Denny O'Brien: Winding path leads Smith to latest challenge

Pirate Notebook No. 238
Friday, April 22, 2005

By Denny O'Brien

Rick Smith, East Carolina's secondary coach, has spent all of his 24-year college coaching career and one season in NFL- Europe on the defensive side of the ball. (Photo: ECU SID)

Read Ron Cherubini's commentary about the significance to the ECU program's future of Skip Holtz's "long-toothed" staff of assistants...

Like many of his fellow assistants on the East Carolina football staff, Rick Smith has a resume that is long on achievements, short on fluff.

The list of stops he has made during his professional journey is long and distinguished, and the coaches for whom he has worked and the capacities in which he has served is quite a testament to the level of expertise the Pirates now have supervising their secondary.

Alabama, Baylor, and Kentucky are among the many gigs Smith has landed throughout his 24-year career, and legends Grant Teaff and Bill Curry are just an example of the mentors under whom he cut his teeth in the coaching business. All totaled, there have been six years spent as a defensive coordinator, a couple of stints as an assistant head coach, and enough bowl trophies to decorate a small home.

Then there was a fork in the road that led to a place where the shape of a traditional football is round and the goalposts are attached to the ground. It was Berlin, Germany, home of the Thunder of NFL Europe.

It was in Berlin during the 2004 season where Smith added a World Bowl ring to his impressive collection of hardware. And it also was there where he befriended Steve Logan, the former East Carolina head coach with whom he became steady jogging partners.

So, when the call came from East Carolina about an interview for the lone remaining vacancy on Skip Holtz's staff, Smith knew just where to go for the low-down on the next possible destination on his coaching world tour.

"When I was an offered an interview here at East Carolina, I was in Orlando coaching an all-star football game with Steve Logan and the Berlin Thunder," Smith said. "We went to the Olive Garden together and he and I talked about East Carolina.

"He said, 'If you like smaller towns, you're going to love Greenville. It's a great place to live and I hated to leave there.' He said, 'You'll like the town, it's similar to Tallahassee, which is where you were born and raised.' He said, 'You're not far from the coast, which I know you like.' He was very positive about East Carolina and the things that can go on here."

While Logan helped sell Smith on Down East football, it was a former pupil who sold him on the coach who ultimately would become his new boss. New East Carolina defensive coordinator Greg Hudson worked under Smith at Cincinnati and badly wanted his former mentor's expertise to help rebuild the Pirates' secondary.

"He started calling me back in (December)," Smith said. "He asked if I would be interested in coming.

"I felt like if Greg would leave Minnesota to go to East Carolina, that says an awful lot about his relationship with Coach Holtz. I was excited to get here, I really was. As a matter of fact, I was worried it wasn't going to happen. But when it did, I didn't hesitate."

For Smith, it was the chance to again work with Hudson, a rising young coach whose career he helped mold.

While at Cincinnati, it was Smith who convinced then-Bearcats coach Rick Minter to move Hudson over to the defensive side of the ball. Smith later was integral in helping Minnesota coach Glen Mason land Hudson as a defensive assistant, a move that eventually landed him a promotion to defensive coordinator.

Though the roles have now changed, Smith feels at home with his former pupil leading the charge.

"Greg is great to work for," Smith said. "I mean, we're doing a lot of stuff � he gives me a lot of freedom to do the things that we need to do in the secondary.

"And I think having an older guy in the secondary like myself has freed him up a lot to be kind of a walk-around coordinator. He can now help with the linebackers if he has to. He can now help with the defensive line if he has to."

Much of East Carolina's defensive woes over the past several seasons can be attributed directly to the Pirates' inability to stop the pass. Quarterbacks have regularly produced Heisman-like numbers against ECU, which has been especially perplexed by strong-armed passers who specialize in the deep ball.

Having a coach with Smith's credentials certainly can't harm that situation. His secondary at Tulane led the nation in interceptions in 1997, and in 2000 he was the architect of a defense at Cincinnati that ranked fourth in turnovers gained.

Smith already has given the secondary a slight makeover by seizing a pair of former linebackers in an attempt to stop some of the bleeding. Jamar Flournoy and Pierre Parker have made the move to the secondary, where their names are etched atop the depth chart at the two safety positions.

Flournoy finished the 2004 season third on the team in total tackles, and Smith is pleased with the transition he has made over to free safety.

"He's done a really good job," Smith said. "It's not the first time that we have done that. I know that when we were at Cincinnati, we had a problem at safety.

"Our safeties have to be run supporters. You can't play anymore with safeties backing up and covering grass. If it's a run, they have to be involved in the run. So, at Cincinnati, we moved our starting linebacker to free safety and he became a great free safety for us."

Helping contain the run shouldn't be an issue for either Flournoy or Parker. Their experience at linebacker and nose for the football gives them a leg up over most who play the position.

It's the long ball � the area in which ECU's pass coverage has struggled the most � that worries Smith the most.

"I am concerned a little bit about how he will play the deep balls," Smith said. "We had a few deep balls thrown on us (two weeks ago) when we scrimmaged.

"That's what concerns me, is us playing the deep ball, because we have another safety who was a quarterback � Pierre Parker. Neither one of those two players have any experience in the secondary in a game type of situation."

In the interim, the budding safeties can feed off Smith and his 24 years of experience, much of which has been spent molding top-notch secondary units.

The task of returning East Carolina back to its once-proud stature is highly dependent upon Smith's ability to right the ship on the back end. It's a challenge so daunting that anything short of a minor miracle might fail to produce the desired turnaround.

But for a coach who has done it everywhere from 'Bama to Berlin, the new assignment is business as usual.