by Roy Exum
posted March 2, 2008
 Roy Exum |
Further, everybody called him simply “Smith” at Orange Grove Center, not “Mister” or “Coach” or by his wonderfully Southern double first name which would have been more fitting.
Oh, some could only call him “Smiff” or “Smoo” or “S-m-m-m…” but every time he heard his name he’d bellow or flash that grin of his because, better put, he was evermore “The Man” at Chattanooga’s most glittering jewel for so many years.
Lloyd Ray Smith became God’s newest angel early Saturday morning when he died after a short struggle with cancer. There was nothing about that struggle that was heroic, not at all when compared to his colossal earthly accomplishments that had earned him his angel wings many years before as the physical education instructor at the hallowed special-education complex.
One other thing you need to know early on. When Lloyd Ray shook off his earthly mantle yesterday he was probably the only person to be surprised his wings were made of gold, which sets him somewhat apart from the regular angels. When you dedicate an entire lifetime to those who he served, such an honor is well-reserved for only those who will live next door to Mother Theresa, who will wave across the way to a now-seeing Helen Keller, who golf with Dr. Albert Schweitzer and play Saturday night canasta with Saint Christopher himself.
If you think I’m now going overboard on Lloyd Ray Smith’s death then that is amusing because I think I am still playing him too soft, too light. Of all the people I have ever known, this giant who got his start playing football at one of those Louisiana “directional” universities was surely one of the finest people I’ve ever known.
The first time I met Smith I was barely out of high school and Orange Grove was moving from the old place over off Main Street into the once-dazzling facility on Derby Street. The new complex had an indoor swimming pool and, back in the day, I was a Red Cross volunteer who could teach a Water Safety Instructor class.
The place was just days from having the grand opening – it was really a big deal – and suddenly the state was going to withhold the certification unless the faculty director was duly licensed. So when some of the other instructors were nervous about being around “those retarded people,” Dr. Sam McConnell, a board member, actually wrote a letter to get me excused from some college classes so we could make Lloyd Ray water proof.
The minute I met him we hit it off so well that, if he’d asked, I would have certified him without either one of us getting wet, but I had an official pass from “Dr. Sam” himself to cut class and it was too much fun not to cash it in.
As Lloyd Ray and I went over the books and films that very first hour, there appeared at the door a kid who was one of the most pitiful boys I had ever seen. He had drooled horribly through his widely-gapped and quite crooked teeth, could barely keep his balance (his knee was bleeding from where he’d just fell) and one arm was awkwardly cocked as he shuffled in the office.
“Hey, Smiff ….”
“Timmy, my man!” Smith leaped up and shouted and, as he gathered the delightfully squealing child in his arms and kissed him square in the mouth, I had the most profound reaction I can ever remember in my life. I wept.
Understand, this was at a time when the “retards,” and I use the word for the horrid effect it brings today, were kept in the back room, behind the curtains, out of sight less the neighbors be offended. Trust me, in the few short days that followed, I learned much more about life than I taught Lloyd Ray about lifesaving.
Now, fast-forward in time a few years. I’ve finally been “released” from the last college try and am a fulltime sports writer. So we’re in a meeting, discussing plans for the Sunday edition, and I said I needed the entire front page, which at the time was unheard of.
But I explained Chattanooga was having its first Special Olympics and that we were going to cover it in a way that was also unheard of. Our crusty old sports editor said that there was no way we were going to take a picture of a retarded kid, much less put it in the newspaper, and I told him that no, we were going to have five or six pictures of our town’s “special athletes.”
“Now, listen, I’m the sports editor!” he yelled and I replied, “I understand that and I respect that, but, this Sunday, I’m still going to be the grandson of the owner. Why don’t we just cut to the chase and go see him because I got a hunch how this one’s going to play out.”
Well, the sports editor immediately went fishing somewhere in Florida and, with the whole newspaper nervous over how our readers might react at such a visual display of physically and mentally challenged kids, we came out with all guns blazing.
It was awesome. We didn’t get the first complaint. Lloyd Ray took the Games’ founder, Eunice Kennedy Shiver, a framed copy of the front page at the national games and she had a most profound reaction. She wept.
After that, the Area IV Special Olympics was the most requested event to cover in the office for years. Another giant, attorney Jerry Summers, teamed with Lloyd Ray to give it further bluster and, to this day, there is nothing to equal the thrill of pinning a ribbon on one of those kids.
In honesty, Lloyd Ray was not perfect. He was not organized. He may have had other flaws, but no one ever noticed. They only saw what he did with kids, ones that made so many others nervous. You think it is tough working with a severely-challenged child? Try disciplining one of them.
Lloyd Ray was cast in the role of the cop every day. When a child, whether be he eight years old or 38, would “act out,” they would immediately call “Smith.” When the buses would take the kids home at the end of the day, the parent would ask who they saw at school that day and they’d simply say “Smith.” Enough said.
Long ago I figured Lloyd Ray’s heart would be what would get him. Sure, it had some breaks and tears, but, the way I saw it, you can just super-charge one of those tickers just so many times and Lloyd Ray Smith felt more emotion on any given day than a normal man would in a full year. I have watched him at a funeral for one of his athletes and seen his whole body shake.
I have seen him pull a kid from the pool, one whose fragile mind never thought he could make it across by himself, and seen those same tears roll down Smith’s chin anew. I watched once as he took a particularly hysterical older boy in the gym and calmed him immediately by “making” the child shoot basketballs. I am talking the electrifying kind of genius here that doesn’t come from a book, I tell you.
I’ve seen him hug ‘em all, from the winner of the race to the one who came in last, and when it was Smith himself doing the awards at the Special Olympics, forget the ribbon. The hug meant more. I know. I collected one ever time I saw him and I’m now 58.
When his wonderful Wendy sent Saturday’s email just before 6 a.m., I was at my computer and heard it come through. When the subject line read, “Lloyd Ray Smith,” I didn’t even have to open it because I knew what it was going to say.
So as the first day of March began to dawn, I went to my secret hiding place where I keep the very few things that I cling to when life is lean, and I found a picture of Lloyd Ray and me that is over 30 years old, one where by his wobbly hand are written the words to the oath, “Let me win. But if I cannot win, let me be brave in the attempt."
Then I had an old reaction. I wept.
royexum@aol.com
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