Sometimes you find your career, but other times your career finds you. The latter is exactly what happened to former Steelers DE Aaron Smith. Growing up, he was much more interested in playing basketball, and even went to extreme lengths at one point to stay on the hardwood and off the gridiron.
“Really, my first love was basketball,” Smith said in an interview with Rob King on the Steelers’ website. “I played basketball all the way up until ninth grade and in ninth grade, all my buddies went to play football and so I was stuck with nobody to play with…so they’re like, Aaron, why don’t you play football? And I’m like, ‘Guys, I don’t really wanna play football, I’m a basketball guy.’
“So then I decided to go out for football and I’m pretty good at football. I’m playing free safety, and wide receiver, and tight end at the time, right? And then halfway through the year they moved me up to varsity and we’re the number one team in the state. And I’m playing a little bit, and so basketball season starts, they have tryouts ’cause we’re deep in the playoffs, and I’m like, ‘I don’t wanna play football no more.’ So I went to the coach and actually quit during the playoffs.”
Imagine that, a future Pro Bowl football player quitting on his team in the middle of a state championship run to focus on basketball. You would think that is the end of his football career, but it was actually Smith’s basketball coach who convinced him to play both sports to keep his options open. He admits he didn’t really fall in love with the sport until college. He only really played football starting halfway through his time in high school, but his natural aptitude was too much to ignore.
What made the difference was being told that there are 22 starters in football and only five in basketball. The odds of becoming a professional football player seemed much higher.
Because of his focus on basketball, he was undersized when he got to Northern Colorado where he played football and ended up putting on 35 pounds during his redshirt season. He ended up playing four years and won two Division II national championships and became an All-American defensive player of the year in his conference. That led to him getting drafted by the Steelers.
That is quite a unique path to get to the highest level of a sport and eventually go on to win two Super Bowls and play in one more. Aaron Smith went on to be one of the most underappreciated players in the NFL, playing defensive end and being a key part to Dick LeBeau’s defensive system in Pittsburgh.
Smith only made one Pro Bowl, but his primary job was to stop the run and free up his linebackers to do the playmaking. There’s a reason his linebackers took him with them to Hawaii every year that they made the Pro Bowl. Even in a role that didn’t necessarily accentuate his playmaking abilities, he managed 44 career sacks with a career-high of eight in two different seasons.
And now, in his career after football, Aaron Smith is a high school basketball coach for Eden Christian in Pittsburgh. He got to return back to his first love. Maybe he will be able to offer the same advice to a student in a similar situation one day, telling them to keep their options open with two sports. You never know what it could lead to.