Dispatch
In sight of THE SUMMIT
Troy Smith?s path from troubled child to Heisman Trophy favorite
Friday, December 08, 2006
Ken Gordon
THE COLUMBUS DISPATCH
Irvin White was Troy Smith?s foster father from the time the OSU quarterback was 9 to 12 years old. White stands in his suburban Cleveland home with photos and trophies of his kids, including Smith.
Ted Ginn Sr., Cleveland Glenville High School?s football coach and a district security officer, and Troy Smith consider themselves father and son.
Ohio State stars Troy Smith and Ted Ginn Jr. played for Cleveland?s Glenville High School. The Tarblooders are a perennial power.
NEAL C . LAURON Troy Smith might have a Heisman Trophy of his own on Saturday. This one was won by Vic Janowicz in 1950.
PHOTO COURTESY OF THE WHITE FAMILY A boyhood photo of Troy Smith.
The 9-year-old boy lingers on a Cleveland football field after a game, sobbing. No one is there to pick him up. No one had been there to cheer him on. Fast forward a few years: The 16-year-old, a promising high-school quarterback, sits in a heap on his coach?s office floor, frustrated at the direction his life is heading.
Fast forward again: The sometimes-volatile child of instability has become the calm, smooth leader who piloted the Ohio State football team to a 12-0 record and a berth in the national championship game.
The child who had no one to cheer for him is now cheered by hundreds of thousands of people ? especially as he heads to New York, where on Saturday he is expected to win the Heisman Trophy, awarded each year to the nation?s best college football player.
As a boy, Troy Smith was at times bitter and angry, never really knowing his father and enduring a four-year separation from his mother. As a teen, he felt alone and betrayed by private-school coaches. As a young college student, he could be edgy and outspoken, his enormous potential threatened by immaturity.
His road to the top was filled with obstacles, but also with a few people who helped him along the way.
Foster - parent support
Practice was over, and the boy had no place to go. Tracy Smith had serious problems in her life and was unable to care for her kids, 13-year-old Brittany and her younger brother, 9-year-old Troy.
Troy?s coach on the Glenville A?s, of the Cleveland municipal league, stepped in.
"He was a very personable, likable kid who I suspected was having problems at home," Irvin White said. "I took him home with me."
White called the Cuyahoga County Department of Children and Family Services and learned that the agency was aware of the problems. Brittany went to live with an aunt, but Troy was headed for foster care.
That?s when White and his wife, Diane, agreed to become Troy?s foster parents. Nurturing was their nature. They had four children of their own, ages 12 to 26 at the time. And Mr. White?s mother had taken in more than 250 babies in what then was called an infant-care home.
Thus began four years of much-needed stability in Troy?s life. He shared a bedroom with Irvin III, 12, the Whites? only child living at home.
"He fit into the family like that," Mr. White said, sitting at the dining-room table in his and Diane?s modest home in Bedford, just east of Cleveland.
Then as now, the Whites operate a drapery and blinds business out of their basement. "Troy used to help me fold drapes," Mrs. White said.
Mr. White, 57, is full of energy and laughter. He recognized Troy?s budding talent as a quarterback and was adamant that he be trained at the position rather than being switched to something else.
Smith has fond memories of those years.
"It was difficult because I didn?t have my biological mother, but it was actually a good time, because (the Whites) instilled some things in me that I hadn?t gone through yet," he said. "They were great parents."
Even so, his situation wore on him. It affected his personality and his relationships with others. Young Troy developed a nasty temper.
"He?d get angry when he couldn?t get his way or angry when he couldn?t control the situation," Mr. White said. Sometimes it showed during football games. "I used to go out to the huddle sometimes: ?Troy, chill man, please,? and he?d put that lip out and get up in that lineman?s face and say, ?You better not let that man through again!? Or if somebody dropped his pass, he?d go, ?Why did you drop my pass?? "
Out of respect for his mother, neither Smith nor the Whites wished to detail the personal turmoil that caused her to give up her children, and she did not respond to repeated interview requests. Court records show that Tracy Smith was twice convicted of drug abuse and served time in the mid-1990s.
"She just got messed up on some stuff," Mr. White said.
He told the story of one Christmas Eve when he had Troy buy his mother a watch as a gift. When they went to deliver it, "We couldn?t find her," Mr. White said. "We looked all night until about 9 o?clock. Troy looked at me and he said, ?Do you think Mrs. White would want the watch?? "
Eventually, however, Tracy Smith pulled her life together and regained custody of her children. Troy was 13 when the time came to go back home.
It was not easy on the Whites or Troy.
"The last thing me and my wife wanted to do was give up Troy," Mr. White said. "We were in love with the boy. And Troy sat in our house and boo-hoo cried ? me crying, my wife crying, while Tracy is downstairs and we have to deliver him back to Tracy."
He stopped at the thought, choking up.
"It was hard. It was one of the hardest things I ever had to do in my whole life, because we?d been with him for four years," he said.
At the same time, it was a triumphant ending to Tracy?s struggles.
"I had never seen a person so determined to completely change her life, and she did," Mr. White said.
Despite the painful separation, Mrs. White is proud of Smith?s mother.
"I give her all the props in the world," Mrs. White said. "Things happened, but she loved her kids and everything, even when she was having problems. For what she went through and came out of, that lady is my hero."
Old friends at Glenville
The teenager sat on the floor of Ted Ginn Sr.?s office, frustrated and angry and confused.
Troy Smith was 16. He?d been reunited with his mother three years earlier, but it hadn?t gone smoothly. First, he had to adjust to being back home.
"I was so bitter about her being away," Smith said. "I was still a baby, and I still wanted my mother and she wasn?t there. But through our growth as family members, we got through it. We talked a lot, and she always let us know that it?s OK for us to explain and tell her exactly how we feel."
The Whites had sent several of their own children to a private school. With their encouragement, Smith went to St. Edward High School in Lakewood for his sophomore and junior years.
There, he said, he often felt isolated as a black student on a mostly white campus. The coaches moved him from quarterback to receiver and other positions.
Eventually, he began to feel more like a commodity than a person.
"I think it just came from people who saw me for one thing, and that was a football player or a basketball player," Smith said. "And they just tried to use me, as opposed to grooming me."
He was suspended from playing sports at St. Edward after elbowing an opposing player on the basketball court during his junior season. Smith said the player taunted him with racial slurs.
Troy transferred to Glenville High School, in his old neighborhood on the east side of Cleveland, where Ginn was building a program and serving as a positive influence for kids facing drugs and strife.
The two had known each other for years. Ginn was the father of Smith?s old municipalleague pal, Ted Ginn Jr. But now the elder Ginn had a chance to turn Smith?s bitterness and anger into something positive.
It began on that difficult day in Ginn?s office.
"I guess it was (the fact that I had been) lied to for so long," Smith said. "When I say being lied to, I was led astray. I was always told that I was better than what I really was. Once I got to Glenville, there were kids that could run faster than me, that could jump higher than me, that were far beyond me. And so I used to think like I was the best of the best, and it was nowhere near like that.
"I was young and I didn?t know, and I was ticked about life because I didn?t think a lot of things were fair, but I didn?t have an understanding of what life was really about then."
That came with time, much of it spent around Ginn. The veteran coach, now 51, has a cluttered basement office where he recently managed to find time to talk about Smith, at the same time as he showed film of his players to a college recruiter, gulped down shrimp fried rice and root beer and ignored the constant ringing of his cell and office phones.
Ginn does not have a college degree and is not a teacher. He is a blue-collar man who, on this particular day, was Officer 49, wearing his school-district security guard uniform.
He is what Troy Smith needed: down-to-earth, straighttalking and sincere.
"I?m different to him, because he knows I?m going to be like this and I?m not going to fake him out," Ginn said. "He needed somebody he trusted and cared about that?s not going to trick him or tell him nothing wrong, and that?s me.
"That?s something he had to learn from me, because so many people have been in his life, telling him this, telling him that. Everyone wanted something from him, as a player or whatever. There?s nothing that I could?ve gotten from Troy. All I wanted was the best for him."
The two developed a strong bond, to the point that they now consider themselves father and son. Smith?s biological father, Kenneth Delaney, never has been part of his son?s life.
"Sacrifice and humility, those are two things to me that exemplify the man," Smith said of Ginn. "He was willing to sacrifice everything around him for somebody else?s kid."
And Ginn had good reason.
"Troy is the type of kid, if you get in on the trust side, you?re in. Once you get in, I think he loves so hard that he almost smothers you. He doesn?t have a temperature gauge. It?s either all the way or nothing."
Drawn to OSU
OSU coach Jim Tressel had been taken by Smith?s passion and spirit from the time he offered him a scholarship in the summer before his senior year at Glenville.
Tressel warned Smith that the Buckeyes already had a commitment from quarterback Justin Zwick, a star recruit from Massillon, and that Smith might not play much at first. His position was listed as "athlete" by the university on signing day.
"He loved to compete, so that?s when I fell in love with him," Tressel said. "But my biggest test was when I said to him that first fall, "You may not get to play much quarterback, I'm going to be honest with you.?
"And he said, "What's most important to me is being at Ohio State." That told me what this guy is made of. I didn?t really need to delve into his background or anyone else?s opinion about him."
Smith and Tressel seem like something of an odd couple. Smith is fiery and emotional. Tressel isn?t. The coach certainly gritted his teeth early in Smith?s tenure, especially when the latter spoke out about a lack of playing time and his not being allowed to scramble in the 2004 spring game.
From the time he arrived at OSU, Smith had been hugely popular with his teammates. But he hadn?t yet grasped what it meant to be in a high-profile position.
"I worked on Troy a lot," Ginn Sr. said. "If you?re going to be the quarterback at Ohio State, there?s a certain image you have to have. You can?t be over in a corner laughing and grinning."
Eventually, Tressel?s way won out. Five years under the coach have served as something of a finishing school for Smith, who has always been good at learning from others.
"He?ll absorb people?s knowledge and spend time with people he needs to be around to make him better," said Rod Smith, a former OSU player who is no relation to Troy but is Diane White?s son by an earlier marriage. "He and Tressel right now understand each other and have a great relationship."
Smith said Tressel has taught him a lot about how he presents himself. In interviews, he unfailingly deflects praise and credits teammates, coaches and even the school?s academic counselors for his success.
Tressel "has really added more of a sense of being humble," Smith said. "It?s not what you say, it?s how you say it. It?s not what you do, it?s how you treat people that, in essence, is everything.
"You have to learn that there?s a time and place for everything. Some of the things that you might want to say are not going to be as beneficial as just shutting your mouth."
That was perhaps never more apparent than in December 2004, when the young man sat chastened and worried, wondering what he would hear from the coach who held his career in his hands.
Smith had just admitted to accepting $500 from an Ohio State booster and learned that he would be suspended for two games, the 2004 Alamo Bowl and the 2005 season opener. At 20 years old, he had shown tremendous promise in his first real playing time at OSU, but now he had jeopardized that.
Smith remembers what Tressel told him in that meeting.
"It was a blunt thing," he said. "It was an understanding that, ?We want you to be the quarterback, and you?re either going to step up and be the leader or not.? And I totally, totally respect him for that. I mean, how much more real could you want? "
In Tressel?s understated way, it was an ultimatum.
"We needed to make it clear that we were going to ask for reinstatement" from the NCAA, Tressel said, "and we wanted him to be fully aware that if we had another error, there probably wouldn?t be an opportunity to ask for another reinstatement. So don?t make us all look dumb." Once back from the suspension, Smith got serious about becoming the best quarterback he could be. He spent more time in the film room, often bugging Tressel and assistant coaches to sit with him for extra study sessions.
Ginn Sr. thinks the suspension also was when Smith stopped thinking only of himself and started to realize how his actions affected others.
"I think it woke him up," Ginn said. "He let his teammates down. I think that helped him. He saw how valuable he was, and that helped him to realize that, ?There?s some things I need to change, because people are depending on me.? "
Triumphant home finale
Much has happened to Troy Smith since that day two years ago, most of it good. He graduated with a degree in communications in June and has continued to take classes to remain eligible for football.
Everything culminated on Nov. 18, Senior Day, Smith?s final home game.
The 22-year-old, who 13 years earlier had stood alone and sobbing on a Cleveland football field, soaked up the thunderous cheers of more than 105,000 fans in Ohio Stadium.
He ran across the field, stopped and embraced Tressel, and then continued to where his mother, his sister and Ginn Sr. awaited. The four shared a long group hug, during which, Ginn recalled, Smith said, "Y?all aren?t going to make me cry. I?ve got a ballgame.? "
And what a ballgame he had. Smith threw four touchdown passes to help beat No. 2 Michigan and send the Buckeyes to the national title game on Jan. 8 in Glendale, Ariz. It was OSU?s 19 th straight victory, all with Smith at the helm. He now is 25-2 as a starter.
Smith shared that pregame moment with those closest to him, just as he plans to share this weekend?s Heisman ceremony.
"Seeing my mother?s face, getting a chance to take her to New York, somewhere she?s never been and I?ve never been, we?re both going to enjoy it tremendously," he said. "With my family around me, I?ll definitely think about some things I?ve been through with them."
He?ll think about the tears and boyhood pain, the teenage angst, the hard lessons and growing up in college. But he won?t regret any of it.
"To tell you the truth, there?s not a situation I?ve been through that I?m not grateful for," Smith said, "because it had to happen to make me who I am."
. But I see him going in the second or third:( 
