Feb. 19, 2004
Many athletes love to win, but a precious few detest losing with every fiber of their soul.
Jessica Smith hates to lose.
Her stomach begins to churn and her face clenches whenever she senses defeat. Those anxious feelings are precisely what propelled Smith to a remarkable senior season last year at Butler High School. In the fall, the 6-foot Smith scored several crucial goals to lead the Bulldogs to the semifinals of the Group 1 state soccer tournament, earning Herald News Player of the Year honors in the process.
Then, during basketball season, Smith dominated opponents in the paint on the way to scoring 2,019 career points, grabbing 1,014 rebounds and carrying Butler to the Group 1 state championship and the Tournament of Champions.
She was named All-State, had her jersey retired by the high school and became the first female athlete ever to earn Herald News Player of the Year honors in two sports in one year.
Some thought she was under-recruited when she signed to play at Stony Brook, but Smith was committed to majoring in physical therapy at the Long Island school.
But after going 23-5 with Butler last season, Smith admitted that she thought twice about her decision after the Seawolves, who play in the America East Conference, opened the 2003-04 season by losing 15 of their first 17 games.
"It was something you had to deal with it," Smith, the team's starting center, said during a telephone interview on Tuesday. "I was a little frustrated. I didn't think of transferring, (but) I was thinking I made a mistake. I still love the school. I knew it would turn around."
And with Smith's help, recently it has. Stony Brook had won four in a row entering Wednesday night's home game with Albany, improving to 6-15, 5-7 in America East.
For the last two weeks, Smith was named the league's Rookie of the Week.
Last week she averaged 19.0 points, 7.0 rebounds and 3.5 assists per game while shooting 56 percent from the field.
The freshman started out the week with 21 points on 8-of-11 shooting to go with five rebounds and four assists in Stony Brook's first-ever win over Vermont, and capped the week off with a game-high 17 points, nine boards and three assists in an upset victory at Hartford. On Feb. 7, Smith poured in a career-high 23 points and grabbed 14 boards in a 53-43 victory against University of Maryland-Baltimore County.
Smith has started all 21 games this year and is first on the team in rebounding (8.8), second in scoring (12.0) and third in assists (1.7). Freshman guard Mykeema Ford of Trenton leads the team in scoring (12.2).
"She has one of the most competitive spirits of any athlete I've ever coached," Stony Brook head coach Trish Roberts said of Smith.
Roberts never saw Smith play for Butler (an assistant coach recruited her) and admitted she didn't think Smith had enough size to play center. Roberts envisioned her as more of a small or power forward.
But when practice began, Roberts' opinion quickly changed.
"She was a kid that really set the tempo and raised our team to another level," the coach said. "It started in preseason conditioning. She was out front and pushing everyone on the team to be better."
Roberts was also impressed with Smith's strength and variety of post moves.
She is reliable with the jumper from mid-range, too.
Smith has reached double-figures in scoring in 15 of 21 games, but hit a slump in late January, averaging 5.7 points over three games.
At that point, opponents had figured out that shutting down the freshman would help lead to victory.
"It was hard because there were some teams that we would play against, they would just shut down my game," Smith said. "I would get in to a little bit of a slump. And then the next game I would forget about it and just play."
Roberts has emphasized that Smith should kick the ball out when the double- or triple-team comes, a process she said is coming along.
As for the team's recent turnaround, the coach attributes that to changes in the lineup. Roberts now starts three freshmen - Smith, Ford and guard Kelly Watson - along with seniors Sherry Jordan and Danielle DeGiorgio.
"We made a conscious decision to go with the combination of kids that play very well together," she said.
But Smith, always the competitor, attributes the turnaround simply to mental fortitude. After a 63-53 loss to Maine on Feb. 1, the Seawolves were unbeaten heading into the Albany game.
"We didn't do anything specific," she said. "We just went out to play. We just got tired of losing."
As long as the Seawolves have Smith, that attitude will prevail.
