When Larry Harold, then the football coach at Macon County High School in Georgia, first met Roquan Smith, he was 1-for-2 in his assessment of the young man.
Harold had just been hired as the varsity coach, and Smith was playing basketball as a freshman. Harold caught one glimpse of Smith, then about 175 pounds, on the hardwood and pegged him as a football player.
He got that part right, but only after a little convincing. Smith was fixing to stop playing football and focus on hoops. His father had been a talented basketball player, and the sport was his first love.
"I was obviously very good at football, but I had my mind made up that I wanted to be a basketball player," Smith said.
"I just told him, 'Man, you're not a basketball player. You're a football player. Give me one year and I will show you you're a football player,' " Harold said. "Changed his number. Changed his position, and here we are today."
Harold incorrectly guessed Smith's age. The youngster had done a little background work on the coach who was taking over a struggling program. Smith told him he knew Harold had been an offensive lineman at Southern University and then ticked off a couple of schools he had worked at previously as an assistant.
"I thought he was a rising senior," Harold said.
"No, Coach, I'm just a freshman," Smith said at the time.
"I was blown away," Harold recalled. "I thought, 'Oh my God, we got us one.' "
The Bears are confident they got themselves one too after selecting Smith with the eighth overall pick in the NFL draft Thursday, making him the club's highest-drafted linebacker since they took Waymond Bryant fourth overall out of Tennessee State in 1974.
Smith, 21, left Georgia with one year of eligibility remaining as one of the most decorated defensive players in program history. Last fall while leading the Bulldogs to the national championship game, he was the Butkus Award winner, SEC defensive player of the year and a unanimous first team All-American.
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'He hasn't changed'
The first move Harold made was changing Smith's number from 68 to 1. The previous coach had been grooming Smith to play — get this — center and defensive end. Harold wanted his best defensive player to wear No. 1 so he issued a new jersey and changed his positions. All of a sudden, Macon County was a contender.
"I am an offensive coach and I know what hurts me on defense is a linebacker like that in the middle," said Harold, who with his wife attended the draft as guests of Smith. "If he played defensive end, I can run away from whatever side you are on. You put that kid in the middle and there is no running away from him. He gave a lot of people pain.
"I knew he would be a big-time collegiate recruit but I never foresaw a top 10 draft pick. It's surreal. A lot of it has to do with who he is off the field. Great young man. He's humble. He's low-key. He hasn't changed. He is still the same kid despite whatever fame or fortune football has brought him."
Smith was raised in Marshallville, Ga., a tiny town of about 1,300 with no stoplights. Don't blink as you're passing through or you will miss it. He also lived in Montezuma, with a little more than 3,000 residents the largest town in Macon County, one of the smaller counties in the state with about 15,000 people.
Agricultural businesses dominate the economy of Montezuma, which is about 125 miles south of Atlanta. Macon County leads the state in production of dairy, sod and Georgia's most famous product: peaches. Samuel H. Rumph, the father of the commercial peach industry, lived in Macon County when his business took off in the 1870s after he developed the Elberta peach.
Macon County High School has now produced two Bears. Ervin Baldwin, a 2004 graduate who played at Michigan State, went to the Bears in the seventh round of the 2008 draft. He never played for the Bears, and his NFL career lasted three games with the Colts in 2009 before a stint in the Arena Football League that began with the Chicago Rush in 2012.
"I remember Ervin came back to the school and he spoke," Smith said. "I was in the fifth grade maybe. That was big. He was someone you looked up to. I definitely feel like I can inspire those kids and show them that there is a way out. A lot of the kids look up to me as a huge figure and it's awesome."
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Hometown hero
Harold used Smith at wide receiver and he led the team in receiving. He moved him to running back and he led the team in rushing. The coach also used Smith as a wildcat quarterback and returner as Macon County quickly became a playoff challenger. Colleges were quick to notice Smith, with UCLA the first to offer him a scholarship.
Smith remained loyal to the Bruins all the way up to national signing day, when in a gym packed with red-and-black clad Georgia fans he pulled out some UCLA gloves and put them on to announce his commitment.
But, he never signed a letter of intent because of the uncertain status of UCLA defensive coordinator Jeff Ulbrich and some apprehension from the small-town kid about playing across the country in Los Angeles.
When Ulbrich took a job as the Falcons' linebackers coach days later, the door was open for the home-state school, and Smith committed to the Bulldogs nine days after signing day.
"I thought he handled it pretty well," Harold said. "Shows what kind of kid he was under pressure. He had been kind of misled by a university and I told him that day, 'I am not submitting any papers until you are absolutely sure.' He wanted to go to UCLA. They gave him so much love. But he grew up wanting to be a Georgia Bulldog. That was always his dream. He was kind of torn.
"He was so uncomfortable with the decision but we had to do it because we had ESPN there, every major media market was there on signing day. I kind of told him behind the scenes, I am going to hold on to these papers until you are certain. He let out a big sigh of relief because he was so tense."
Smith took off as a Georgia sophomore under defensive coordinator Mel Tucker, who had held that position for the Bears from 2013-14. Smith was the catalyst, at least on defense, in 2017 as the Bulldogs won the SEC championship game for the first time in 12 years and fell just shy of their first national championship since 1980, falling to Alabama in overtime in the title game.
"Words cannot describe how much Roquan has meant to our program," Bulldogs coach Kirby Smart said in a statement after Smith declared for the draft. "The accolades he has received are a testimony to his ability as a player. But he has also demonstrated on and off the field the qualities of a great leader who has commanded the respect of all his teammates as well as our coaching and support staffs."
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Small town, big pride
Back in Macon County, they're not surprised to see Smith's rise to the NFL. He was on the dean's list in high school and a two-time SEC academic honor roll selection while pursuing a degree in economics.
"I felt like (the economics major) would challenge me," Smith said. "I thought it would definitely be worth it at the end of the day in case football did not work out."
In the summers during high school, Smith drilled wells and pumps — dirty and dangerous work in the hot sun. He was a godsend to his boss, Roy Yoder, who had just had his left hand crushed by a 40-pound chunk of metal.
"He's got a work ethic you won't believe," said Yoder, 62, who owns stock in the Packers but will now cheer for their rival. "I didn't have to tell him to go to work. He wants to do what he has to do in order to get the goal he wants. He sets it out there and he looks at it and says, 'OK, this and this and this and this needs to be done and I wanna go do it.' He does it because he wants to not because he has to, and it makes a whole different man out of him.
"I don't know how to quite express it, but I have learned more from him than he has from me. I just play in the mud because I enjoy what I am doing. Roquan is enjoying what he's doing. This guy has made Macon County so proud. To have someone come out of here like this ... y'all better treat him right."
Macon County also produced Antonio Cochran, a defensive lineman who also played at Georgia, then had 15 { sacks in seven NFL seasons from 1999-2005. But Smith is the biggest thing going there, as evidenced by Montezuma Mayor Larry Smith announcing that "Roquan Smith Day," complete with a parade and party, is in the works.
Former Macon County Principal Dr. Rickey Edmond said Roquan Smith's legacy already is in place.
"Coming from a high school setting, students don't always get along with each other," Edmond said. "Roquan had that presence where he could be a problem solver by simply making a statement. He had that type of impact on his peers and they responded to him.
"He has always been a pillar of example for others. Actually a lot of the kids now talk about Roquan Smith, and he's been a motivational piece for a lot of the children in the community."
Several Macon County players have followed Smith's path to FBS college football, including Arizona quarterback K'hari Lane and former Colorado State wide receiver Detrich Clark.
"A lot of kids from Macon County dreamed of playing college ball once he started getting recruited," Harold said. "The kid started an unprecedented movement in that town that lives today. That was always Roquan's dream — he wanted to be the one that made it out.
"I told them he is going to be the best kid to ever come from Macon County, and they were so upset when I first said it. 'You don't know what you're talking about. You're not from here.' Now, there is no discussion whatsoever.
"It's a small town with a lot of pride and a lot of tradition, but like I tell them all the time, 'There's only one Roquan Smith.' "
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