Although his NBA career was brief, Tee Smith left Ball State as one of the most decorated Cardinals ever. I’ve never met him, but I felt a personal connection to the guy when I was a kid. That connection may have made me the world’s preeminent collector of his cards! After we took a deep dive into the career of Oliver Miller a couple weeks ago, my trip into basketball obscurity continues.
Ball State is Indiana’s fourth-largest university. It’s a well-known school, but its college basketball teams toil in obscurity compared to the nearby Hoosiers, Boilermakers, and Bulldogs. The Cardinals have appeared in a scant seven NCAA tournaments, only advancing to the Sweet Sixteen once. Nevertheless, several greats passed through Worthen Arena, like hometown heroes Chandler Thompson, Bonzi Wells, and Ray McCallum. McCallum was the Cardinals’ head coach when Tee Smith joined the team.
Tee Smith was one of the greats. Born in Winterhaven, Florida on October 3, 1980, he averaged 28.5 points and 15 rebounds per game as a high school senior1. Smith made an immediate impact as a college freshman, but his career peaked during his junior year: on November 19, 2001, Smith scored nineteen points and grabbed seven rebounds to lead Ball State to defeat No. 4 Kansas in the Maui Invitational, a huge upset victory. A day later, he scored 22 points as the Cardinals beat future NBA players Jason Kapono and Dan Gadzuric of the No. 3 UCLA Bruins.
Duke defeated Ball State in the championship round, but Smith led the Cardinals to a 23-12 record before they fell to South Carolina in the quarterfinals of the 2002 NIT tournament. Over the course of the season, he averaged 19.6 points, 10.9 rebounds, 1.4 assists, and a steal. Smith’s twenty-three double-doubles were the second-most in the NCAA that year2!
Although he was one of the MAC’s star players, Tee was rarely interviewed and hardly spoke in press conferences. He grew up with a severe stutter and was teased mercilessly by his friends and family. As he grew up, Tee’s abilities on the basketball court transcended his self-consciousness3, and that really hit home for me. I was the same- minus talent on the basketball court, of course: as a baby, I had a series of ear infections just as I was learning to speak. Because I couldn’t hear people properly, I developed a speech impediment that was so bad my mom had to translate what I said!
It was a humiliating, lonely existence spent planning sentences out in advance to avoid words using R and S! None of that really mattered on the basketball court, though: I’ve never been naturally athletic, but Tee Smith didn’t let his stutter get in the way of his game, and neither did I. With lots of practice, I developed into a decent sixth man on intramural, school, and travel teams.
Unfortunately, I didn’t spend my entire life on the basketball court. Neither did Tee: we had to learn to actually speak to people! Smith started hour-long speech therapy sessions three to four times a week during his first year at Ball State4. I did too. It took years, but I learned to pronounce the letter S in third grade. The letter R was harder, but I finally mastered it as a freshman in high school.
Tee declared for the NBA draft after his phenomenal 2001-02 season. Although he was initially considered one of the top twenty-five players available, his stock fell as others entered the draft. By May, he was projected to be a second-round pick. The prospect of being chosen so late in the draft meant potentially missing out on millions of dollars5, so Tee heeded the advice of scouts and returned to Ball State for his senior year. Unfortunately, he tore his ACL in the offseason and only appeared in three games before sitting the rest of the season out to rehabilitate. As a result, Ball State went 13-17 and posted its first losing record in sixteen years6.
After promising he’d return to Ball State for a fifth year of eligibility, Smith caught his teammates and coaches off-guard by announcing that he was declaring for the 2003 NBA draft. Although he was projected to be a late second-round pick7, Tee went undrafted.
It wasn’t due to lack of interest: the Memphis Grizzlies -helmed by all-time NBA great Jerry West- scouted Smith extensively over the summer but lacked the draft pick to take him8. On July 16, West signed Tee to a $1 million contract. Smith reported to Memphis and joined former Cardinal Bonzi Wells on a particularly deep Grizzlies squad.
Smith chose the number 0 for his jersey to remind him that he’d gone undrafted9, and swatches from his Grizzlies uniform are purported to feature on this pair of Topps 2003-04 Jersey Edition cards printed during Smith’s rookie year. So-called “memorabilia cards” were new to the scene when I was a kid, featuring pieces of game-worn jerseys, shooting shirts, and even shoes! Most of them bear a guarantee on the back that confirms the authenticity of the material.
Here’s the back of the two cards. Both say, in part, that “The material featured on the front of this card was worn during the 2003-04 NBA regular season. It was acquired directly from NBA Properties, Inc.” As a kid, it felt like a slap in the face when I learned how closely I had to pay attention to those certifications! The wording is very particular.
Here’s an example of what I mean. These cards came from the same Upper Deck set from 2008-09 and have jersey swatches on the front. If you flip them over, the Tracy McGrady on the left reads, “On the front of this card is a piece of memorabilia that has been certified to us as having been used in an NBA game,” while the Shawn Marion on the right says, “On the front of this card is a piece of memorabilia that has been certified to us as having been used by Shawn Marion as a member of the Phoenix Suns in an NBA game.” It’s the same company and the same series of cards, but a big difference!
I don’t know if my Tee Smith cards feature pieces of his actual jersey, or if they were even part of a uniform worn during an official NBA game since the description is so generic. At a minimum, someone wore a garment that contained the fabric between October 28, 2003 and April 14, 2004, and Topps acquired the material directly from the NBA. Was it a ball boy? A fan? A Topps employee? The card doesn’t specify. Even though their provenance is up in the air, the cards are still cool. I’m not sure another Tee Smith jersey card exists.
Autographs aren’t foolproof, but they’re more cut-and-dried than cards with “game-worn materials” can be. Today, most autographed sports cards feature a signed sticker affixed to the card itself. Not this one, though- the autograph’s sandwiched between the cardstock. Beyond the signature, it’s an intriguing card for a couple reasons. The first is that it was the twenty-first of a hundred cards printed, and 21 was Tee Smith’s number at Ball State. The second unique thing about the card is that his signature was inserted upside down!
Here’s the magenta press plate used to print Tee’s 2003-04 Bazooka base series card at the Topps factory. It features a typical sticker autograph, but at least it’s oriented correctly! The “card” is thin stainless steel with an authentication sticker on the back. I have a couple of the cards that this was used to print, but couldn’t find any of them before I decided to post this. I’ll post an update when I do.
The image on the front of this badass 2003-04 UD Glass base rookie card was taken during the summer league before Tee’s rookie season. The card itself is transparent plastic. After dominating during the offseason, tendinitis limited Smith to twenty games during his first year. His best performance of the regular season was on March 18th, 2003, when he recorded seven points, five rebounds, two assists, and a steal in fifteen minutes against the Seattle Supersonics. Nevertheless, he finished the year averaging 2.2 and 2.1 rebounds over nine minutes per contest.
Jerry West and the Grizzlies remained bullish about his prospects, but in 2004 a brand new team called the Charlotte Bobcats selected Smith in the expansion draft, much to West’s chagrin. “Not only is Theron Smith an exceptional talent and athlete, but he is also a quality young man,” the legend stated. “We are very disappointed to be losing Theron, but at the same time are happy for him as he undoubtedly has a promising NBA career ahead of him10.” The picture on the front of Smith’s 2004-05 Fleer Tradition Card was taken on NBA Media Day on October 4, 2004. I pulled several of them from a box I got on my fourteenth birthday.
The upstart Bobcats gave Smith more opportunities than he had in Memphis. In Charlotte, he was reunited with UCLA’s Jason Kapono, who he guarded in the 2001 Maui Invitational! During his second professional season, Smith played an average of fifteen minutes over thirty-three contests and even started in five. His best game came on February 11, 2005, in a loss to the Miami Heat, when he recorded ten points, seven rebounds, and two assists in twenty-four minutes of action. At the end of the year, Smith averaged 3.2 points and 3.4 rebounds per game, again limited by injuries.
After his contract ended, Tee played in preseason games for the Denver Nuggets before he was assigned to the Florida Flame of the National Basketball Development League, the NBA’s farm system. Unfortunately, he never played in the NBA again: from 2006 to 2014, he balled in Italy, France, China, Romania, Argentina, and Venezuela. Today, he’s a personal trainer based in Florida11.
Trading Card Database says that sixty-nine Tee Smith cards were printed over his short NBA career. That’s surprising! Could he have achieved greater heights if he’d redshirted his senior year and returned for a fifth season at Ball State before declaring for the NBA? Maybe, but I’d have done the same thing if I was in his position. It’d be hard to turn down the prospect of millions of dollars! At the end of the day, Tee got his bag, was one of about 5,000 people to play in an NBA game12, and became a hero to a local kid who learned that even college stars and pro athletes went to speech therapy classes. Twenty years after he left Ball State, I’m still grateful for what Tee Smith taught me, and that’s why I’ve got all these cards of his.
Sources Cited
1 Zaleski, D. (1999, November 19). Coach hopes to use depth in conference tournament games. The Muncie Star Press. p. 19.
2 Theron Smith. Hall of Fame. Ball State University Athletics. Web. Retrieved May 27, 2023.
3 Zaleski, D. (2002, February 2). ’T’ working on overcoming fear. The Muncie Star Press. Pp. 1-2.
4 (See footnote 3).
5 Zaleski, D. (2002, May 15). NCAA rule might impact BSU player’s decision. The Muncie Star Press. pp. 15-19
6 Zaleski, D. (2003, February 9). Waiting game wears on ’T.’ The Muncie Star Press. p. 16.
7 Zaleski, D. (2003, April 11). Former BSU player Smith on draft list. The Muncie Star Press. p. 14.
8 Beebe, P. (2003, December 31). Smith is patient in rookie campaign. The Muncie Star Press. p. 9.
9 Hussey, B. (2004, October 6). Theron Smith: Working To Prove His Value. NBA.com. Web. Retrieved May 27, 2023.
10 Zaleski, D. (2004, June 26). Ex-BSU pitcher picked for All-Star game. The Muncie Star Press. p. 9.
11 Hildyard, C. (2016, August 25). Former NBA player shifts careers from pro ball to personal training. WJHG [Panama City]. Web. Retrieved May 7, 2023.
12 Bailey, A. (2019, September 26). Bleacher Report’s All-Time Player Rankings: NBA’s Top 50 Revealed. Bleacher Report. Web. Retrieved March 27, 2023.
