Managing Editor
Like Don Quixote, I believe in tilting at windmills because sometimes persistence does indeed pay off.
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| Bill Smith played for the Portland Trail Blazers in the NBA for two seasons after a stellar college career at Syracuse University. COURTESY PHOTO |
I stepped through the door of the gym and then stopped dead in my tracks. I could not believe that right in front of me on the basketball floor warming up for the game that night was the tallest human being I had ever seen in person. His name was Bill Smith, he was 6-foot-11-inches in height, and as I was about to observe, a very talented basketball player. He scored 35 points in that game and just a few months later, Bill led our high school to its first-ever berth in the New York Section V Basketball Championship Game.
Although Rush-Henrietta lost that game, I came away with a deep sense of pride for my school and town, and it kindled a lifetime love of basketball in me. As I got into high school, I continued to follow Bill Smith’s career. He went to Syracuse University and became one of only three players in Syracuse history to average more than 20 points a game in his career there. The Portland Trail Blazers of the National Basketball Association drafted him in 1971, and he became the team’s starting center, competing against some of the NBA’s finest big men including Wilt Chamberlain and Kareem Abdul Jabbar.
Just when his professional basketball career was taking off, Smith sustained a devasting knee injury. Medical technology back then was not as sophisticated as it is today and after just two NBA seasons, Smith was out of basketball and onto a different career and a new life as a husband and a father.
Through the years in my journalism career, I often thought about what a great player Bill Smith was and how fortunate I was to see him play in high school.
Then in 2000, the Section V Basketball Hall of Fame was created, and I eagerly awaited Bill being recognized with that honor. But it never happened. I watched as a few Rush-Henrietta players were inducted into the Hall of Fame and wondered when it would be Bill’s turn. In 2007, I nominated my own Rush-Henrietta coach, Gene Monje, for the honor, and he was inducted a year later.
I sat back and waited as the years went by and was disappointed that this honor was never presented to Bill Smith. The final straw for me came when his name was not on the list of inductees in 2021. It motivated me to correct that oversight so I tracked Bill down at his home in Oregon and asked if I could write a nomination for him.
He agreed to that but told me others had tried previously and suggested that it might be a lost cause. Unfazed, I pressed on, gathered data and facts, and sent in the nomination paperwork in June 2023. That fall the new induction class for the Hall of Fame was announced and once again, Bill’s name was absent. I sent an email to the director of the Section V Basketball Hall of Fame Selection Committee, and he informed me that Bill’s nomination was submitted six months after the committee had made its choices for the 2023 induction class. He agreed to hold Bill’s nomination paperwork for the next cycle, which falls every two years.
In the meantime, I encouraged Bill to remain confident and positive, hoping that 2025 was his year. We became good friends through this, and Bill was appreciative of my efforts in trying to obtain this honor for him. I told him I believed that many members of the selection committee were unaware of his basketball accomplishments because they hadn’t yet been born when he played and never saw him play like I did.
I didn’t have to be so persistent in Bill Smith’s case, but it was the right thing for me to do.
On Dec. 22, 2024, I received a phone call from the director of the selection committee, telling me that Bill Smith would be inducted on Nov. 1, 2025 into the Section V Basketball Hall of Fame’s Class of 2025. I called Bill immediately once I learned the good news and he told me it was one of the best Christmas presents that he has ever received.
Next weekend I will fly to Rochester, New York and join Bill, his wife Mary, and some of his high school teammates at his induction ceremony at the Rochester Institute of Technology’s Inn and Conference Center.
For all those individuals out there right now tilting at windmills, my advice is to keep it up, eventually things might work out, no matter what the cause is you are pursuing.
In the end, redemption is truly about righting a wrong, and in that pursuit, it's really all about trying. <
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