Smith: Hardaway will 'get it done' at Memphis
IRVING, Texas — They stood near the baseline of a basketball court Saturday afternoon and conducted a reunion of sorts.
Tubby Smith, Alvin “Pooh” Williamson and Steven Goodson were all in the Dallas area this past weekend to attend recruiting events as part of college basketball's first evaluation period.
A little over a month ago, before Smith got fired by Memphis, they were on the same staff together and would have all been in Tigers’ gear from head-to-toe.
Now, however, Smith wore a sweater vest with a High Point logo on it.
Williamson, who served as one of Smith’s assistant coach at Memphis, had no school colors. He was content to scout players as an unattached observer and wait until his contract at Memphis expires next month before officially beginning a new job he declined to disclose.
Goodson, Smith’s director of basketball operations at Memphis, was also unaffiliated and using this weekend to network with other coaches and players around the country.
This transiency and uncertainty, Smith explained, is something he learned to embrace over the course of 27 years as a college head coach at seven different schools.
“I move on. There’s nothing that I can [do],” Smith said. “You don’t dwell on the past when that happens. It’s happened before. You do the best you can and that’s it. If that’s not good enough, there’s nothing you can do.”
Smith quickly landed in a new job as the head coach at his alma mater, part of the reason he holds no ill toward Memphis at this point. He was officially hired by High Point on March 27, less than two weeks after his twoyear tenure at Memphis ended.
Smith finished with a 40-26 record with the Tigers, but university administrators terminated him and hired Penny Hardaway largely due to financial concerns surrounding the men’s basketball program.
Smith is still owed nearly $10 million from Memphis, which he will collect in addition to the money from the five-year contract he signed with High Point. Terms of his deal at High Point, which is located about 30 minutes southwest of Greensboro, N.C., have not been released.
Despite his abrupt departure from Memphis, Smith has not publicly
criticized his former employer. He even offered a measure of support for Hardaway when asked if he'd look back on his time at Memphis negatively due to how it ended there.
“I’m going to do what I’ve always loved doing,” Smith said. “It’s unfortunate and I wish Penny well and I’m sure that he’ll get it done there. I always felt like Memphis had the resources to get the job done and we left some pretty good players there, a team that won 21 games and had everybody back except Jimario Rivers.”
Smith will have a familiar face helping him at High Point.
Smith said his oldest son, G.G., will serve as his associate head coach at High Point. G.G. Smith was previously the head coach at Loyola (Md.).
Saul Smith, who was an assistant coach at Memphis under his father, is currently pursuing a different coaching opportunity elsewhere, according to Tubby Smith.
Smith said he wasn’t necessarily planning to coach next season and initially rebuffed High Point’s advances. But High Point President Nido Qubein kept pursuing Smith through his wife, Donna, who was the first African-American homecoming queen at High Point. He eventually persuaded Smith to return to his roots.
Smith played four years at High Point (1969-73) and donated $1 million toward the university's new on-campus arena and conference center. The basketball court will be named in honor of Tubby and Donna Smith.
Smith is one of two coaches to ever take five different schools to the NCAA tournament. Memphis is the only school he failed to get to the postseason.
High Point, on the other hand, has never qualified for the NCAA tournament. For Smith, however, it’s never been in his DNA to “dwell on the past.”
“It’s sort of home for me because I spent four years there, met my wife there,” Smith said of High Point. “We have some things to deal with just like any other school, whether it’s Memphis, Tulsa, Georgia. It’s a new job, and we’re getting there. I’m excited about it.”