Lucas: Opportunity Excites Smith Family

By Adam Lucas

It's not out of character for Eddie Smith, Jr., to see opportunity where other people might see disaster.

Over 50 years ago, the 1965 Carolina graduate bought a nearly bankrupt boat company, Grady-White Boats, at a time when outside observers questioned the wisdom of his decision. He's since turned that company into one of the most decorated organizations in the entire boating industry, and Grady-White has become a hallmark of customer service and organizational strength.

So Smith realizes his family's decision to make the largest gift in Carolina athletics history today will raise some eyebrows. Most of the current news cycle has more to do with businesses simply finding a way to stay open than with overwhelmingly generous philanthropy. That's exactly why he felt this was the time for the donation.

"Everything is very uncertain right now," Smith says. "We're fortunate enough to be in a position to go ahead and make a commitment like this. If we postponed it to see what happens with the economy or wait for a time when we feel more secure, we might miss this window of opportunity. And sure, we hope this shows people that it's OK to go ahead and step up in whatever way they can even when times are challenging."
        Smith family inset 1

The transformational gift will directly impact Tar Heel football and will have a significant trickle-down effect for the entire Carolina athletic department. The funds are specifically earmarked for three areas: Enabling Mack Brown's assistant coaches to receive competitive salaries, Kenan Football Center facility improvements and the football operating endowment.

It's a dramatic way to impact the program that Smith first encountered when he attended his first game at Kenan Stadium with his father during the Charlie Justice era. Since then, Carolina football has been an integral part of the Smith family's fall Saturdays. Their tailgates—first in the old Ramshead lot and now along Stadium Drive—are Chapel Hill institutions, usually with a bounty of barbecue, chicken, chips and a lengthy list of beverages. Smith's son, Chris, and Chris' wife, Ann, along with some combination of Eddie's five grandchildren, as well as his sister Lynda Swann and her family, are usually on hand.

Smith has traveled the nation following the Tar Heels, and athletics is only the beginning of his family's support of Carolina, as he's made numerous contributions across the University and served on a host of boards in virtually every possible capacity.

In those numerous roles, he and his wife, Jo Allison Clary Smith, became close friends with Mack and Sally Brown during the head coach's first tenure in Chapel Hill. Jo Allison, who passed away earlier this year, was a football expert whose father was one of the most respected game officials in Atlantic Coast Conference history.

"I brought her to Chapel Hill to a football game for one of our first dates," Eddie Smith says. "I thought I knew a little bit about football. We're sitting at the game, and she turns to me and says, 'They're going to onside kick.' Every date I'd ever had before was more interested in what the other girls were wearing, so I looked at her like she was from a foreign planet. Sure enough, they onside kicked. Later in the game there was a penalty that didn't make sense, and I was screaming and hollering at the officials. She calmly looked at me and said, 'The penalty was right. It was after the play and it was a dead ball foul.'"

It was a perfect match. The couple was married for 57 years, and their combined passion for Carolina athletics impressed Brown. Their longtime friendship with the head coach made it easy for the Smith family to understand that when Brown talks about the importance of coaching staff continuity, it's a program changing asset that will make a tangible difference to the program, on and off the field.

"The Smith family have been like family members to Sally and I," Brown says. "There's nobody we've been closer to, and we've watched Chris be raised from a very small child. When we talk about how we're all better together, about how we win together, when we talk about be the one, the Smith family has definitely been willing to be the one. They're classy, they're smart, they've given their time and money, and they have never once stepped over the line or gotten in the way."

As has been well documented, the spring of 2020 is a challenging time for college athletics. With uncertainty about the 2020-21 academic and athletic year, Carolina's longstanding guiding principle of a broad-based athletic program will be tested. The Tar Heels support 28 varsity sports, more than almost every other ACC school; the average league school supports just 19 sports, and some as few as 14.

Chris Smith, who is now battling ALS and for whom the Kenan Stadium field will be named as part of the family's donation, spent time on numerous Rams Club committees in recent years and was well acquainted with the financial importance of a successful football program on the rest of the athletic department. In recent years, but especially since Brown's return to Chapel Hill, Chris and Eddie had numerous conversations about the impact that a legacy gift could have on the entire department. Their gift isn't just dollars directed straight to football. It's a way to help build a foundation for football so the athletic department can direct precious resources to other sports.
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"When Mack came back, we saw a window of opportunity to make a difference to move the football program forward, and that's what we hope this gift will do," Eddie Smith says. "Chris has been on so many boards and committees and he knew the needs we had as a department and how we could make a real difference for all the student-athletes who come to Carolina."

Like the rest of us, Eddie Smith isn't sure when the next time will be that his family will be able to assemble in Chapel Hill to watch the Tar Heels. But he knows that when those student-athletes return to campus, they'll all find themselves touched in some way by the generosity of his family.

"We have been blessed in so many ways," he says. "Once you get in the position to bless others, it's hard to describe how blessed you feel to do it. We feel very fortunate to be able to do something that we think will be able to help our athletic department, the student-athletes, and the overall University."

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