith was lightning fast with the ball. He could fly for his size and had a money jumper. Plus, with the world witnessing the civil rights movement in the United States, Smith's giant afro hairstyle was a social sign of the times. He was the NBA ironman playing 906 straight games, until A.C. Green surpassed him in 1997, and won the NBA All-Star Game's MVP award.
As a kid one of my biggest thrills was standing in the tunnel at Maple Leaf Gardens. Following our high school team playing a preliminary game before the Braves were set to take on the Atlanta Hawks. I stood close to Smith and McAdoo and then raced over to the other side to hang out in the other tunnel where "Pistol" Pete Maravich was about to appear. Yes, I stood close to the legendary LSU grad as well.
Smith was 60 years old and died of a heart attack while working out on a treadmill.
On a personal note, it was goodbye to another Randy. One of my high school teammates at the powerful basketball machine known as the Oakwood Barons, Randy Padmore was killed in a car accident and laid to rest last week after another driver ran through a red light and hit his car. He was on a simple errand as he had visitors and he wanted to make sure there was enough sustenance for a Saturday night of watching hockey and basketball for friends visiting him. He was only supposed to be gone a few minutes.
He was one of the best teammates I ever had. Randy always had a line, a quip, a glib comment that broke the tension of a moment. He was at ease conversing with everyone regardless of the peer group. Those of you old enough to remember high school where there was every group from the "in-crowd" to the "nerds", well it didn't matter to Randy as he could be at home with anyone. In chemistry class there was Boyle's Law and Charles' Law but Randy could hang with any group. Randy epitomized what we called back in the day "Meminger's Law" which said, in order to play ball, you've got to be good at hangin' out.
Randy had a white sports car in high school and when we headed to an away game or tournament, everyone wanted to ride with him. He was into music and if the late James Brown was "soul brother number one" well, Randy was "soul brother number two." Between guys like Randy and our centre Derrick Lewis they introduced me to musical artists like the Ohio Players, Johnny "Guitar" Watson and Parliament. Those were not names you heard on mainstream radio back in the day.
His passion for music and hoops in high school was the same later in life as it spread to his work with the Alexandra Park Community where he grew up as a youngster.
Randy is the second of our group to be taken from his family and the rest of us far too early and I know this one fact. If there is a game going on "up there", Randy brought the ball, is keeping the score, has the music going during the run and will make sure everyone has something to drink after because "if you're gonna play ball, you better be able to hang out."
