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Somewhere in the Miami area is a youth football coach who unknowingly fueled the rise of a record-breaking wide receiver.
This is the coach who told Jeremiah Smith he didn’t make the Miami Gardens Ravens after the 7-year-old tried out to play football for the first time.
Much like the high school basketball coach who cut Michael Jordan or the NFL executives who allowed Tom Brady to fall to the sixth round of the draft, the snub ignited a fierce determination to be great within Smith. As the Ohio State freshman told FOX’s Tom Rinaldi in November, “I was just a whole different type of person from that day forward. It just made a kid more hungry, that’s all I can say.”
The cut also inspired Smith’s father to do more to help his son maximize his talent and achieve his goals. Chris Smith spent endless hours alongside J.J. (as he’s known to family and friends) at the park, the field or the gym, instilling the work ethic that made his son an elite prospect before anyone knew he would grow to become a 6-foot-3, 215-pound genetic marvel.
The very next year, the younger Smith not only made the youth team he tried out for but claimed the league’s version of the Heisman Trophy. The way his uncle, Geno Smith Sr., puts it, “Something just clicked in J.J. at a young age after the cut and he has pretty much been an animal from that time on.”
Hailed as the next great Ohio State receiver when he arrived in Columbus, Smith has achieved feats that even Marvin Harrison Jr., Jaxson Smith-Njigba and Garrett Wilson could not. The cousin of Seattle Seahawks quarterback Geno Smith has smashed Cris Carter’s school records for receptions, yardage and touchdown catches by a freshman.
The hype hit a crescendo after Smith’s dazzling 187-yard, two-touchdown tour de force against previously undefeated Oregon in the Rose Bowl last…
Source link : https://sports.yahoo.com/hes-generational-inside-jeremiah-smiths-path-to-stardom-at-ohio-state-153146128.html
Author : Yahoo Sports
Publish date : 2025-01-09 15:31:00
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