{"id":10356,"date":"2024-02-03T16:30:24","date_gmt":"2024-02-03T16:30:24","guid":{"rendered":""},"modified":"-0001-11-30T00:00:00","modified_gmt":"-0001-11-30T00:00:00","slug":"Dave-Smith-Coe-Brown-Longevity-53861070\/","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nne-concord-monitor-2.newspackstaging.com\/?p=10356","title":{"rendered":"Coe-Brown\u2019s Dave Smith still loves coaching basketball, even at 78 years old"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"Coe-Brown
Coe-Brown head coach Dave Smith started coaching in 1967. He’s now in his 33rd season as the varsity boys’ basketball coach at CBNA.<\/figcaption><\/figure>
\"Dave
Dave Smith coaching Coe-Brown during last year\u2019s Division II first round playoff game against Bow. Smith started coaching in 1967. He\u2019s now in his 33rd season as the varsity boys\u2019 basketball coach at CBNA.<\/figcaption><\/figure>
\"Dave
Dave Smith talks to some of his Coe-Brown basketball players during a game against Bishop Brady High School last January.<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/figure>

When Dave Smith first started coaching basketball in 1967, Super Bowl II was just months away, the United States hadn\u2019t yet landed a man on the moon and the Puritan Backroom hadn\u2019t yet invented the chicken tender.<\/p>\n

Almost six decades later, Smith, now 78, still paces the sidelines in high school gyms across New Hampshire. He\u2019s been the boys\u2019 varsity basketball coach at Coe-Brown Northwood Academy since 1990, where he became the\u00a0school\u2019s headmaster a decade earlier.<\/p>\n

His longevity in the game is noteworthy for sure. But more than just his sheer breadth of experience, it\u2019s how he\u2019s achieved this level of success for so many years that stands out.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Doing anything well for over 50 years requires evolution. It requires a willingness to learn, a willingness to adapt and most importantly, it requires being involved for the right reasons. Throughout his career, first at Alton High School and then at Coe-Brown, Smith\u2019s checked all of these boxes.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe truly loves the game of basketball and how it relates to life,\u201d said Dave Daigle, who\u2019s coached at Coe-Brown since 1986. \u201cHe just loves the environment, and that\u2019s what keeps him going. It\u2019s amazing.\u201d<\/p>\n

Smith\u2019s openness to always improving and growing mirrors what he expects of his players. As Daigle noted, he often talks about how basketball is a microcosm of life itself. He hasn\u2019t coached for as long as he has without understanding that that motto applies to him, too.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve learned a lot from kids as well through the years, not just basketball but some of their challenges that they have with their own personal lives,\u201d Smith said. \u201cIf you\u2019ve had a bad day, it\u2019s nice to go to practice and walk through the door and know that you\u2019re going to work hard and have fun for two hours and that you can be together with people that want to be there and have common goals. That makes the day pretty good.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u2018Many ways of doing things\u2019<\/h2>\n

Smith\u2019s coaching career started around the same time that famed Indiana head coach Bobby Knight began his legendary run in Bloomington. Known for his bombastic and often controversial antics on the sidelines, Knight\u2019s style was generally viewed as an acceptable way of coaching at the time. A half-century later, the profession has changed quite significantly.<\/p>\n

\u201cProbably the style of the \u201960s of coaching in certain areas like a Bobby Knight would never exist now,\u201d Smith said. \u201cIt would not be tolerated by high schools, by middle schools, by colleges. You see how it\u2019s changed even in the pros now. There aren\u2019t many Bobby Knight-style coaches, not that he wasn\u2019t a brilliant coach \u2014 the love for his kids that he had and the love that they had for him \u2014 but it was a different style, a different era that would not be, in most cases, acceptable now.\u201d<\/p>\n

Smith never saw himself trying to emulate Knight\u2019s style. Still, it took him some time to learn that there isn\u2019t just one way to coach, as folks who followed Knight and tried to emulate him may have not have understood.<\/p>\n

\u201cSometimes early on, one thinks that there is a way of doing things, and as time goes on, you find out there are many ways of doing things,\u201d Smith said. \u201cIt\u2019s like if I taught a particular class, I\u2019d think that every kid in my class is really going to be focused and love math or love social studies or whatever it is. But it\u2019s understanding that my job is to work with them during that period of time, about trying to appreciate math or social studies and understanding that they have other things going on in their lives at that time.\u201d<\/p>\n

Surely throughout his career, Smith\u2019s witnessed changes he might\u2019ve initially resisted. But he pointed to a key life lesson he\u2019s learned along the way: the openness to look at what you\u2019re doing critically and consider other perspectives.<\/p>\n

Smith loves the full-court press on defense and running fast break on offense. If he lived in a perfect world, he\u2019d employ both all the time. But it\u2019s not a perfect world. Some years, his teams might not be best suited to press or run offense at warp speed for 32 minutes of a game.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think part of the fun of being a coach is to learn how you fit all the pieces together,\u201d he said. \u201cMost coaches don\u2019t have all the tools that they\u2019d like to have. They\u2019ve gotta work to that ability and try to find out how they can make an individual team better.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u2018A common goal\u2019<\/h2>\n

After a basketball game, players are tired. They\u2019ve spent hours in the gym. They\u2019ve listened to their coaches talk in the huddle and in the locker room. They\u2019re ready to go home.<\/p>\n

But not a single Bears player leaves the gym without first giving Smith a fist bump or a handshake. It sounds like a small gesture, but it speaks volumes about the relationship he\u2019s still building with his players. That\u2019s one thing, he said, that\u2019s stayed constant in all his years as a basketball coach and kept him eager to still do the job: the kids.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s a connection that you try to make every day, whether it\u2019s before practice, during practice, after practice that builds that relationship because it\u2019s kind of a life relationship,\u201d Smith said. \u201cBasketball\u2019s very important to the team, and we want to do the best we possibly can and get better every day and be as good as we can be during the season and by the end of the season be pretty happy about what we\u2019ve accomplished to get to that point. But I think the great part of basketball, a great part of the team sport, is that it\u2019s about a lot of individuals coming together with a common goal, a common expectation.\u201d<\/p>\n

It\u2019s not rocket science, yet that throughline of building relationships with his players\u00a0traces itself across Smith\u2019s entire coaching tenure. Coaching has changed. Basketball has changed. Smith\u2019s love for his players has not.<\/p>\n

Jamie Johnson, who\u2019s coached with Smith for over 30 years, even recalls the connection he developed with him while participating in Smith\u2019s camps as a kid growing up in Northwood.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t remember any other coaches from back then when I was a kid,\u201d Johnson said, \u201cbut I remember him. \u2026 He\u2019s special.\u201d<\/p>\n

Few things better capture this tight-knit community that Smith\u2019s built, Daigle explained, than the consistent stream of alumni who return to help out.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Over the holiday break, it\u2019s not uncommon for former players to visit and sometimes even work with the current players in drills during practice.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe older kids have been fantastic about the tradition of what Coe-Brown basketball is,\u201d Daigle said of his favorite memory of being part of Smith\u2019s program for so long. \u201cObviously winning is nice, the championship (in 1997) was amazing, but it\u2019s more of the day-in, day-out hard work, realizing that hard work is a good thing and enjoying it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Coe-Brown\u2019s currently 9-2 this season entering play on Friday, in fourth place out of 20 teams in the NHIAA Division II standings, and two things are clear: Smith still knows how to coach basketball, and he still knows how to bond with his players even though he\u2019s 50 years their senior.<\/p>\n

He also knows his coaching tenure is nearing its end. This year could be the end of the road for him. He hasn\u2019t decided.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s a year-to-year thing for all the things that I do because at this point, it\u2019s not about anything other than I love what I do,\u201d he said. \u201cAnd as long as I feel good about being able to do it mentally and physically, then I\u2019m good. But when the time comes, the time comes.\u201d<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

When Dave Smith first started coaching basketball in 1967, Super Bowl II was just months away, the United States hadn\u2019t yet landed a man on the moon and the Puritan Backroom hadn\u2019t yet invented the chicken tender.Almost six decades later, Smith, now…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":188,"featured_media":10357,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"newspack_ads_suppress_ads":false,"newspack_popups_has_disabled_popups":false,"newspack_sponsor_sponsorship_scope":"","newspack_sponsor_native_byline_display":"inherit","newspack_sponsor_native_category_display":"inherit","newspack_sponsor_underwriter_style":"inherit","newspack_sponsor_underwriter_placement":"inherit","_newspack_byline_active":true,"_newspack_byline":"by [Author id=188]Eric Rynston-Lobel[\/Author] Monitor staff","newspack_content_restriction_is_exempt":false,"newspack_featured_image_position":"","newspack_post_subtitle":"","newspack_article_summary_title":"Overview:","newspack_article_summary":"","newspack_hide_updated_date":false,"newspack_show_updated_date":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[23,546],"tags":[374,24,505],"newspack_spnsrs_tax":[],"coauthors":[533],"class_list":["post-10356","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-high-school-youth","category-homebox6-cm","tag-coe-brown-northwood-academy","tag-facebook","tag-paywall","entry"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/nne-concord-monitor-2.newspackstaging.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/02\/42840316-1.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nne-concord-monitor-2.newspackstaging.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10356","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nne-concord-monitor-2.newspackstaging.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nne-concord-monitor-2.newspackstaging.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nne-concord-monitor-2.newspackstaging.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/188"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nne-concord-monitor-2.newspackstaging.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=10356"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/nne-concord-monitor-2.newspackstaging.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10356\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10358,"href":"https:\/\/nne-concord-monitor-2.newspackstaging.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10356\/revisions\/10358"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nne-concord-monitor-2.newspackstaging.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/10357"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nne-concord-monitor-2.newspackstaging.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=10356"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nne-concord-monitor-2.newspackstaging.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=10356"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nne-concord-monitor-2.newspackstaging.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=10356"},{"taxonomy":"newspack_spnsrs_tax","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nne-concord-monitor-2.newspackstaging.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fnewspack_spnsrs_tax&post=10356"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nne-concord-monitor-2.newspackstaging.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcoauthors&post=10356"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}