Brian Rosenthal: Reggie Smith's an unsolved mystery
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EDMOND, Okla. — One of the hallways at Santa Fe High School has a wall devoted to local newspaper clippings and pictures of student athletes.
There's a large mural for each month.
January, basketball. April, soccer. October, Reggie Smith.
Look, there's Reggie catching a pass. There he is again, making a tackle. Scoring a touchdown. Getting crowned homecoming king.
I'm looking for a Superman cape when I hear a voice out of the blue.
"Should've been a wrestler."
That voice, of course, belongs to the Santa Fe wrestling coach, Joe Schneider.
Well, sorry, Joe. Smith's after-school workouts this time of year involve track.
That, and staving off the question-seekers, the media throng and the Internet gurus.
I don't know where Smith, regarded by many as the best high school football player in the state of Oklahoma, will play college football.
But I don't feel so bad, because nobody else in Edmond seems to know, either.
The generous folks at the Edmond Sun said people "on the north side of Reggie's block" are saying he's going to Nebraska.
North side? Hmmm…
I asked an assistant principal monitoring the hall at Santa Fe what she'd heard as the latest rumor.
USC? Oklahoma? Nebraska?
She sighed.
"Everybody knows," Sharon Herrington said, "that nobody knows."
Not a peep from Reggie. Not a hint.
Well, unless you consider headgear a clue. Reggie's got a collection of hats — LSU, Texas A&M, Oklahoma, Nebraska, among others — and wears a different one to school each day.
Tuesday's flavor of the day?
"Now that you mention it," Santa Fe football coach Dan Cocannouer said, "I just don't remember now.
"I think it was a red hat, a darker red. Nebraska's hat is a brighter red, and I think this one was OU, because it was darker."
No, I didn't see for myself. Instructions from above: Can't drag Reggie out of class.
How else is he supposed to maintain his 3.7 GPA?
And besides, I'll see him this morning at 9:40 in the school's main gymnasium. That's when Smith, along with at least four of his football teammates, will sign letters of intent.
The others, unlike Smith, know where they're going.
Let's clarify. Smith knows. He's just not telling anybody.
"A lot of people call and ask what he's going to do," Santa Fe athletic director Mark Mades said.
"It's pretty obvious that he's not going to tell anybody until tomorrow, so I don't know why people … I mean, they call from Pennsylvania and want to know where he's going, you know?
"I don't know where he's going."
Any outsider may think this sounds like a kid who's playing this up for all it's worth.
Cocannouer says no, that Smith is a very quiet, very humble, very unassuming young man.
"You couldn't pick him out of the hall from anybody else," he said. "That's just how he is."
Still, everyone knows Reggie. Ask the secretary in the main office if the name "Reggie Smith" rings a bell.
"Like George Washington or Abraham Lincoln," she responded. "He's probably the most popular Smith in the state of Oklahoma."
Judy Wooldridge works in the guidance counselor's office. Evidently, Reggie has needed little guidance in his school decision-making process, because Wooldridge says she never sees him.
But she has a Polaroid of herself and Smith hanging by her office desk.
"I figured it's going to be worth something one of these days," Wooldridge said, laughing.
The likeable personality is a big reason Smith is so well-known. Of course, it helps when you hold school football records in tackles, interceptions, touchdowns scored and rushing yards.
"And he didn't even start at tailback," Cocannouer said. "And he was just a few yards from being our leading receiver."
Santa Fe High School (enrollment 1,800) has been around for 11 years, and Cocannouer's been here the last four. Other than Brandon Weeden, who was the No. 1 draft choice of the New York Yankees, no athlete's garnered as much attention during Cocannouer's time here as Smith.
"Yesterday, I probably had 10 people from radios, the TVs, the newspapers and stuff, all wanting to know what he's going to do," Cocannouer said.
"To tell you the truth, you're ready for it to kind of … it's time to move on to something else."
Definitely.
Now, about Reggie's 10-year-old brother …
Reach Brian Rosenthal at 473-7436 or brosenthal@journalstar.com.
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