From the Ville to Durham: Louisville basketball runs deep for Nolan Smith

While Louisville basketball legend Derek Smith’s son Nolan Smith has achieved his lifelong goals as a Duke player and coach, his Louisville roots run deeper than most realize.

Derek Ervin Smith is considered by many to be one of the greatest Louisville basketball players of all-time. He was a token stat-stuffer and contributor during his time at the university, meanwhile winning a National Title in Indianapolis, IN in 1980 and earned the heralded Metro Conference Player of the Year in ’81. Many folks to this day even credit Smith with coining the phrase “high five.”

Smith was taken in the first round of the NBA Draft by the Golden State Warriors and ended up spending nine years in the league with five different teams, scoring over 5,000 points along the way. Amidst his stellar athletic career, he had settled down with his then-wife Monica and embarked on building a family in Louisville, having a girl, Sydney, and a boy, Nolan.

Nolan Smith was born in a hospital in Downtown Louisville on July 25, 1988 and was taken home to a beautiful house in the Springhurst neighborhood in the East End of Louisville. As a young boy, being a Louisville fan, Nolan’s favorite color was red, being that the Smith household was 100% diehard Card and was completely decked out in red and black Louisville decor, understandably.

His sports icons growing up were Muhammad Ali, Darrell Griffith, Allan Houston, and Rajon Rondo. He had especially looked up to Rondo, who had played for the Derek Smith All-Stars basketball team as a young man growing up in The Ville. But even still, his true hero was his father.

Nolan’s father had ended his NBA playing days in 1991, so he had a lot more free time to spend with his blossoming family. It was these years that solidified an unbreakable bond between the father and son, and would become the jump-off point in young Nolan’s basketball progression. Nolan would ask his father to hoop and the elder Smith would oblige, though Derek never forced the hobby on his son, allowing him to carve out his own destiny.

In 1994, Derek Smith received an offer to be an assistant coach for the Washington Bullets (now the Wizards). Full of excitement and intrigue, he accepted the position and proceeded to move his family to the bustling DC area to get back to work. It was there, in the nation’s capital, that Nolan began attending advanced youth basketball camps, where he truly discovered his work ethic and his love for the game. The tight-knit bunch was living the American dream. Life was picture perfect for the Smith family.

Then one day, it all came crashing down.

On August 9, 1996 while on a Norwegian Cruise ship off the coast of Bermuda, the unthinkable happened. With his family on board with him, Derek was attending a party with members of the Bullets when suddenly he suffered a massive heart attack. Being on a boat offshore, there was seemingly nothing the crew could do to revive him.

Untimely, Derek Smith had passed away. He was only 34 years old. The news of his death sent shock-waves through the sports world and shook the city of Louisville and the University of Louisville fanbase to its core. Nolan had just celebrated his 8th birthday three weeks prior. He was absolutely devastated.

It’s hard to put into words the constant daily challenges of losing a parent at a young age like that. No longer could he turn to his hero for simple fatherly advice or turn to his immensely positive male role model for advice about becoming a man. Though his mother met these tribulations head-on with excellence, there was still a massive void left in the young man’s life.

Imagine the level of discipline, endurance, and mental toughness that Nolan had to muster up and exude throughout his childhood without his life coach, his protector, and his biggest fan. He could no longer look up during games and lock eyes and exchange smiles with his father. Never again would he walk out of school and see good ole dad waiting in his car to pick him up. These were the hardest and most trying times for the Louisville kid.

Some things he just had to figure out on his own. But what I told you his father would teach him essential life lessons even after he passed away?

Even as an eight-year-old, Nolan had witnessed his father’s focus and his hunger to excel in life, both on and off the court. Through a strong fellowship of friends and family, he was able to absorb lessons from the stories passed along to him about his father. It was through these stories that the message to be a great individual and strive to be successful shined through. It was in these messages that Derek Smith’s legend began to grow, and Nolan always felt like he was his father’s little shadow.

Through the fog of his childhood and adolescence and into his teenage years, the resilient young ballplayer found himself being highly-touted as he approached the decision of choosing which college to attend. The crafty, 5-star shooting guard had scholarship offers on the table from several schools across the country, but only two of which were ever considered: Louisville and Duke.

Throughout the entire recruiting process, Smith became emotionally embattled. Having been born and raised a Louisville fan, and son of Louisville royalty, his decision from the outside looking in seemed variably simple. But as much as Nolan considered himself his father’s little shadow, it was also this that inspired his ultimate college choice in the end.

Nolan knew that his father wanted him to find his own way and weave his own legacy together. Though he was a Louisville guy through and through, if he was to be a Cardinal, the heavy heart he would carry with him would be a great burden to bear for an entire collegiate career, having to follow in the identical footsteps that his father did at U of L.

If he was to attend Duke, a release from that pressure and emotional stress was within grasp. He could write his own chapters, while still being his father’s little shadow. With the guidance of Derek Smith’s former NBA teammate Johnny Dawkins, the McDonald’s All-American committed to play for Coach K at Duke on 1/12/2006. No one, not even Nolan himself, could have predicted the plot that was about to unfold.

After averaging just over 7 ppg in his first two seasons at Duke, Nolan caught fire his junior year along with the rest of the Blue Devils. He poured in 17.4 points, 3 assists, and 3 rebounds. And just like his father did 30 years prior, Nolan Smith became an NCAA National Champion, having won the title game in the same city his father did.

Storybook. Destiny. Legacy.

Nolan Smith is currently an assistant coach at Duke University, which hosts Louisville this Saturday. It’s always a conflicting time for Nolan and the Smith family. Though his wife, Cheyna, is a graduate of UNC, and the family resides in the lovely city of Durham, the Smiths will always cheer for U of L, and we’ll always cheer for Nolan Smith. The fact that Louisville joined the ACC is just another challenge in the life of the battle-tested kid from the 502.

Nolan is the only one from that Springhurst household that did not graduate from Louisville. The outside world would be astonished by all of the Louisville gear that the former Duke great still possesses to this day. His father, Derek Smith, is buried in Louisville’s Cave Hill Cemetery near KFC’s Colonel Sanders and a short distance from Muhammad Ali. His life-sized stone picture at his plot is recognizable to all.

To this day, Nolan Smith is perhaps the most overlooked, unmentioned, and unheralded college player to be born in the state of Kentucky. He was recently named to The Chronicle’s all-decade Duke Basketball team alongside the likes of Zion Williamson, Marvin Bagley, Jahlil Okafor, and Grayson Allen. As a senior at Duke, he won Conference Player of the Year, 30 years after his father did, and nearly won National POY, dropping over 20 ppg. and filling the void created by Kyrie Irving’s injury.

Through all of that turmoil, he was able to reach for his dreams and find this level of success and he is only 32 years old.

Not bad for a Louisville kid.