“During football season, your kids are probably going to see me more than they see you,” Smith said. “So you deserve to know a little about who I am.”
Smith said that all Easley fans may be interested in his philosophy since most high school teams, particularly football teams, eventually adapt the personality of their head coach.
“I’m a sinner saved by grace,” Smith admitted.
Smith grew up in Pickens and played for the Blue Flame in high school.
“I’ll admit it,” Smith said. “Back then I hated Easley. My blood ran blue.”
Smith went played for Concord College in West Virginia. After college, he joined the staff of legendary North Carolina high school coach B.W. Montgomery.
He coached with Montgomery for a couple of years. The week before his wedding, Montgomery called and said that he was moving to coach at Rocky Mount High School in North Carolina, and he wanted Smith to go with him as his offensive line coach.
Smith was torn between going with Montgomery or going through with his wedding plans. Luckily, his soon-to-be wife is a great football fan, and the couple worked moving to a new town and finding an apartment in with the wedding week schedule and he was able to do both.
After a year coach the offensive line at Rocky Mount, he was promoted to offensive coordinator. During the next four years the team broke just about every school offensive record.
“That wasn’t me,” Smith said. “We had some hard-working, talented players.”
After four years, the head coach at a rival school resigned, and the school officials asked Smith to come as his replacement. He stayed there for two years, but he was not happy.
“I hit some low points as a coach,” Smith said. “I hit some low points as a man. I hit some low points as a Christian.”
Midway through the season, Smith told the principal at his school he would be resigning at the end of the year. Letting the team know after the season was, Smith said, “the hardest thing I ever had to do.”
But Smith felt another opportunity would be coming.
“At that time, I knew the Lord had something planned for me, I just didn’t know what,” Smith said.
The next opportunity turned out to be as the strength and conditioning coach at Easley High School. Smith began teaching weight-lifting classes at the school last year.
During the season, Coach Jabo Burgess told Smith he planned to resign at the end of the season. That got Smith’s mind wondering if perhaps God’s plan was for him to serve as the head coach of the Green Wave.
As for his previous distaste for the color green, that has changed completely.
“Word will get around, so I’ll go ahead and tell you,” Smith said. “I applied for the Pickens coaching job, and I was not selected. Pickens turned me away. Easley chose me. This school gave my children a chance to live close to their grandparents, and that means the world to me.”
Smith said taking over a program that has a record of 1-21 isn’t going to be easy and is bound to come with criticism.
But Smith said he keeps in mind an old saying one of his former coaches just to repeat.
“Chad, you’re never as good as everybody thinks, but you’re never as bad as everybody thinks either.
Next Friday the Easley Touchdown Club’s guest speakers will be Chad Seaborn, head football coach at Pickens High School, and Randy Robinson, head football coach at Daniel High School. The luncheons begin at 11:30 a.m. at Sho’s Café in Easley.
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