AHSAA STATE FINALS: Newcomer Smith leads Lee to first title

By TIM GAYLE

BIRMINGHAM – Sometimes, it’s all about being in the right place at the right time. 

Jamari Smith had been at Sidney Lanier as a sophomore before he ran into trouble for an off-the-court incident. Wrong place, wrong time.

He transferred to Success Unlimited Academy as a junior and helped the Mustangs reach the semifinals of the state playoffs but his style of play seemed a little out of place at times. Wrong place, wrong time.

He transferred to Robert E. Lee for his senior season and joined a team that had most of its players returning from a squad that reached the state tournament semifinals before losing to eventual state champion Mountain Brook. Right place, perfect timing.

Smith was in the right place almost every time on Saturday night, helping the Generals hold off Mountain Brook 40-38 in the Alabama High School Athletic Association’s 7A boys’ basketball state finals at the BJCC Legacy Arena, giving the 65-year program its first-ever state championship in boys basketball.

“I’d like to take my hat off to a great Mountain Brook team,” Lee coach Bryant Johnson said. “They fought to the end. Give all the credit to them because they played hard and they played like champions as always. Secondly, I’d like to say this one here is for all the Robert E. Lee family from day one, from 1955, and the ones I’ve coached through the process. This is a heartfelt moment for me.”

For Johnson, in his 16th season as Lee’s coach, Saturday’s victory put an exclamation point on his third trip to the state tournament. Five year ago, in his first trip, the Generals lost in the semifinals to Hoover. Sitting in a corner of the arena, watching the Generals, was Jamari Smith.

“I was sitting right there in those little blue chairs,” Smith recalled. “Even though I wasn’t a part of the team, I was still here.” 

On Saturday, he stood with University of Alabama wide receiver Henry Ruggs, III, a former Lee standout in basketball as well as football, who mentored a young Smith along with Ruggs’ best friend, the late Rod Scott. Ruggs traveled back from Indianapolis, where he had participated in the NFL Combine, to watch Smith and the Generals play for a state championship. 

“He raised me,” Smith said. “Him and Rod raised me. They’ve always been here for me, they always told me, ‘One day you’ve got to be better than us.’ So I always kept that in my mind. Growing up around these guys, I always wanted to go to Lee. Always. I wanted to play with (Ruggs), I wanted to play with Rod. It didn’t happen, but I ended up transferring here my senior year and making sure it did happen.”

The Generals rattled off win after win, dropping only a last-second decision to Pinson Valley, on the way to a 33-1 record. Smith fit in with this team, where his style of play didn’t clash with Johnson, and became the perfect complement to a squad that had reached the semifinals last season before losing to Mountain Brook.

Now Smith, in the wrong place at Lanier, in the wrong place at Success Unlimited, was in the perfect place to live out the dream he had envisioned years earlier.

“I just kept my faith in God,” Smith said. “I kept believing what (Ruggs) was telling me, what Rod was telling me when I was younger. I stuck to it.”

Just what were those lessons Ruggs and Scott instilled in Smith?

“Take practice seriously, work hard, stop being lazy all the time,” Smith recalled. “I used to be real lazy, so they always told me to be better than how I used to be.”

The two teams had missed all 16 3-point attempts when Smith launched his only attempt from the left corner of the floor with 1:54 left in the third quarter. The first 3-pointer of the game brought the Generals within two points, but for two teams that had thrived on the 3-pointer all season, that basket was the most important one of the game.

The next three shots were all missed 3-pointers before Deyunkrea Lewis put back the third miss with 58 seconds left in the quarter to tie the game at 29-29, setting the stage for the final eight minutes of a tight battle.

With five minutes remaining, the game was tied at 35-35. Smith would make three free throws over the next three minutes that were crucial for a team that shot 50 percent from the charity stripe for the game, then added his seventh and final point on a free throw with 18 seconds remaining for the final point in the game.

Meanwhile, his defense on Mountain Brook’s leading scorer, Colby Jones, was suffocating. When Smith went to the bench with two personal fouls in the opening seconds of the second quarter, the game turned from an even affair to one that clearly favored the Spartans. 

Jones had failed to score in the first quarter, then scored eight points with Smith on the bench. In the final 16 minutes, with Smith dogging him up and down the court, Jones would manage one basket, one rebound and three turnovers.

Maybe it was fate. Maybe it was simply being in the right place at the right time. His mentor had taught him valuable lessons and now he had something Ruggs had never tasted as a high school star at Lee. 

“I’ve got bragging rights now,” Smith said. “We’re the best team in Lee history. Can’t nobody say anything about that.”