Grace's Alexandra Smith Signs Volleyball Papers With Samford

Outstanding Senior Has Jersey Retired During School Ceremony Wednesday

  • Thursday, April 13, 2017
  • John Hunt
Grace's Alex Smith (14) scores a kill shot against CSAS in a game from last season. Smith has signed with Samford and as an added bonus, Grace has announced they will retire the much-decorated Smith's number 14.
Grace's Alex Smith (14) scores a kill shot against CSAS in a game from last season. Smith has signed with Samford and as an added bonus, Grace has announced they will retire the much-decorated Smith's number 14.
photo by Dennis Norwood/File Photo

Wednesday, April 12 will go down as a Red letter day at Grace Baptist Academy for a number of reasons.

Alexandra Smith, a Lady Golden Eagle senior who will graduate in a few short weeks, signed her letter of intent to attend Samford University in the fall where she will continue an already outstanding volleyball career.

Smith had originally committed to Middle Tennessee State University back in the fall, but the MTSU coach resigned and the future of the program in the midst of a bunch of unanswered questions, so she decided to restart her recruiting process.

There were a host of schools that showed interest in her services and quite a few even offered scholarships, but she finally settled on the Birmingham-based Lady Bulldogs, who are the defending Southern Conference champs and a team on the rise in NCAA circles.

“I finally found a school that is a perfect fit for me,” said Alexandra, the daughter of Kim and Aaron Smith and the older sister to Abigail during the signing ceremony a few minutes before noon in front of teammates, schoolmates, parents, grandparents, Grace administrators and coaches in the high school gymnasium

“They told me that I have the ability to do great things at Samford and you don’t know how good it felt to hear them say something like that.  I report on July 7th as I’ll attend the second session of summer school and I’ll redshirt my first year, but I’m ready to compete for playing time,” she added.

Perhaps the highlight of Wednesday’s ceremony was the surprise announcement by Grace athletic director Tommy Morrell that Alexandra’s Grace volleyball jersey number 14 had been retired permanently.

“I can’t begin to tell you how honored I feel to have my jersey retired,” said Smith, who had tears of joy streaming down her cheeks when the announcement was made and the thunderous cheering that resulted.

Hillary Waters has been Smith’s coach her entire high school career and she knows that it will be tough – if not downright impossible – to fill her shoes when volleyball season starts next fall.

“I’m so proud of her and the hard work she’s put in to be able to play at a Division I school,” Waters began.

“I’ve been blessed to be able to coach a bunch of outstanding players in my career here, but she’s the best of them all.  We have some good ones coming up, but it will be tough to replace her.  We’ve known for a while that we wanted to retire her jersey as we just wanted to honor her accomplishments here the best way we could,” Waters added.

Smith posted some really impressive numbers during her four years for the Lady Golden Eagles.

Last fall as her team won the District 5-A title and finished runner-up in Region 3-A, Smith had 503 kills, 386 digs, 62 aces and 36 blocks.

Her career numbers may never be broken as she finishes with 2,188 kills, 1,657 digs, 392 aces and 386 blocks.

She was a four-time All-District selection and MVP the last three years.  She earned All-Region honors twice and was named All-State last fall.

In addition to being a superlative volleyball player, she’s also an outstanding student with a 4.1 grade point average.

Her intent is to major in biology at Samford with the hope of eventually going to medical school.

Graduation will be here before she knows it and her time at the small Christian school on Shallowford Road will be over.

She’ll leave with hundreds of positive memories and a host of lifelong friends, not to mention a bunch of great experiences from her performance on the volleyball court, but nothing will top the day in the middle of April when her jersey was retired.

(Email John Hunt at nomarathonmoose@gmail.com) 

Alexandra Smith, right, goes for a kill against Silverdale in a game played last season. Her number 14 has been retired by Grace Academy.
Alexandra Smith, right, goes for a kill against Silverdale in a game played last season. Her number 14 has been retired by Grace Academy.
photo by Dennis Norwood/File Photo
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