FULL CIRCLE
How a 32-year-old East Catholic graduate, Naval officer and Vanderbilt walk-on is back home to play against UConn
With the summer weight-training sessions ending and fall practices approaching Vanderbilt senior linebacker Elijah McAllister decided it was time for the annual ritual, asking the new guys to introduce themselves to the entire group.
“It was our first players-only meeting and I introduced myself, gave a very brief snapshot of my background, where I was coming from, above all else that I was happy to be with these guys and, it was pretty funny, I couldn’t even finish what I was saying, they
just started clapping and chanting ‘U-S-A.’ I got kind of shy and embarrassed,” said Tommy Smith, an active Naval officer and 32-year-old walk-on for the Commodores, who host UConn on Saturday at 7:30 p.m.
Smith’s backstory included growing up in South Windsor, Connecticut, playing football and hockey at East Catholic, making the football team at Notre Dame as a walk-on,
then serving three tours in the Middle East with the U.S. Navy. That’s what prompted
the players to erupt.
Now a lieutenant commander, Smith is studying for a master’s degree at Vanderbilt’s Owen Graduate School of Management. He is married and a father of two small children. Both he and his wife, Allison, a former swimmer for the Naval Academy, are still on active duty.
“The first day of fall camp, that day has a lot of emotions, a lot of things going through my head,” he said. “I’m proud this culminated as the result of a lot of hard work and dedication, but above all else happiness
because it’s exactly what I wanted as far as being part of a team, 94 guys on our team working toward one common goal. It’s exactly where I want to be.”
The 6-foot-1, 226-pound Smith was a walk-on defensive back at Notre Dame in 2009, part of the team that lost in overtime to UConn on Nov. 21 at South Bend. Now he is listed as a tight end, trying to earn his way onto the field for the first time — most likely be on special teams — against UConn a dozen years later.
“UConn had a great year that year and played a great game that game,” Smith said. “It’s an interesting and special to be playing again 10 years later and be playing UConn again. Yeah, the similarities in how everything is going full circle are pretty neat.”
The idea of playing football again hatched for Smith in 2014, when he learned of Tom Hruby, an active Navy Seal in his mid-30s who walked on at Northwestern. The NCAA allows five years to play out four years of eligibility, but when athlete leaves school for active military duty, the clock stops. Smith, who was on scholarship with the Navy ROTC at Notre Dame, played two years, then graduated and left for dive school in Florida and a stint as explosive ordnance disposal officer before his deployments.
Seeking a master’s through a Navy program that allows time for a postgraduate degree, Smith enrolled at Vanderbilt. Through a mutual friend from Notre Dame, Smith reached out to the Commodores’ new coach, Clark Lea, who embraced the idea of having such a seasoned leader to serve as an example for his players.
“The reception was great,” Smith said. “Nobody said anything negatively about my experience, about my age, no doubt or anything about my ability and willingness to come out and prove myself, and that’s all I wanted, an opportunity.”
At East Catholic where he played for coach Bill Baccaro, Smith was impressed with the way players from his school and Cheney Tech blended to form a winning co-operative program. As captain, Smith had three interceptions and five touchdowns and was named all-CCC as the team went 8-2 his senior year.
“Coach Baccaro was an influential person in my life,” Smith said. “How he ran the program was so admirable. We were almost like a case study, the dichotomy between East Catholic and Cheney Tech, a vocational school and a Catholic school. We’d get together every afternoon — guys from East Catholic in their jackets and ties and guys from Cheney Tech in their autowork jumpsuits — and we’d all come together and play football. The lessons I took away were on the football field but also how to be a good, upstanding man and how to be a contributing member of society no matter what kind of team you’re a part of.”
Being part of a team is what was missing in Smith’s already hectic life when he decided to dive into the college football experience one more time. At Vanderbilt he’s found a voice as a mentor on any number of topics and has found common ground with his teammates, often bringing his 2 ½-year-old son to practice, where he loves fist-bumping all the players.
“I feel like the only person who brings up the age difference is me,” Smith said. “When we talk about music, sometimes, the guys like to play a lot of music from when I was in college, or in high school, and I’ll say, ‘This song came out when I was in my first summer camp,’ and they think that’s hilarious. I want to fit in, but the age also has its benefits. I want to become a better mentor. That’s something I want to be when I go back to the Navy, and I want to help these guys.
“They ask me great, great questions about what I was doing at their age, or how do you do your taxes, or information about an LLC and why that might be a good idea. Every guy I’ve met on this team has something special and I can see myself working with them if they ever wanted to be in the military or in business later on. I’d be happy to have any of them again as a teammate.”
The Commodores (1-3) are struggling, coming off a 62-0 defeat to Georgia in their SEC opener, but one thing Smith has taken away from this season so far is how the players and coaches talk about “winning the response” after a loss.
“That’s something I’m learning here as a football player that I’m going to bring to the rest of my life,” Smith said. “It doesn’t matter what just happened, it matters how you win the response and what’s the next step you take.”