In Control: Perry native Taurean Smith named interim head football coach at Kentucky Wesleyan College

In Control Now

Former Perry High School Panthers basketball and

football player Taurean Smith, class of 2006,  had to call me back. An

assistant coach he was looking to hire had called him and was coming by the

office to interview for a job on his coaching staff. Smith, after four years as

an associate head coach and defensive coordinator under long time head coach

Brent Holsclaw, was taking over as interim head coach at Kentucky Wesleyan

College in Owensboro. The job of getting his staff together was as paramount as

recruiting (Smith helped recruit fellow Houston County players and former

Northside Eagles Armand Childs and Alijah McGhee this summer) to Smith and he

could not miss the opportunity to close the deal with this future Panthers

assistant coach. “This is my first opportunity as a head coach at the Division

II level and it’s really exciting,” said Smith a half hour later after he

closed the deal with his new assistant coach. “Being here the last four years I

know everything a recruit is going to need to know, and now we have to get back

to focussing on the kids coming back and the kids coming in.” Smith is in

control of a program that finished 2-8 last season, 1-6 in the Great Midwest

Athletic Conference and lost three games by 55-plus points the previous season.

According to the former varsity football coach at Perry High, Smith is the

perfect guy to put in the middle of a rebuild. “Taurean is a great young man

and is a success story as good as any movie you’ve ever seen,” said Carl Dixon

(who did not coach Smith during his tenure as the Panthers varsity coach). “I’m

very, very proud of that young man.” In a way test for Smith begins on Sat.,

Sept. 1 against the University of Findlay at home in Steele Stadium but in part

it also began last week when he got the word that he has secured his first big

time head coaching job. “We are going full steam ahead, I feel like I have

earned all of their respect and we are excited and ready to prepare for the

season,” said Smith, who played his college football at the University of

Western Kentucky.

The road to glory is often quite bumpy

That road to becoming a Division I linebacker and

what he is now, college football head coach, started something similar to what

people are currently watching on Netflix in season three of “Last Chance U” at

Independence Community College in Independence, Kansas. Smith called playing

high school football in Perry and junior college ball “good memories” but at

both stops he had a plan and did not let anything get in the way of where he

wanted to be. “I adapted and stayed focus on what I could control,” said Smith

of his two-year stop at a JUCO at Minnesota State and Technical Community

College in Fergus Falls. Smith’s own personal “Last Chance U” of sorts.

Asked about the culture shock that he experienced

during his time in Minnesota, he could only laugh. “It was a different

environment, different weather, sometimes there was 12 inches of snow,”

answered Smith with a slight chuckle. “That time there prepared me for life.”

After playing ball in the great north where he

would amass 118 tackles in two seasons, the last ending in an All-region and

All-Minnesota Community College Conference honors, Smith took his game to

Western Kentucky and has had a relationship with the state ever since. Two

years, 88 tackles and 24 games played at Western Kentucky, including a 13 tackle

game against Navy during his senior year, Smith worked on the staff at WKU as a

student-assistant under then head coach and current Florida State University

head coach Willie Taggart and later under Holsclaw. “I was fortunate to play

football at Western Kentucky University and those guys made a big difference in

my life and now I get a chance to give back,” said Smith of his former high

school and college coaches and bosses.

Message to the home town

Smith won’t get an opportunity to get back home to

Perry very often as he will be running a college football program and that job

never stops. Despite how busy he will become Smith knows that the recruiting

Shangri-la that is Houston County (See: University of Georgia Bulldogs

quarterback Jake Fromm, University of Tennessee receiver Marquez Callaway,

Childs and McGhee for an example of the hundreds of ball players on display

every Friday night during the season) is a place he surely cannot stay out of

too long. “The most important thing about recruiting is building relationships

with coaches, parents and players,” says Smith. You want to know as much about

a kid as possible.” That said, there won’t be too many coaches in the Great

Midwest Athletic Conference that knows Houston County, Northside, Perry,

Veterans and Warner Robins High Schools like Smith.

McGhee had a number of scholarship offers after

finishing his career at Northside as one of the top defensive backs in the

region. Having played his ball in the rough and tumble region 1-AAAAAA, McGhee

had been seen by tons of college coaches and recruiters but he chose Kentucky

Wesleyan or better said, he chose Smith. “It was important to me that I get a

good relationship with the coaches and when I found out that coach Smith was

from Perry and also good friends with my grandpa, we clicked and became really

close,” wrote McGhee in a text. “That helped me make my decision.”

“Recruiting is a big thing and one thing about

middle Georgia and Houston County, they have great coaches and players down

there,” said Smith, who should know.

On recruiting McGhee: Alijah is a great young man

and I’m looking forward to working with him. I think I had a leg up, I know

his family and his family knows me.”

Players from Smith’s neck of the woods coming to

Kentucky won’t have the same level of culture shock that their coach did when

he left the county for lands unknown. Smith, knowing full well how the

transition can change them forever, will be there like his coaches were there

for him. “Take care of your work like you’re supposed to, go where you’resupposed to go, that’s where their focus is supposed to be,” says Smith.

Getting better day to day, everyday at practice and in the classroom.”

Spoken like someone who is in total control of the situation. Almost

like he’s lived it before.

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