A back injury will likely cost Hunter Smith the final five games of his senior season, but he exits holding seven CHS football records. (David Stern photo)
He is the best I have seen play with my own eyes.
From the first moment he stepped on the field as a fab frosh, to today, where he’s a sensational senior, Hunter Smith has been the gold standard.
A back injury, aggravated on a running play at Vashon where he was sandwiched by multiple tacklers and bent in three directions at once, will likely claim his remaining days on the gridiron.
He stalked the sidelines at Port Townsend, will not play against Bellevue Christian tonight, and the chance he will see the field in his team’s final three games is slim.
As a fan, it will be a killer to see half his senior season carved away, it’s true.
But, as great as he has been, if us missing the chance to see a few more highlights means Hunter heals and is pain-free in the years to come, it’s an easy choice to make.
And, in the end, on-field greatness isn’t decided by how many games you play — but by what you did in the time you had.
Ian Barron, Coupeville’s career rushing leader and one of the few who would join Smith in the conversation for the greatest Wolf gridiron player of all time, essentially missed a complete season thanks to two different injuries.
We can take Smith’s three-and-a-half years wearing #4 and say, with absolute assurance, this young man here, he was one of the greats.
He exits holding seven different CHS football records, one more than Barron, and is the only Wolf to own season and career marks on both sides of the ball.
A silky-smooth receiver who routinely turned five-yard passes into 50-yard jaunts, he was rarely, if ever, shut down by opposing defensive backs.
Flip the tables, and Smith was Mr. Lock-down.
He was pick-happy, could fly to the ball to deliver bone-crunching hits and rendered his side of the field a no-pass zone most nights.
But numbers are numbers, records are records, and the true greats achieve rarefied air by doing something more than just putting up stats.
Smith was a quiet leader, a guy who led by example, and someone who always put his own teammates ahead of himself.
I don’t say that lightly.
As he churned through games, piling up stats, the ONLY time I ever heard him say a word about the numbers was a moment when he thought his mate in the defensive backfield, Cameron Toomey-Stout, was being robbed.
A clerical error during their junior season awarded Smith an interception which Camtastic had snagged, and, behind the scenes, Hunter did everything in his power to get the stat properly awarded.
He was chasing the school’s career pick record at the time (and caught it during his senior year), but wanted credit only for what he had truly achieved.
More importantly, Smith had great pride in Toomey-Stout and didn’t want to deflect the spotlight from his friend.
That moment, as much as any pass he hauled in, or any time he zipped into the end zone and immediately tossed the ball to the ref, Barry Sanders-style, is why we will remember him so fondly.
Who knows? Somewhere down the road a Wolf player may show up and come gunning for Smith’s records, the way he did when he surpassed ’80s great Chad Gale.
But, whether he holds the records for a season, for decades or until high school football fades out and is replaced by Ultimate Frisbee, Hunter Smith will live large in the memory banks of Wolf football fans.
He was a class act, on and off the field — the best I have witnessed with my own eyes.
Smith’s career numbers:
Receiving:
102 catches
1,761 receiving yards
17.3 yards a catch
17 receiving TDs
Rushing:
33 carries for 128 yards
1 rushing TD
Passing:
1-1 for 67 yards
Defense:
105 tackles
16 interceptions
3 fumble recoveries
2 TDs on pick-sixes
Punt/kickoff returns:
17 for 351 yards
1 TD on a punt return
1 TD on a kickoff return
Scoring:
140 points
22 touchdowns
4 conversions
School records:
Receiving TDs in a game (3) – 2016 vs. Bellevue Christian
Receiving yards in a season (916) – 2016
Receiving TDs in a season (11) – 2016
Interceptions in a season (7) – 2015
Receiving yards in a career (1,761)
Receiving TDs in a career (17)
Interceptions in a career (16)
Read Full Post »
