Nolan Smith has moved from an assistant at Duke to an assistant at Louisville and then last year an assistant for Penny Hardaway at Memphis. Now of course he is the head coach for Tennessee State.
Worth knowing: Tennessee State used to be Tennessee Agricultural and Industrial (Tennessee A&I) and won three straight NAIA national championships (1957-59) behind star guard Dick Barnett. The coach?
NCCU legend John McClendon.
Smith has a lot to say in this column from HoopsHQ.com. He talks about his childhood
around the game with his late father, Derek, which was an amazing opportunity. He learned a tremendous amount at Duke from Coach K and while Louisville was an unmitigated disaster, he drew some keen lessons from that too. He also has some interesting comments about working for Hardaway at Memphis and that he found much of it “refreshing.”
There’s a lot of interesting things to chew over in this piece. Smith has had some really interesting and valuable experiences and it’s going to be fun to see how he draws on it all as he builds his Tennessee State program.
Also: you’ll note in that article that the People’s Champ has taken his time about building his staff. Well, he’s made one interesting hire.
Blue Healer Auctions | Drop us a line