Chuck Smith, Aspiring Astronaut, Is Flying High as Tailback at Navy

ANNAPOLIS, Md. — The Chuck Smith Story is one that could have been told through the painting of Norman Rockwell: young boy grows up in working-class family in middle America dreaming of being a football player and an astronaut.

Son of a teacher and a general manager at a corrugated-box factory, who used to play football himself, Smith is polite, listens to Bruce Springsteen, writes letters and works out in the weight room. A lot.

The little boy from Strongsville, Ohio, (20 minutes south of Cleveland) isn’t so little anymore, and he has partially accomplished the first of his boyhood goals. The Naval Academy football team is 3-1, due in a large part to its 21-year-old junior tailback, who has 627 yards rushing on 104 carries (6.0 yards per haul) for seven touchdowns and leads the Midshipmen in receiving, with 15 catches for 217 yards and 2 touchdowns.

Those numbers mean that Smith leads the nation in rushing with 156.75 yards per game, is first in the nation in all-purpose yardage (226.0) and also is first in scoring (13.5 point per game). The space travel will have to wait. Chuck Smith is kind of busy.

A tailback without speed is like a ship without an engine--it won’t go anywhere fast. Smith runs 4.5 in the 40-yard dash, but to look at his 5-foot-10, 200-pound body, you would expect the speed of an tugboat and not a destroyer.

“He’s not built like a sprinter, but he’s so very strong,” said Bill Haushalter, Navy’s running-back coach. “He’s one of our strongest guys and biggest lifters.

“People don’t realize he’s that fast and (tacklers) don’t time it right. He has another gear that he kicks into, something that truly great backs seem to have. I don’t want to compare him to (Tony) Dorsett, who played against us for four years, but he has that kind of acceleration.”

An example of the acceleration came in the first quarter in the 41-0 victory over Lehigh on Sept. 27. Smith was deep in the I-formation and took a pitch from quarterback Bill Byrne. Once he got to the corner, Smith burst through a hole and barely was touched on the last 15 yards of the 21-yard touchdown.

“The line does the job opening a hole but then it closes,” Smith said. “Either you get through it or you don’t. Look at me and you don’t think I’m that fast. Maybe the defender is thinking the same thing. Everything helps, though.”

One thing that helps is support of his family and friends. Darlene and Chuck Smith Sr. have been or will be at probably 10 of the 11 games Navy plays this year. Teammates John Berner and John McKenna, who have blocked for Smith from the fullback spot, have been encouraging, as have friends from the Naval Academy Prep School, led by roommate Chad Watson.

“It’s really helped,” said Smith, who probably would have been starting at fullback had Mike Smith not hurt his knee. “The first couple times you line up at tailback--and I’ve played for two years and lettered--your hands are shaking on your knee pads. You’re the only guy standing up and everyone is looking at you.”

Smith is short and solid, Watson is tall (6-6) and lean. Smith is quiet, Watson is talkative.

“We get along,” said Watson, “because we see eye to eye on just about everything--girls, food, life, ambitions, the future. . . .

“He’s one of the most dedicated, and hardest working people on anything he’s doing--academics, football, girlfriend. But he works out really hard. He has kind of a Rambo image--sort of a crazy man in that sense. He listens to Springsteen and is kind of that working-class person.”

Smith is not that much like his predecessor at tailback, Napoleon McCallum, in running style. And while Smith isn’t likely to approach McCallum’s career numbers, he is likely to improve because, although Smith played tailback at prep school, he spent his first two seasons in Annapolis playing fullback.

“I know the offense, but I have to react to the defense better and know where the blocks are coming from,” Smith said. “When you know where the blocks are coming from, you can feel them without seeing them and you’ll know where to cut.”

Said Haushalter: “You get him outside and let his natural abilities take over. But inside running is a little bit more intricate, and it comes from knowing the keys. . . . He’s not a novice, but he doesn’t have a lot of experience.”

In 14 years at Navy, Haushalter has coached the academy’s top five career rushers, including McCallum and Eddie Meyers.

“There’s no limit to what Chuck can do, because he has that speed, and that is the great starting point,” he said. “When people ask about how we compare him with Eddie Meyers or Napoleon, I don’t really like to do that. But physically, he had that advantage that Eddie Meyers had in that they’re about 5-9 or 5-10, and then ‘bang!’ they’re out of the backfield. One arm is not going to bring him down.”

When McCallum played his last game for Navy last December, the question was: What will happen after he leaves? Well, the running game hasn’t suffered so far and Smith, in his own polite, team-oriented way, isn’t surprised at what he’s done.

“I always knew I could play,” he said with a smile.