For most football prospects, their first scholarship offer is a special one if for no other reason than it is the first sign of a future at the college level. For offensive lineman Trey Smith, his first offer was not just about the future, but also his past.
As a 14-year-old, Smith and his father, Henry, were preparing to go Ole Miss' summer camp in 2014. The two had always traveled together to Alabama’s camp in years past but had never been to another school’s event.
His mother, Dorsetta, had never been to one of his football camps either as she didn’t really understand the game. Henry Smith found his wife packing her bags for this trip, though.
“That was very unusual because she never went to the camps,” Henry said. “But she said she was coming to this one.”
Smith was having an exceptional camp, and despite only being 14 and a freshman in high school, he was competing with upperclassmen.
His mother and father stepped away to grab a snack and quickly heard an Ole Miss coach talking about a 14-year-old kid. They knew immediately it was Trey.
They hurried back to see their son getting praise and attention from the coaching staff, including from head coach Hugh Freeze. After the camp, Freeze invited the family into his office and told them that Ole Miss was offering Trey a scholarship.
That offer was met with some confusion and even a little laughter.
“I played football in college, but I didn’t realize you could offer a 14-year-old kid a scholarship,” Henry said. “Coach Freeze said 'Trey, we want to offer you a scholarship,' and Trey and my wife started laughing out loud. They weren’t laughing in his face, but they thought Coach Freeze was confused about who Trey was.”
But Freeze wasn't laughing. That image has been burned into Trey’s memory, not just because it was his first offer, but because his mother and father were by his side.
“That was huge for me having her there throughout that part of the process,” Trey said. “I think almost God played in that one, too, because that camp I got my first scholarship offer and she was there present for it.”
She was there at Ole Miss, then at Tennessee when the Vols offered a scholarship later that summer and also at Clemson, where the trip yielded the same result. They took visits to see games during the college football season, and everything seemed to be going well.
After the season, however, his mother fell ill and was hospitalized on December 30 with heart complications. The hospital visit was initially for some tests and observations, but after some setbacks she was transferred to Vanderbilt for more help.
She had been in the hospital for nearly a month before the prognosis started to get any better. On February 9, 2015, her health had gotten so much better that Trey and Henry started to plan a welcome home party.
The planning didn’t last long, though, as the two received shocking news the next day.
“The next morning I went to work, and my sister-in-law kept calling me and said I needed to come back to the hospital,” Henry said. “Sometimes you get that gut feeling that something’s not right, so I went to the hospital and got there and she had already passed away. It was one of the worst days of my life.”
Henry drove back home, knowing he had the daunting task of telling his daughter, Ashley, and son, Trey, that their mother was no longer with them. As a 15-year-old kid, Trey took the news as well as he could, but he was overcome with emotion and fear.
“I remember coming home from school, and I had that gut feeling that something was wrong,” Trey said. “My aunts and cousins picked me up from school, and I went to my uncle’s house. My dad walked in and just collapsed and told me that she had passed away.
“It was a tough time in our lives.”
Henry tried to explain that while she was no longer with them on earth, she was still with them in spirit, that everything she had taught Trey was still with him, and he needed to use that to make her proud.
Over the next few weeks, Smith’s classmates, teammates, coaches, friends and family chipped in where they could. They offered meals, emotional support and a listening ear to a family who was so suddenly torn apart.
Trey and his father eventually took more college visits. Some of the coaches weren’t aware that his mother had passed and would ask where she was, stirring up emotions and memories, a reminder of that image of Trey and his mom laughing at that first offer.
On a return visit to Ole Miss, Freeze offered his condolences to the family and offered any help he was able to give.
As football season approached, Trey was now a junior and the No. 5 ranked football prospect in the country, far from that 14-year-old boy who received his first offer. Henry did his best at making Trey’s life as close to normal as he could, but there were always reminders that crept in.
Sitting in the stands at Trey’s games, choosing the same seats he and his wife had always sat in, Henry worried as Trey would look up and no longer see his mother watching in admiration.
For Smith, football and the recruiting process has given him some of his best memories of his mother, memories that will last a lifetime.
Because she was there for that first offer from Ole Miss and again at Tennessee and Clemson, those three schools will forever hold a strong place in his heart.
“In a way, because those are the schools that she was able to see,” Smith said. “She never really gave me her opinions, but those schools mean a lot. They know a little more of me than the other schools and know my family a little better.”
