How Keontra Smith escaped an at-risk childhood to become Miami’s Jaquan Johnson successor

Keontra Smith was not the sort of student Hollywood Chaminade-Madonna usually admitted. His application had already been rejected once. His placement test score was in the bottom 5 percent. His grades were an issue. He was trying to transfer in from Fort Lauderdale’s Obama Academy for Boys, a now-defunct charter school for at-risk boys.

They were all red flags for Raiza Echemendia. She had just become the college preparatory school’s interim principal, and now at the urging of Jason Milgrom, the Lions coach trying to get Smith admitted, she was going to give Smith another look.

Smith came in for a meeting with Milgrom and Rico Pradel, whom Smith affectionately calls “Uncle Rico.” They all had something to offer. Milgrom, who wound up coaching Smith for two years, would make sure Smith got on a structured tutoring program. Pradel would have Smith live with him and Shantel Ortiz, Smith’s aunt, at their Hollywood home near the school during the week. Smith, in person, was far more mature than Echemendia could have imagined.

She took a chance.

“I told him, ‘You better not disappoint me,’ ” Echemendia said. “He never forgot that.”

Less than two years later, Smith wrote Echemendia a letter as part of the school’s teacher appreciation week while he was a sophomore. She still has it tucked away safely in a file cabinet and it has found its way on to her desk this week as Smith gets ready to begin his career with the Miami Hurricanes.

“I want to thank you for the opportunity to attend Chaminade,” the letter said. “Ever since I started, I’ve seen a change. When I see you, I remember the talk we had and I remember telling you I’d do anything not to disappoint you.”

“A lot of things in life is about timing,” Pradel said. “It came at the right time.”

***

It has been four years since the midsummer meeting set up Smith for his historic career with the Lions. If it hadn’t happened, Smith might not be preparing for Friday the way he is. On Friday, the 5-11, 195-pound defensive back, who grew up worshiping Sean Taylor and later decided to model his play after Jaquan Johnson, will suit up for his first Miami practice, wearing Johnson’s old No. 4 and competing for a spot in the Hurricanes’ new-look secondary.

Miami’s two starting safeties from 2018 are gone to the NFL. Smith will have a chance to earn playing time in some capacity, even if he slots in behind more veteran defensive backs such as Amari Carter, Robert Knowles and Gurvan Hall when the Hurricanes open the season next month against the Florida Gators in Orlando.

“I feel like coaches are going to love me because they can use me all type of ways. I can go in the box, I can play the deep ball,” Smith said. “Wherever they need me I’m going to play because that’s the type of player I am.”

He learned this when he was young. He began playing as a lineman when he was 5 — he said it’s where he gets his aggression — and, eventually, he hated it. There’s no glory in being a pre-teen lead blocker, so Smith decided he was done. He was at his most rebellious in elementary school and he quit.

His absence didn’t even last a day.

“I ain’t tell my dad,” Smith said. “When he found out, he kicked my [butt] and told me, ‘This is what you want to do. You’re never going to quit on anything you want to do in life.’ ”

He went back the next day and apologized to his coaches. He stuck with football ever since.

The field was always the place where Smith’s best traits were cultivated. His work ethic and leadership abilities — and enough intensity to maybe be mistaken for stubbornness — are now famous at Chaminade-Madonna, where he was awarded the coveted No. 1 for his final two seasons.

When Smith was 2 or 3, he was playing a game with his father in front of their Fort Lauderdale home and started to get angry. His father jokingly told him to run away, so Smith turned and ran down the block, sending his father sprinting behind them. Kervin Smith returned to his wife, Teresa Nuby, with an observation: “This is a very serious young man. He’s going to be a very smart young man.”

A few years later, an elementary school teacher sent a letter home to Smith’s parents, simultaneously a message of praise and a warning.

“Be careful of this young man because he’s a leader,” Kervin remembered it saying. “He can make people do things that they don’t want to do.”

“I took that real serious,” Kervin said.

Keontra is one of seven children, none of whom have ever been in any sort of legal trouble. Keontra’s challenges were almost always in the classroom. He struggled through Parkway Middle School in Fort Lauderdale until his parents pulled him out to send him to the Obama Academy. By the time he was applying to high schools, Smith’s academic profile was at a fifth-grade level, Echemendia said.

Kervin always thought about the letter, though, and he thought about the one middle school teacher his son had who told her Keontra had college potential.

One of Echemendia’s requirements to let in Smith was for him to move in with Pradel and Ortiz. The more structured environment at the Obama Academy had been good for him and a private school would only be better. Home life for Smith in Fort Lauderdale was naturally chaotic with his six siblings and his father’s busy schedule as a truck driver. With Pradel and Ortiz, Smith could eliminate his distractions. Everyone decided it was for the best.

“It was a team effort,” Echemendia said.

***

Just a few days before Smith graduated high school, he had finished up one of his final workouts inside the Lions’ weight room. He stretched out inside one of the dugouts at Chaminade-Madonna’s baseball field, catching a quick breather and some shade before heading out for another workout with a personal trainer, and then probably an evening of skimming YouTube to watch highlights of his favorite safeties — only because there’s no next opponent’s film to watch.

“I honestly think that’s the reason I’m Keontra Smith,” he says. “I go home and I watch film, and before you snap the ball I can see your formation, I can see how your running back’s lined up. I know you’re running here, so I’m going to just beat your O-lineman to the gap and I’m going to be in your face to make the play.”

For about a year, the Kentucky Wildcats thought they had a steal with Smith, who orally committed to them as a sophomore. It was hard for Smith not to be frustrated at the hometown team — his childhood team — when it waited until the winter after his junior year to give him an offer. Miami was his dream school, and for so long he felt like it didn’t want him.

He traces his decision to the first time he sat down with Hurricanes coach Manny Diaz on an unofficial visit. Diaz was just the defensive coordinator then and Smith had become a player all the defensive coaches loved. The reasons are never quite so simple, but they can boil down, effectively, to this: He reminded them so much of Johnson.

Diaz pulled up Smith’s film in one window. He pulled up Johnson’s in another. He would pick out one play Smith would make and then find a similar one on Johnson’s tape. Diaz showed Smith exactly why they wanted him. He showed Smith exactly what he could be.

“Coach Diaz. He’s a ...,” Smith quickly catches himself before he curses. A big grin grows across his face. “He’s a genius.”

Smith ended his time with the Lions as a four-star safety, the No. 188 overall prospect in the 247Sports.com composite rankings for the Class of 2019. He finished his senior year with a team-high 122 total tackles, 32 tackles for loss and nine sacks to lead Chaminade-Madonna to a second consecutive state title.

Johnson finished his senior season at Miami with a team-high 92 total tackles in three fewer games than Smith played. Their per-game averages were separated by half a tackle.

“I look up to Jaquan and the things he did. I want to come there and I want to do some of those things,” Smith said, “but I want to do more.”

This story was originally published July 24, 2019 at 10:59 AM.