Former NBA champ J.R. Smith joins golf team at North Carolina A&T
Students at North Carolina A&T have been encountering an unusual sight lately: a 6-foot-6 former NBA champion roaming their halls and sitting in their classes.
But there is an additional twist to this tale because this ex-player, 16-year veteran J.R. Smith, is also now on the school's golf team.
Smith, who retired from basketball in 2020 after winning a pair of championships (Cleveland Cavaliers in 2016, Los Angeles Lakers in 2020), is a freshman walk-on for the Aggies men's golf team. Instead of living the life of luxury as an NBA star, he's living the life of a college student and working to hone his golf game.
"It's going to be fun," Smith said Monday in an online news conference. "Obviously different environments from playing in front of 20,000 people to playing in a college golf gallery.
"But it's still as nerve-wracking as shooting a free throw in front of 5,000, instead of making a 5-foot putt in front of three. So it all correlates the same for me."
Coming out of high school in 2004, Smith originally committed to play basketball for coach Roy Williams at North Carolina. Instead, he opted to go pro and was drafted in the first round (18th overall) by the New Orleans Hornets. He went on to average 12.4 points per game during his career and was an adept long-range shooter, making 37.3% of his 3-point shots.
When it comes to golf, Smith has been working hard to sharpen his skills over the past 12 years. He started to excel despite never hiring a coach, picking up tips by watching the Golf Channel or even asking pros directly for advice, as he did recently with Rickie Fowler.
After hitting the range with Smith in 2016, pro golfer Dustin Johnson said, "He can play."
Aggies coach Richard Watkins agrees.
"The performance of my golf team just got a helping hand because the young man in question is definitely a good player," Watkins said of Smith.
The Aggies' first match is Sept. 24-25 at the Black College Golf Coaches Association Invitational in Newnan, Georgia.
Meanwhile, Smith has been trying to ease into life as a college student, which hasn't necessarily been easy.
Some star-struck students have posted videos of Smith walking on campus or pictures of him showing up in their virtual classrooms. This has caused others to urge students to respect Smith's privacy and allow him to be a student.
Despite the challenges of juggling his status as a celebrity student and athlete, Smith seems to be enjoying the ride so far.
This might not have been possible for Smith to pull off in past years. While it's true that Smith never started his eligibility clock because he didn't attend college, the NCAA has had pretty strict rules about athletes signing with agents – and receiving benefits from them – and receiving endorsement money, even if those were related to other sports.
One of the most famous cases was that of Jeremy Bloom, a record-breaking football receiver at Colorado who was also a world-class skier. Bloom sued the NCAA in 2004, seeking to be allowed to receive endorsement money from skiing to fund his training for the 2006 Olympics. He lost the court battle, however, and was ruled permanently ineligible for football, losing his junior and senior seasons with the Buffaloes.
But the NCAA has had to loosen its stance in recent years, adopting in June a new policy allowing athletes to profit from their name, image and likeness (NIL).
For Smith, though, the golf is secondary. He just wanted to go to school and give back to society in the process.
"I wanted to go to an HBCU. That was my whole goal going back to school," he said. "For one, to give back to my community and society. Trying to help change the narrative as far as athletes in general, then black men as well, so that's my first goal."
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