A self-proclaimed country boy, Oscar Smith had an upbringing hardly unfamiliar to those who grew up in Beaufort County during the 1950s and ‘60s. Smith, who molded into a lengthy 6-foot-6 frame, was the son of a sharecropper — one of 13 children — and spent most of his time outside of the classroom working in the fields.

Basketball and, even more so, football were his escapes, taking him away from the farm and providing a much needed emotional outlet at the time.

“I loved football better than basketball. I was a defensive end and tackle and loved the physical contact. I took all my frustrations out on the football field against my opponents,” Smith said.

“I really played sports to duck hard work on the farm. It was a means to an end to get away. After school you had chores to do, which were a lot more important to (my father) than playing some damn football.”

Smith was a graduate of P.S. Jones High School in 1963 when segregation was still prevalent, playing basketball under the NCHSAA Hall of Fame coach Dave Smith, to whom the current Washington gymnasium is named after. After playing his freshman year on jayvee, Smith was promoted to varsity early in the 1961 season. In his first game, a matchup against Rocky Mount, coach Smith inserted Oscar Smith, one of the taller players on the team, into the game with one thing in mind — rebounding.

“Coach just said, ‘Oscar go in, I want you to rebound,’ so that’s exactly what I did,” Smith recalled. After the game, “He said, ‘Son, do you know what you just did?’ I didn’t understand. He was astounded. I didn’t see the big deal in getting 22 rebounds in a game. My teammates were just in awe of this achievement. The coach understood my potential at that time, but I still considered it just a damn game. We won, we beat a team, but it was special to everybody except for me.”

From that moment on, Smith was a regular starter for P.S. Jones. He was, admittedly, clumsy at first, lacking certain basketball fundamentals, but eventually, he blossomed into one of eastern North Carolina’s top talents by his senior season. And it was his ability to rebound, as well as perform on the football field, that landed him a college scholarship at Elizabeth City State University.

“I rarely dunked in high school because I couldn’t jump that high,” Smith said. “I was a big country boy, but I could physically handle myself when it came to football. Basketball actually required a different type of skillset, a refined skillset. You couldn’t hide your inadequacies. The last game I played in high school I slam dunked twice. People were just in awe.”

In college, Smith quit football after a few practices and decided to focus on basketball. Like high school, he went unnoticed early in his career, but to evade the Vietnam War, which was drafting men his age at the time, he remained eligible in the classroom and on the court. “You either go to school or you drop out and end up being drafted into the military,” he noted.

His senior season, Smith had become one of the nation’s top rebounders. An All-Central Intercollegiate Athletic Association Team selection in 1968, he averaged 23.6 rebounds per contest, which led the conference and was among the NCAA’s best marks.

Smith’s solid senior year drew interest from ABA and NBA teams. In 1968, he was drafted by the Denver Nuggets of the ABA and the St. Louis Hawks of the NBA, the 89th pick in the seventh round for the latter. He chose the Hawks’ camp, but his professional career would not pan out, as he was cut his rookie year.

“Every athlete feels as if they are good enough to be a part of the team, but you have to look at the real dynamics of the old St. Louis Hawks, what they were before they moved to Atlanta and about what they were looking for,” Smith said. “It wasn’t about how good you were at the time. They were looking for a certain type of ballplayer who could put people in the seats. Oscar wasn’t that ballplayer. I’m not angry with them, but I moved on a long time ago.”

Smith will be inducted into the Washington Walk of Fame on Friday at halftime of the Pam Pack’s conference game against Beddingfield. He joins Fred and Lynda Watkins, Durwood Dixon and Wayne Woolard.