Growing up in a neighborhood where chasing dreams seems impossible, Quincy Smith persisted.
The 22-year-old University of Idaho student has endured a life full of obstacles and setbacks — the loss of his father, Hurricane Katrina and even being homeless on more than one occasion — all while growing up in a crime-ridden, New Orleans neighborhood.
“Things just never went my way,” Smith said. “I just never gave up. I don’t care how hard something is, I’ve never been a quitter … I can’t ever get content because the sky is the limit. But I don’t even think the sky is the limit — they say we went to the moon.”
On the word of a coach he had never met, Smith and his childhood friend Terry Johnson moved to Moscow — a place both had never been. They risked everything for a shot at their lifelong dream of playing collegiate football.
Back home
It was more than two years ago when Smith sat in his New Orleans home, hungry. Hungry for food, hungry for an opportunity.
“There was a point I’d look in my refrigerator, and for two weeks straight, we didn’t have food,” Smith said. “They only gave me and my mom $50 for food stamps … that’s not going to last.”
He had just returned home from Louisiana College in Central Louisiana, where it wasn’t any better. Smith said he was homeless and had to sleep on a friend’s couch, just so he could collect a $1,500 check to send home to his mother.
With his mother at home by herself, Smith decided to drop out of college and put his dreams on hold.
Smith’s mother Betty Smith said Quincy never gave up hope in the midst of all their family’s struggles.
“I wasn’t able to afford him everything, but he didn’t let that stop him,” she said. “He just kept pushing for what he wanted in life.”
With his stomach growling for food, Smith sat at his computer looking for opportunities to play college football. He estimated he sent 100 emails a day to coaches around the country.
Smith said he and Johnson finally found a coach after trying an alternative method.
“With Idaho, we tried something different. We called,” Smith said.
Bobby Daly, an Idaho graduate assistant, told them to send game tape so the coaching staff could determine if they were qualified to join the UI football program.
It wasn’t too long before Daly sent an email and invited both to try out as preferred walk-ons.
“At that moment, my whole life changed,” Smith said. “I cried when he sent me that email … I just always felt if I got this opportunity, I’d get an opportunity to change my mom’s life and give her a different style of living.”
This spring, Smith is preparing for what could be the last shot at his dream. Joined by Johnson, the two will attempt to earn a spot on the Vandal football team as preferred walk-ons.
The storm and the aftermath
In 2005, Hurricane Katrina battered the Gulf Coast and forced an estimated 1.2 million people to flee their homes.
“We lost everything,” Betty Smith said. “Our house flooded out.”
Smith’s former coach Jeff Curtis, an assistant football coach at John Curtis Christian High School, described the aftermath as a weird time for the community.
“For two weeks, all communication was very, very difficult,” he said. “Cell phones didn’t work, we had no landlines, it was all down — all communication was down.”
With the lack of communication, Lee Edmunds, who coached Smith throughout his childhood, said there was uncertainty on which families, if any, would return to the neighborhood.
“It was really tough,” he said. “You didn’t know who was coming back … or if everybody was just going to stay where they ended up.”
Thirteen years old at the time, Quincy said he and his parents were forced to evacuate and head to Tuscaloosa, Alabama, where they would spend the next three months living in a small hotel room.
“I was upset,” Smith said, at the thought of not seeing his friends again.
Smith said when his family went back to their New Orleans home, they walked into an unlivable house. With extensive damage, the luxury of a home would have to wait.
“We had to remodel our whole house,” he said. “We had about two feet of water … it had mold, mildew — we had to remodel everything.”
For an additional four months, Betty Smith said they moved from hotels to staying with friends and family until their house was repaired.
When things started to get back to normal, a different kind of storm rolled into Smith’s life. Betty Smith said as soon as their home was fixed, her husband’s health started to worsen.
“His daddy had a heart attack,” she said. “Everything started to change again in his life.”
Smith’s father Larry Smith spent the next several years going in and out of the hospital. Just over two years ago, Smith lost his father to a heart attack.
“That was one of the toughest days of my life,” Smith said. “That was the big turning point … I knew I wanted to be like my dad. I wanted to be the person he was.”
The loss came when Smith was away for his first year of college at Oklahoma Panhandle State University. It was the second of three times he was forced to drop out of school to move back home and be with his mother.
“By me losing my father, I lost everything,” Smith said. “Me and my mom, we went through a tough time … I had to put my dreams on pause.”
Smith said his father always wanted him to attend college and play football. When the doctor told him the news of his father, Smith said he was more determined than he had ever been.
“I knew if I’m going to play ball, I was going to be the best that I can be at doing it,” he said. “I’m going to make sure the whole nation knows my name. Regardless if I’m sitting on the bench, or whatever position I’m playing, I’m just going to try and be the best I can be.”
The South
Smith and Johnson grew up in Metairie, Louisiana, a metropolitan area of New Orleans. Smith said while some parts of Metairie are white-dominant and upper class, his neighborhood was the opposite.
“Growing up there was kinda rough,” he said. “A lot of people that were close to me are either dead or in jail.”
When Smith was 17, he said he was caught in the middle of a shootout on Fourth of July. Smith said he was walking with some friends when they heard the rapid gunfire.
“It’s the norm down there,” he said. “We just took off running.”
Calling the cops was out of the question, too. Smith chuckled at the suggestion.
“You don’t do that, oh no,” he said. “Ain’t calling no cops down South. That’s not what you do. That’s the wrong thing to do actually.”
Smith said local law enforcement almost killed their chances of playing college football.
“Me and Terry got racial profiled the day before we came to UI,” Smith said.
It was the first week of January 2014. The two, joined by a friend who Smith described as a white-blonde female, were sitting in a car outside of Smith’s house telling her about the upcoming tryout at Idaho.
All of a sudden, a police officer hopped out of his car, drew his gun and pointed it right at them.
“He asked, ‘What’re y’all doing in the car’ and had the gun drawn on me,” Smith said. “He grabs Terry out the car, slams him on the car, throws handcuffs on him.”
The cop looked at Johnson’s identification and because of his dreadlocks, the color of his skin and where he lived, assumed he had been to jail, Smith said.
Johnson denied the claim and Smith said the officer told him he was lying. Both pleaded with the cop and said they were in the car talking about their future at Idaho — he didn’t believe them.
“He said, ‘You ain’t going to no University of Idaho,'” Smith said in his best impression of the officer. “Thanking god that Terry’s friend was Caucasian … That’s what saved our lives.”
Both had grown accustomed to this kind of treatment, as Smith said this was a common occurrence and racism is still prevalent in the South.
When him and Johnson go back home, Smith said people don’t believe what they’re trying to accomplish in Moscow.
“People look down on us because they think we’ve changed,” he said. “We haven’t changed, we’re just chasing our dream.”
A bright future
Smith, fresh after a workout, attempted to catch his breath as he walked into the dark conference room.
As he sat down, his cellphone vibrated — it was a text.
It had been a year since Smith first arrived at Idaho, and because the NCAA ruled him ineligible. It was just another obstacle Smith had to hurdle. He attended school without playing football.
Still out of breath, he took out his phone to read what it said. As he stared at the message, the light from the screen hit his face and revealed a wide-eyed look of relief.
“I’ve been cleared by the NCAA,” Smith said as if he was trying to hold back the emotion. “I’m just thankful I never gave up.”
David Betts | Blot