Hard hit down the line
^ .r i i&i
m WtS
.
Dan Bnindl Emerald
Senior linebacker Matt Smith has proved he is one of the top linebackers in the conference. As it turns out, he h one of the best in the
country. The former baseball player is a semi-finalist for the Butkus award, given to the nation’s top linebacker.
Fruit — fresh or frozen;
fresh veggies, too.
We blend & juice just for you.
No added sugars,
fillers or fluff.
To have the best smoothies
we use only good stuff.
Bagels and baked goods
and munchies abound.
If you want a snack,
it's here to be found.
Espresso or drip — cold or hot;
if you want the best coffee,
Ernesto's is the spot.
%
Mondays - Saturdays • 346-1100
s In the REC CENTER « 15th & University • New Expanded Menu • We accept Campus Cash v
»•% «ifc #5^/w# w#
■ Matt Smith tried his hand at baseball before realizing that he
was better suited for the hard-hitting action on the gridiron
By Jeff Smith
Oregon Daily Emerald
It’s springtime in Eugene. The sun
is out and there’s not a cloud in the
sky.
It’s a perfect day for a ballgame.
On this particular spring day
there is an “intense” intramural
softball game being played on the
large grass area near Hayward Field.
It’s the fourth inning — the criti
cal point in all six-inning intramu
ral games.
In the invisible dugout, Joey Har
rington and Justin Peelle stand and
cheer on their teammates. Standing
on second base is Garrett Sabol,
who is itching to come around the
bases.
And slowly walking to the plate
is a certain Matt Smith, who has
been in this situation before. Smith,
the starting middle linebacker for
the Ducks’ football team, knows a
thing or two about baseball, consid
ering he played it for four years in
the Kansas City Royals’ minor
league organization.
Smith digs in and eyes the slow
moving softball as it floats through
the air and comes toward home
plate. He swings and ... the whiff.
Strike one.
“Oh come on Matt!,” a teammate
jokes. “It hasn’t been that long for ya
has it?”
Smith smiles sheepishly and
squares his eyes on the pitcher. In
the intramural rules, two strikes
mean a strikeout.
The pitch floats high and comes
down to him again. And again the
result is a big miss, ending the in
ning.
“Now you see why I don’t play
this anymore,” said Smith in be
tween a few laughs. “I can’t hit. ”
Oh, Smith can hit all right; it just
turned out that he pursued the
wrong sport out of high school.
Put him in front of a curve ball
and all he’ll hit is the air.
Put him in front of a quarterback,
however, and he’ll leave the quar
terback gasping for air.
I ve always enjoyed the intensity
of defense and love to make those
big hits,” Smith said.
Those hits, as well as those fum
ble recoveries and those intercep
tions and those leadership skills
and on and on, have brought Smith
success at Oregon.
“He’s Mr. Turnover,” head coach
Mike Bellotti said. “He’s one of the
guys that have helped make this
thing go. Matt finds a way to get it
done.”
Smith looks like a football player.
He stands 6-foot-4 and weighs in at
247. His body is lean. When he’s se
rious about something people know
it because his eyebrows move closer
together and his lips tighten.
“He would sure scare me if I was a
running back and I saw him coming
right at me,” wide receiver Mar
shaun Tucker said.
When Smith is off the field, he is a
gracious 24-year old man who
makes sure to say his pleases and
thank yous.
When he’s on it, though, he’s a
tough, gritty linebacker who leads
the team with 50 tackles and who
has been selected as a semi-finalist
for the Butkus award—given to the
nation’s top linebacker in honor of
legendary Chicago Bears linebacker
Dick Butkus.
“The Butkus award, what more
can you say?” Tucker said. “That’s a
great accomplishment and I hope
that he gets it because he’s one of the
great linebackers in the country.”
Not bad for someone who spent
five seasons in the minor leagues
trying to make it first as a consistent
hitter, then as a pitcher.
Smith graduated from Grants
Pass High School in 1994, where he
was a two-sport star in both baseball
and football. Even though he was in
close proximity to the Ducks, he
signed a letter of intent to play both
sports at Stanford. At the time, Ore
gon was coming off a 5-6 1993 sea
son and Smith had no idea that the
Ducks would reach the Rose Bowl
that next season.
So it was on to Stanford.
Or so he thought. Then, money
talked.
Smith was selected as the 16th
pick in the first round of the 1994
Major League Baseball amateur
draft by Kansas City. The Royals
proceeded to give Smith a one mil
lion-dollar signing bonus, which
was too much for the then-18-year
old to turn down.
“At that point, I had to give base
ball a try because it was always my
dream,” Smith said. “It was an ex
tremely tough decision, but obvi
ously, it was too good of an opportu
nity to pass up.”
In five seasons in the minors,
Smith finished with an average of
.243 and knocked out 17 home runs.
In his final season in baseball,
Smith tried his hand at pitching,
where he finished with an 0-3
record and a 3.81 ERA. A sore elbow
in his pitching arm told him that it
was time to call it quits.
So he decided to come back to
school and earn his business degree
at Oregon, still undecided about
football because he had been away
for so long.
But the date of Nov. 8, 1997
would change all of that. Smith at
tended the Oregon-Washington
football game up in Seattle and
crazy thoughts began creeping into
his mind.
“I just really missed football, and
that got me going again,” Smith
said.
£>o wnen quarterDack Akili bmith -
connected with receiver Pat John
son on a long receiving touchdown
to beat the Huskies, Smith was sold.
He walked on to the football team
and made it. Since he had already
signed a professional contract, he
had to pay his way through college.
He didn’t mind. He was just
pumped to strap on the pads again.
The rest is history. He has re
gained his football mindset and the
attitude that helped him earn the
Oregon class 4A defensive player of
the year award after his senior year
in‘93.
And now he is one of the main
reasons the Ducks are ranked sev
enth in the country and on the verge
of perhaps making one of the few
Rose Bowl appearances in school
history.
“This program is on the rise and
it’s fun to be a part of it,” Smith said.
“This is what you dream of.”
Smith admits, though, that his
dreams growing up were equal for
his two sports.
“If it was football season, I want
ed to play in the Super Bowl, and if
it was baseball season, I wanted to
play in the World Series,” he said.
Smith still finds time in his busy
schedule to follow baseball, espe
cially the World Series.
“I’d say the Yankees will take it,”
Smith said earlier in the week.
“They have so much experience
and they’re just too tough. I don’t
see many flaws in them. ”
One could also say the same thing
about Smith, even if he still can’t
connect on the curve.