[Congressional Record Volume 144, Number 40 (Wednesday, April 1, 1998)]
[Senate]
[Page S3012]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                       CONGRATULATING TUBBY SMITH

 Mr. SARBANES. Mr. President, I rise today to congratulate a 
native son of Southern Maryland, Tubby Smith, who, as a first year head 
coach, led the Kentucky Wildcats to victory in this year's NCAA 
Basketball Tournament. This event is a historic one as Tubby Smith 
becomes only the third African-American to coach an NCAA men's 
championship basketball team at an institution that, at one time, did 
not allow African-Americans students to participate in basketball. It 
is for these reasons that I am particularly proud to congratulate Tubby 
Smith, a fellow small-town Marylander, on behalf of athletes and 
citizens nationwide who appreciate the value of opportunity and 
victory. Mr. President, I ask that an article on Tubby Smith, his 
family and life in Scotland, St. Mary's County, Maryland from the April 
1, 1998 edition of the Washington Post be printed in the Record.
  The article follows:

                [From the Washington Post, Apr. 1, 1998]

             In St. Mary's, a Champion's Family Celebrates

                         (By Jessie Mangaliman)

       In the modest one-story cinder-block home in Scotland near 
     St. Mary's County's southernmost point, Tubby Smith's large 
     family--he has 16 brothers and sisters, 10 of whom still live 
     in Southern Maryland, and 38 nieces, nephews, grandnieces and 
     grandnephews--gathered yesterday at the family home to 
     celebrate a victory by one of their own.
       It was family-style: in the kitchen over a cup of coffee or 
     in the den in front of a television tuned to a sports 
     channel.
       But in some ways, this victory encompasses a larger family. 
     That's because Tubby Smith, the winning coach of the NCAA 
     champion University of Kentucky Wildcats, was the first 
     African American coach of a school that once barred blacks 
     from playing on its basketball team. On Monday, he brought 
     honor to that school and the country when his team, which 
     included his son, Saul, won the national basketball title, 
     defeating Utah 78-69.
       ``I think he's proved them all wrong,'' said his jubilant 
     sister Ramona Smith, who lives in Scotland, the tiny farming 
     community of several hundred people six miles from the 
     Chesapeake Bay. ``He's made a believer out of everybody. His 
     coaching record speaks for itself; he just happens to be 
     black.''
       ``Yes, my God, we are proud of Tubby Smith,'' declared 
     Frank Dove, manager of the Mixx Lounge and Grill in Dameron, 
     a nearby community, where more than 100 of Smith's friends 
     gathered Monday night to watch the game and toast him in his 
     victory. A sign outside the lounge on Route 235 proclaimed: 
     ``Congratulations, Tubby Smith.''
       ``You can't help but smile to think that Tubby, who is 
     liked by everyone here, came from being a farm boy to what he 
     is now. We are proud,'' said Dove, who opened the lounge, 
     usually closed on Mondays, to Smith's friends and family.
       ``You want to talk about the coach of the year? He's my 
     coach of the year . . . for life,'' said William Smith, one 
     of Tubby Smith's younger brothers who joined the crowd at the 
     Mixx.
       ``He's the greatest!'' said Guffrie Smith Sr., Smith's 
     father, who worked three jobs while helping to raise his 
     family: He drove a school bus, fired boilers at Patuxent 
     River Naval Air Station and barbered.
       Guffrie, 79, and Parthenia, 72, still live in the five-
     bedroom home where Tubby grew up. Guffrie, with the help of 
     his uncle, a share-cropper, built that house in 1963 so that 
     the family could move out of a farmhouse that lacked indoor 
     plumbing.
       The Kentucky coach might be known as Tubby--the young boy 
     who liked sitting in his grandmother's wash bin so much that 
     he didn't want to leave--but his given name is Orlando.
       ``He was an obedient child,'' Parthenia Smith said. 
     ``Weekdays he went to school, and on Sundays he went to 
     church. He was not allowed to play ball on Sundays.''
       But he was also a hard-working child, said Dove, who has 
     known Tubby since he was an infant. Even at a young age, he 
     helped his father plant fruits and vegetables on the family's 
     five acres of land.
       ``The whole family is like that--a churchgoing, hard-
     working good family. That's the bottom line,'' Dove said. 
     Yesterday afternoon at the Smith home, there was only one 
     subject of conversation: Tubby.
       ``Every time Tubby came on, somebody holled, `Tubby's on!' 
     '' said Ramona Smith, a guidance counselor at Great Mills 
     High School. ``We're still flying high, and we haven't quite 
     calmed down yet.''
       Neither Guffrie nor Parthenia finished high school, but 
     from the beginning, education was one of the family's most 
     important values, the parents said. It paid off, Guffrie 
     Smith Sr. said yesterday, for most of his 17 children have 
     college degrees, including Tubby.
       ``He called last night after the game, and he said, `Hey, 
     Mama, did you see me on TV? I told him, yeah and I thanked 
     the Lord [for the win] because I was so nervous,'' said 
     Parthenia Smith, who conceded that she could not stop smiling 
     in disbelief.
       At Great Mills High, Tubby Smith scored 1,000 points in 
     three seasons before graduating, helping unite a racially 
     divided school in 1967 with his athleticism, according to his 
     brother Odell, who was in Texas to watch the game Monday 
     night.
       Tubby Smith played for four years at High Point University 
     in North Carolina. Then he coached in high schools, including 
     at Great Mills. One of his college coaches, J.D. Barnett, 
     later hired him as an assistant at Virginia Commonwealth 
     University. Barnett went on to the University of Tulsa, where 
     he was fired as head coach and replaced by Smith in 1991.
       Under Smith's coaching, Tulsa went to the middle rounds of 
     the NCAA tournament. He went to the University of Georgia in 
     1995, leading his teams to two NCAA tournaments.
       Last year when Smith became the first African American 
     coach of the men's team at the University of Kentucky, a 
     paper there published an open letter from a black staff 
     member warning him that the school was not ready for a black 
     coach. ``I fear for your safety,'' she wrote.
       ``There are good and bad people everywhere you go,'' 
     Parthenia Smith said. ``I told him that I didn't like what 
     she said. But that made me nervous more than anything else.''
       ``He's a good man,'' Smith's father said. ``The boys 
     believe in him.''
       Guffrie Smith, who has had multiple bypass surgery, said he 
     had no doubt his son would come through a champion, but the 
     thrill of Monday night's game was too much for his heart.
       At halftime, when the Wildcats were behind 10 points, 
     Guffrie Smith stood up, paced around the living room and the 
     shut himself in the bedroom. He came out only after the 
     Wildcats had won.
       After the game Monday night, Tubby Smith said: ``It's 
     obviously something that is special. It's probably the most 
     noteworthy thing that has happened in our family as far as 
     family achievements.
       Smith said he plans to visit his family in St. Mary's 
     County in the next several days.
       On national television, he thanked his relatives in St. 
     Mary's because he knew they were watching. The family 
     gathered at the Mixx lounge hooted and hollered, toasting 
     with champagne.

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