To recruit an overqualified new member to his staff, a Florida high school football coach had to produce a job description so open-ended that it would be impossible to turn down. So, the gist of the letter Carl Smith received from Darrell Sutherland was rather simple: Come by when you please.
“It was a guilt trip without making it sound like a guilt trip,” said Sutherland, the head coach at Bartram Trail High School in Jacksonville.
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And the plan worked exactly as he had hoped.
“I went every day for the next two years,” Smith said.
After all, what else did Smith have to do? The year was 2007, long before he joined the Texans this offseason as Deshaun Watson’s new quarterbacks coach for the latest stop in a 30-year NFL coaching career. Back then, the Jaguars had just fired Smith after two seasons as offensive coordinator, and immediately moving on to another NFL gig would’ve required breaking a promise.
When Smith moved his family to Florida from Los Angeles for the Jaguars job, he told his youngest son, Nick, a receiver for Bartram Trail, that he would finish high school there. No more moving until Nick graduated, just like Smith had once promised his elder son, Tracy, now the Texans’ assistant special teams coordinator.
So, rather than take another job in pro football, Smith tried to learn Spanish, took real estate classes, campaigned door-to-door for Barack Obama’s first presidential campaign and showed up to every Bartram Trail football practice.
He could’ve been the high school’s offensive coordinator, but he figured this was about his son, not him, so he became the volunteer quarterbacks coach instead. In that role, he worked with Kyle Parker, a highly coveted recruit who would go on to play football at Clemson before pursuing pro baseball.
“Kyle was very, very emotional,” said Carl Parker, the quarterback’s dad and the high school’s offensive coordinator at the time. “He wore his emotions on his sleeve a lot. But when Kyle went to Clemson, he was one of the most level-headed guys there. I credit that to Smitty. He told him he needs to be the head, not the heart. … My wife and I spent a lot of time trying to keep Kyle in check, but that seemed to resonate.”
Bartram Trail coaches were always waiting for Smith to dispense some invaluable football knowledge that most people only learn in the pros, but getting that out of him proved difficult. Not wanting to show up the rest of the staff or embarrass his son, he only spoke up if asked for his opinion in meetings, Sutherland said. And when he coached players, he kept his points simple.
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Once, after the younger Parker made a mistake in practice, Smith pulled him aside, and some coaches leaned in to hear what brilliant nugget Smith was about to share. Sutherland even pulled out a clipboard, ready to write it down.
“You can’t do that crap,” Smith told the quarterback.
Sutherland didn’t need to write much, but he did learn from the moment and the rest of his time spent working with Smith, who helped simplify the school’s playbook and its terminology.
“It’s not how much we know,” Sutherland said. “It’s how much our players absorb. It’s how you present it.”
Smith presents everything with an at-ease nature. At 71 years old, he still comes to Texans practices wearing receivers gloves and a backwards hat that doesn’t contain his curly gray hair.
Whether at a high school in Jacksonville or NRG Stadium in Houston, Smith talks to his quarterbacks about “the tree of life” — a list of life accomplishments, sorted from good to bad, that is supposed to provide perspective on how important an interception really is. He seeks to reduce whatever anxiety his players feel.
“There’s a perception that you have to be uptight as a coach,” said Seahawks quarterback Russell Wilson, whom Smith most recently worked with before joining the Texans’ staff. “The reality is, the quarterback position is (already) the most unique position in sports, the hardest position in sports. It’s hands-down the most difficult mental, physical thing to do in the world when you’re talking about sports. The reality is, you have 11 guys on the other side trying to take your head off.”
Wilson thanks Smith’s laid-back coaching style for his late-game success, and the Seahawks owe thanks, in part, to Bartram Trail High School for helping them find their quarterback. During the draft process, Smith phoned Parker, his high school QB, to get intel on Wilson. The two played minor league baseball together.
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Seattle’s decision to select Wilson worked out, of course. He’s now an MVP candidate. And in Houston, Smith is coaching another contender for the award in Watson, whose improvisational style offers shades of the Seahawks’ signal caller.
“With his addition and his knowledge, coaching way back in the ’80s, to the ’90s to the early 2000s, to coaching Russell Wilson the past couple of years — it’s been a beautiful thing,” Watson said.
Smith agrees, although an unpaid sabbatical spent a couple levels of football below the NFL also had its perks for the easygoing coach. He spent mornings relaxing on the beaches of Amelia Island, northeast of Jacksonville, where he had a home. Then he’d show up to Bartram Trail practices and work for free. On the sidelines, he’d tell his fellow assistant coaches, “This is the best job.”
(Photo of Nick and Carl Smith courtesy of Nick Smith)
