BALTIMORE – You’ve probably heard of Torrey Smith, the football player.
He was a sure receiver for the Ravens, instrumental in leading Baltimore to a Super Bowl title in early 2013. He later won a second NFL crown with the Eagles in February 2018.
Have you ever heard of Torrey Smith, the baseball player?
Baseball was Smith’s best sport. He gave up because it was too expensive.
“I was super competitive,” Smith told USA TODAY Sports. “And then when I got to high school, when I started to really understand what money meant, I thought, ‘Man, you can’t keep doing this.’
“The (baseball) teams were like, ‘Oh no, we’re going to pay you to play.’ But endless weekends, fall and spring, where you’re at someone else’s expense… I felt embarrassed that I always had to be with someone else’s parents, knowing that my parents couldn’t really help much.”
Smith’s life was at a crossroads, like those of the children he now interacts with through Level 182, an organization he founded to empower families and communities in Baltimore.
Smith chose football, which led to a scholarship to the University of Maryland and an eight-year career in the NFL.
His circumstance, however, really made the choice for him.
Smith’s life in rural Virginia constantly moved from shelters to hotels or other temporary housing situations. His mother, Monica, lived in an abusive marriage, and her home was threatened by drug abuse and physical violence.
Sports became his outlet, a place where he could escape. Children not only need access to sports, but also environments where they feel safe.
“I don’t think everyone really understands how important it is to just be normal,” he told an audience at the Project Play Summit earlier this month while on stage at the UA House, which serves the city’s youth.
Smith, 35, is married and has three school-aged children. He’s now on the other side, living in the suburbs of Baltimore. His organization, which he runs with his wife, Chanel, works to ensure that hundreds of inner-city children have opportunities in sports like those that so profoundly shaped him.
Level 82 is an acronym for Leadership, Education, Vision, Effort and Love, followed by your football number. Smith shares how these core values can serve all of our children through their participation in sports, regardless of their economic situation.
(Questions and answers are edited for length and clarity.)
1. Leadership: As a parent or coach, know that your children are always watching
Smith grew up as a nomad in and around the Northern Neck area of northeastern Virginia. Before he was 16, he estimates his family moved 20 times. The eldest of seven children, he was the father figure in their unstable home.
To find stability, he turned to coaches and teachers, the men who drove him home from practice whenever his mother worked two jobs. He saw how they spoke to their wives and did not use physical violence. He watched how his first black coach, Greg Daniel, behaved and welcomed a boy into his family.
He took all of these tips with him into fatherhood.
“Kids watch you more than they will ever listen,” says Smith.
USA TODAY: How has everything that happened in your childhood shaped you as a father and mentor?
Torrey Smith: Most people who are parents have good intentions, but there is no manual. I had to learn to adapt, even as a sports parent. We expect you to be disciplined, we expect you to be respectful, as if these are our home values. So when you play sports, we want to see exactly the same thing. But I think the way we got to this point has been a lot of growth for me, learning from other parents, observing, asking a lot of questions and just trial and error, figuring out what works best. And I think our kids are at a stage right now, they’re still very young, but they’re at a stage where they’re really thriving. And I think they’re able to connect the dots of what we really want on and off the field.
2. Education: Sport and school feed each other. You learn from mistakes in both
No matter what she was going through, Smith’s mother never let her grades slip.
“I once got a ‘C’ mid-semester,” Smith said, “and she kicked me off the basketball team.”
If you’ve ever been an athlete, you know how your commitment to a team and your commitment to staying with it can increase your grades.
Through its Project Rampart, which outfits Baltimore high school teams with athletic apparel, Under Armor cites that the city’s graduation rates increase from 70% to nearly 93% when children play a sport for four years.
Even with her young children — sons TJ, 10, and Kameron, 7, and daughter Kori, 5 — Smith sees how sports and academic performance can feed off each other.
USA TODAY: Are you involved in your children’s sports?
TS: All of them. It’s interesting just watching the kids. All of our children are doing very well in school. They are doing very well in sports. You see the growth there. And we’re putting them in more challenging environments. I think a lot of parents and kids want to feel comfortable. But I’ve learned throughout my life playing sports that growth doesn’t happen when you’re comfortable.
I treat everyone the same. If my son isn’t doing his work, he’s right there next to me. I don’t do “Daddy Ball” because it’s not about that. It’s a matter of understanding, ‘I have to do my job right or I won’t have the opportunity.’
That’s how life is. We give them opportunities to make mistakes. Not that they have to be perfect, but I love teaching them that you can’t just do whatever you want and expect good things to happen. You have to work. You have to be disciplined. You have to do your job. And our children thrive. It is built over time. It is built through relationships. It’s gotten to the point now that our kids come in, they’re excited… “Coach, I did it. I had a great day at school. I did a great job on my test. I studied and worked for it.” Victory is the understanding that the habits you can acquire from sports will take you far if you really stick to them.
3. Vision: Have a positive image of what you want to become
Smith sees himself in the faces of the children he mentors in West Baltimore, the ones who long for connection. He offers his hand.
He remembers conversations with his coaches growing up about always having good character. These conversations helped reveal a vision for his own life.
USA TODAY: WWhat are your expectations for your children, given their athletic success?
TS: To be themselves. I don’t call; they don’t need to play sports. If you just wanted to be in a band, well, you better give your best effort to that band. I didn’t want them to play football right away. My wife said, “No, they need to play.” And they love it. They want to work out. These are things I didn’t put into them. I only played ball with my son for the first eight years. I didn’t do any training with him. I didn’t do anything other than train. There was no extra time spent. Now he wants to do these things. Their goal and expectation is to be the best version of themselves, and then know that no matter how far they go, whether short or long, we will always be there for them.
4. Effort: Don’t spoil your children. Let them face adversity.
“I’m not going to lie,” Smith told local radio host Rob Long on stage at the Project Play Summit, “but raising privileged kids when you didn’t grow up privileged is a tough job. task.”
Many in the crowd laughed.
“I’m serious,” he said. “I want them to have the life lessons I had without trauma and the best way to do that is through sports and challenging them.”
One way we can always challenge ourselves is through effort. Effort builds winners, but it also allows us to overcome defeats.
USA TODAY: Greg Olson spoke to us about emphasizing development over winning. How easy is it to execute this?
TS: Winning is a byproduct of doing things the right way. So regardless of the talent of your child, or a group of kids, if you do things the right way – they’re disciplined, they’re coachable – if they play hard, you’ll win. I’m not going to say you want to lose, but the idea is: are they improving? Winning is not the only measure of success.
Some kids in our seven-on-seven program haven’t even missed a youth game. So when they lose, they’re like, “Ohhhhhhh… the world has ended.” I’m like, “Life is going to happen like this. Things will happen. How do you respond?”
I love adversity. I think a lot of times we kind of babysit kids and coddle them when they need to sort these things out to be better players and, more importantly, to be better people.
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5. Love: Show kids, but let them create their own experiences too
The emotional scars of Smith’s upbringing remained. He didn’t feel comfortable telling anyone he loved them until he met his wife. For Smith, love is an action.
We demonstrate this when we take our kids to practice or a game and, perhaps more importantly, when we don’t push too hard when the game doesn’t go our way.
USA TODAY: What kind of sports coach and parent are you?
TS: I learned not to talk to my kids about bad games. Good games, you encourage them. Bad games, let’s not talk about it right away. We’ll talk about this later. It’s always important to remember, no matter who you’re coaching, when you’re coaching a child, it’s still your child.
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USA TODAY: What would you say to parents who raise athletes or educate them through sports?
TS: Let them be themselves. Let them run their own race. Often, it is the parents who want to force them to accelerate this strength and do certain things. … This will not happen. I don’t really like forcing children to do things outside (team activities). When we are there, we will be working. I won’t let you be lazy. If they’re hungry for more, continue to feed them and water your plants so they can continue to grow.
USA TODAY: Right. And don’t put pressure on them.
TS: No pressure. … Let the pressure come from, “I expect you to be respectful of your coaches and teammates. I don’t expect you to go undefeated. I don’t expect you to score 20 points a game or 20 field goals a game or three touchdowns a game. I just hope you do your best.”
Editor’s note: If you can’t find a sports team or program, go to your local YMCA or recreation center. There may be free recreation organizations in your area, such as Volo Kids. You can also find organizations like Every Kid Sports and Leveling the Playing Field that cover registration fees and provide equipment for income-restricted families.
Steve Borelli, also known as Coach Steve, has been an editor and writer for USA TODAY since 1999. He spent 10 years coaching his two sons’ baseball and basketball teams. He and his wife, Colleen, are now sports parents to a middle school and high school senior. His column is published weekly. For his previous columns, click here.
