Former Michigan State star Antonio Smith turning life around after battling homelessness

FLINT, Mich. – Last winter, as Michigan State’s basketball team put together one of the more celebrated seasons of the Tom Izzo era, the man partly responsible for it all spent his nights sleeping in an abandoned house 50 miles away.

Antonio Smith is a proud man. Sometimes too proud to ask for help. Yet months later, he’s no longer too proud to share what he hopes is his rock bottom: 539 W. Eldridge Ave. in Flint.

He stares up at a partially collapsed ceiling in the living room, a few feet from where he used to sleep on a daybed, covered by as many blankets as he could find.

“Mm-hmm,” Smith says in his deep voice, as if to sigh.

“I couldn’t even tell you what I was thinking most of the time,” he says. “That’s where the drinking really intensified, just to make it through the night.”

No heat. No running water. This deserted, single-story home, owned by a friend, was often his shelter from the bitter elements and a street that came alive at night. It couldn’t shelter him from the despair and depression over his situation.

Being back at this house and sharing his shame is part of Smith’s penance and his effort to give back by making himself an example.

If he could do life over again …

“I’d climb back under my rock,” Smith says. 

‘The Godfather’ of the Izzo era

Michigan State head coach Tom Izzo and Antonio Smith celebrate their 73-66 win over Kentucky in the NCAA Midwest Regional final in St. Louis on March 21, 1999. (Photo: Beth A. Keiser/AP file)

Smith, to modern MSU basketball, is everything. “The Godfather,” as another former MSU player dubbed him.

He is the original Izzo recruit in 1995 and, along with his Flint Northern High School teammate, Mateen Cleaves, who arrived a year later, more significant than any. Without Smith, likely nothing MSU basketball has experienced since happens, including most of Izzo’s tenure.

“He was the first one to take a chance,” Izzo said. “He helped bring in the Flintstones. More or less, he set a lot of the culture we wanted. His toughness.

Tom IzzoMichigan State-Michigan basketball: 6 landmark rivalry games in the Tom Izzo era

“I’ll never forget the day (in 1999) when we were playing Kentucky to go to the first Final Four and we’re down like 17-4 and we get the huddle and I didn’t even know what to say. I didn’t get a chance to say anything. Antonio grabbed me and everybody else. He definitely grabbed Mateen and ripped him. He sometimes was a silent giant, sometimes a vocal one. But I think in one huddle he turned that game around and led us to our first Final Four.”

MSU’s Antonio Smith, left, grabs a rebound away from Kentucky’s Heshimu Evans during a game in 1999. (Photo: Lansing State Journal file)

There are remnants of those glory days at 539 W. Eldridge. Smith digs into a plastic bin on the kitchen counter and pulls out an old game program and the team’s promotional schedule from 1997-98, his junior season, the players dressed up as firefighters, standing in front of a firetruck. Mostly, though, he’s looking for something else.

“I just wanted some photos of my kids,” he says.

Smith has three children, ages 12, 9 and 2. He’s separated from their mother. 

“She deserves better,” Smith said, later in the evening. “I just want to get myself in a better place so I can provide for them. And at the same time, be at peace with myself and live a comfortable life, as well.”

Smith is in a better place. He was hired last spring to work security at United Wholesale Mortgage in Pontiac, where former MSU teammate Mat Ishbia is the president and CEO. Former MSU players Chris Hill and Adam Wolfe work there in various roles, too. As does Cleaves. It’s an enormous operation and complex with 2,500 employees.

Smith has an apartment nearby. And a trusty 2007 Ford Escape, which is more comfortable as transportation than as a place to sleep, which over the past year has sometimes been his best option.

He looks fit and vibrant. Younger than his 43 years. As if life has been kind. He’s full of a hope that’s long been missing.

Smith is still important in Flint 

Antonio Smith (Photo: Graham Couch/Lansing State Journal)

Decked out in Michigan State garb, Smith is as recognizable as ever. In Flint, he’s still somebody. Somebody who can lend a hand. Not someone who needs one. 

People ask if he can help with a camp or give his time and name to projects. Even those who don’t know him, know he’s somebody.

“Are you Morris Peterson!?” a man yelled from the parking lot of the famed Berston Field House.

“No. Antonio,” Smith shouted back. 

Almost no one knows the depth of Smith’s struggles. Not even his two brothers, Robaire and Fernando, both of whom played years in the NFL and live out of state.

“I don’t even want to go there,” Smith said when asked if he ever approached them for help. “I don’t ask. They’ve got their own families and other things going on.”

Ishbia’s job offer is what he needed. A shot at something new, somewhere else. 

“The last couple years, Mat’s been organizing a few things, having former teammates over (to his house), which is great,” Smith said. “I really hadn’t had much contact with him since school. We’d see each other every now and then at State. Once he started (having people over), he’d tell us to bring our families, having family days, and he said, ‘If I ever need anything, call me.’ 

“The time I needed him, he was there. He answered.”

Little does Smith know, it was his own kindness years ago that helped to land him the job.

“The truth is, he was there for me,” Ishbia said. “My first year (as a walk-on at MSU), he was the senior star and he always went out of his way to include me in things, whether it’s sitting at tables with me, spending time with me and just being the all-around great guy that he is.

“He’s got a heart of gold. You can really see someone true when they don’t need the help, when they don’t need to go out of their way for you, when they’re on top. And he always went out of his way, not only for me, but everyone else at Michigan State.

“He didn’t want a handout. All he wanted was an opportunity and that’s what he got and he’s doing a great job.”

Tough luck, poor choices and a vice 

Antonio Smith (Photo: Graham Couch/Lansing State Journal)

The two decades between Smith’s time at MSU and his lifeline from Ishbia are marked by tough luck, poor choices and a struggle with alcohol that intertwines the two.

Smith doesn’t consider himself an alcoholic but, “Most of what I got into, drinking was involved,” he said.

He wishes he never took his first drink, celebrating Flint Northern’s state championship in 1995.

“I let myself go as far as hanging out, a little too much partying,” Smith said. “Picking up on some bad habits. The drinking, smoking. It’s just messed me up. If I had to do it over, I probably wouldn’t have had the first drink to my mouth.

“I would have stayed under that rock. If I had stayed away, I would have been better off. I was more secure. I really wasn’t a partier (by nature). People called me ‘The Mute’ because I was just so quiet.”

Smith’s twice totaled cars in crashes while intoxicated. The first he narrowly escaped going over a railing, he said. The second time he “slid through a four-way stop.”

“God willing again,” he said. “I could have gone right into someone’s house. Luckily they had a ditch right in front of their house. I hit that.”

Smith said he’s never driven drunk with his children in the car. “I wouldn’t do that,” he said.

But his reckless choices have cost him plenty, including his final chance in professional basketball.

In 2011, at age 35, Smith tried out for the NBA D-League’s Fort Wayne Mad Ants and made the team. 

“I went back home over Christmas break,” Smith said. “Me doing me. Being a little comfortable. I showed back up at practice (expletive) up. I made it through practice, but I’ll never forget, one of the coaches that day, I knew he smelled it.

“Afterwards, they called me in and told me to bring my playbook.”

“(The drinking) affected our bills,” he continued. “I know I could have done way more financially. No one wants to see me like that every day. Last thing I want to be is a boogeyman around the kids. I’ve seen too much of that growing up.”

Smith’s childhood wasn’t easy. His mother raised four children mostly on her own, keeping things together, Smith said, as the family moved “15 to 20 times” within Flint between his third-grade year and high school graduation. 

“She never complained,” Smith said of his mom, who worked for General Motors. “She’s never complained about anything to this day. That blue-collar mentality. I’m trying to figure it out.”

Others have described Smith similarly.

“He’s an extremely proud man,” Izzo said. “And would never complain about anything. That’s probably one of the greater things about him, but a little bit of his downfall. He’s so proud, he’s not asked for much help.” 

‘It all fell apart’ after his injury

There are parts of Smith’s character that are true to his reputation. His heart, by all accounts, is massive. Too big sometimes. But the blue-collar, disciplined worker he could be on the basketball court hasn’t translated to other avenues of his life, including his response to adversity. He’s better with structure and purpose.

When things have gone wrong, however, he hasn’t always rolled up his sleeves. When he injured his ankle playing professionally in Italy in 2006, he lost a potential six-figure income and, subsequently, the home he’d purchased in Houston. He returned to Michigan. And returned to old habits.

“I was averaging a double-double, leading the league in rebounding,” Smith said of his time playing for Montecatini Terme in Tuscany. “That opens up a little wound. I was in my prime. We had a chance to elevate the team up to the (top division) and things just, it all fell apart. I had my girl out in Houston with me. My sister there. All of them depending on me. I kind of let them down. It really hurt me financially.

“Even now … they should be set up financially. Make sure you put something aside.”

Miles Bridges, right, speaks with former MSU player and one of the original Flintstones, Antonio Smith, prior to his announcement of his choice of college Saturday, October 3, 2015, at Mott Community College in Flint, Michigan. (Photo: Kevin W. Fowler/Lansing State Journal file)

Smith has dabbled with the idea of finishing his degree at MSU. He’s a couple of semesters short. He’s enrolled twice but never seen it through. He was briefly a student assistant on Izzo’s staff in his late 20s. That didn’t stick, either.

“The same (expletive) bullshit,” Smith said, “drinking, smoking. I couldn’t stay focused.”

He took a shot at pro football in his early 30s and, had he not been a decade older than most rookies, might have gotten a serious look from the NFL. 

He’s spent the better part of his adult life working in the Flint school system in behavioral support or security, coaching on the side.

He cares deeply for kids. His own. Kids he’s coached. Kids he knows are struggling. Kids he sees himself in. Kids he doesn’t want to make the same mistakes he has.

He started a nonprofit youth organization with a long-time friend a couple of years ago. They began with 10 to 15 kids. “Before the summer was over, we had 65 in that program.”

He’s coached at elementary schools and high schools, including most recently, through last winter, at Hamady Middle/High School in Flint. 

He was an assistant coach last year for the varsity team, which he took to a game at Breslin Center.

He’d give players rides home and then sleep in his car or at the house on Eldridge Avenue or, sometimes, back at the school in the training room.

“When he was in his darkest times, he was still trying to help other kids,” Izzo said. “He’d be dirt poor and give you the sandals on his feet if you needed them.”

“He thinks he disappointed people, but he didn’t piss off many people because he never acted bigger than them. He could be small with a little kid or helpful with a drug addict.”

Smith needed out of that world. He couldn’t put himself first. Couldn’t make any money. Couldn’t get a handle on his own life. And he didn’t feel valued as a colleague beyond his name.

“Over the years, I’ll lose a game and get a call from him, ‘Do you need me to do anything?’” Izzo said. “He’s never there during the good times, really. Always there during the bad times. That’s the true guy.”

That’s Smith’s strength — seeing suffering in others and reacting to it. Not everyone, he’s realized, senses it so innately. 

“My worst enemy sometimes is me because I don’t reach out,” Smith said. “If I reach out to you, that means I really need your help. The few times I did ask here and there, no response. I’m not pointing the finger or anything. I just have to move on, figure it out.

“I have an apartment in Pontiac. I’m blessed. It feels good. Everything is under control.”

Contact Graham Couch at [email protected]. Follow him on Twitter @Graham_Couch.

Leave a Reply

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.