Scout Smith, beatin’ the crud out of your best pitches. (Photos by JohnsPhotos.net)
A coach’s daughter, who took the lessons delivered by parents Charlotte and Chris to heart.
My respect for her grows each time I see her play.
Scout Smith is not the tallest, the strongest, the fastest, or the most physically-gifted athlete I have ever written about, and I mean her no disrespect when I say that.
But she doesn’t need to be.
I have watched Scout play volleyball, basketball, and softball for six years now, through middle school days and almost all of her high school experience, and I know this for a stone-cold fact — no one can match her heart.
She is the daughter of coaches, and she paid attention when parents Chris and Charlotte imparted lessons on the field and the court, in the dugouts and on drives home.
Scout is one of the smartest athletes I have witnessed in person, and like older brothers CJ and Hunter, she combines her big brain with a resilient spirit.
She does not quit. Ever.
She will find a way to beat you, and, if that way doesn’t work, she will lose with grace.
It will hurt, it will drive her on to greater heights, but she will honor her opponents and the game itself. Always.
Epic black eye developing after slamming face-first into the volleyball court in pursuit of a ball, she will quietly tell her dad to sit his fanny back down on the bench, because she’s not coming out of the game with her season, and prep career, on the line.
And she will dance around the bases, feet barely touching the bags as she floats through the air, after knifing Cedar Park Christian with a walk-off grand-slam home run which jumped over the fence like a laser.
She deeply loves her brothers, of that I have no doubt, and she has spent her days chasing them athletically.
In that moment, though, she does something neither one of them accomplished during their own halcyon high school careers.
And she will never, ever, EVERRRRRR let them forget that.
Under the deceptively calm exterior Scout projects to the world, burns a heart which is like 10 million active volcanoes exploding all at once.
It’s why she’s helped take Wolf volleyball and softball teams to state, and it’s why she will live large in the memories of Coupeville fans for a very long time after she leaves the prairie.
The youngest Smith, who still has one final softball season left to play before graduation, may go on to play college sports like her brothers, who are in their second year as baseball stars at Green River College.
I hope she does.
I hope Scout finds the right fit, at the right school, at whatever level, and in whichever of her sports brings her the greatest joy.
If she does, she will make a school, and a coach, or coaches (who says she can’t play more than one sport?) very happy.
But I also hope she makes the jump to collegiate sports only if it’s something SHE truly wants.
Whatever she does, wherever she goes, whatever path she follows, whether it’s sports-related or not, Scout will knock it out of the park.
She’s too smart, and has too much heart, and is too committed, to not be excellent.
There was a moment when I, like all the other Wolf fans, had no clue she even existed.
Then, one day, she and her family made the move to Coupeville, and now Scout is so interwoven into our world, it seems inconceivable there was ever a moment when she wasn’t here.
I hope she knows how deeply respected she is, by coaches, fellow athletes — both teammates and rivals — and those who have watched her rise and take her rightful place among the best to ever pull on a CHS uniform.
Scout is the one you hope all young athletes model themselves on as they follow their own path to success.
Be graceful, be kind, play with a burning intensity, let your actions speak louder than your words, work your tail off, be there, front and center, every game, every practice, when we see you, and when we don’t.
Let your heart be a volcano.
Do that, and like Scout, it will carry you far.
For Miss Smith, today it carries her into the Coupeville Sports Hall o’ Fame, where she joins her brothers, three truly superb human beings, on and off the various courts and fields they have owned.
After this, you’ll find the trio up at the top of the blog, under the Legends tab.
How did Scout get there? She earned it, every step of the way.
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