There is an unspeakable sadness in Ronald Nored's voice, and yet, he doesn't want to speak of sadness, even after learning that former Butler student-athlete Andrew Smith, just 25 years old, passed away Tuesday after his battle with cancer. No, Nored wants to tell stories, happy stories, celebratory tales that provide a glimpse into who Smith was and what he represented as the embodiment of "The Butler Way."
And so Nored, who played with Smith for three years and is currently the coach at Northern Kentucky, is laughing, regaling me with one of his most vivid and happy memories of his times with Smith.
"You've got to understand, he started out real quiet when he first came – real quiet," Nored said. "Then we had this walk-on there, a senior named Nick Rodgers, and him and Andrew struck up this weird friendship between this 6-11 freshman and a 5-11 senior, two really different personalities. Then you know that song? 'Give me the beat boys and free my soul..' I can't remember the name of it."
"Drift Away,” I told him.
"Right," he said. "So we're in Salt Lake City in the second round of the NCAA Tournament and Andrew did this really stupid thing, singing 'Do-do-do-doot-doot' and then singing the song really loud, and everybody is like, 'Who is this guy? Where did this guy come from?' That was like his coming-out party. That kind of became his thing. Him and Nick would just start singing that song.
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"So anyway, I didn't know where it came from. I thought he made it up. Then I recently started watching "The Office" on Netflix, and there's a character on that show ("Andy Bernard") who sings that. That's one of the things I was able to tell Andrew Friday, 'Dude, I finally found out where that came from.' That was cool. I'm sure he smiled when I told him that.‘'
Nored, like former Butler coach Brad Stevens, visited with Andrew and his wife Samantha last Friday. Mostly they spoke with Samantha; Andrew was having a rough day and wasn't up for much conversation. But he would perk up occasionally and speak. There were tears that day and there were some laughs.
"The best part for me, and I'm sure Brad would say the same thing, is that we both got to hug Andrew and tell him we loved him and he did the same," Nored said. "It was sad, though, as we were both leaving, we knew he didn't have much time left. But I'm deeply grateful I was able to see him before this day came.
"He was so quiet at first, then he was no longer like that, and there was a radiance and a light about him, a fun-loving spirit that was always loving and giving, and we all got to experience it, even through his fight with cancer. I continue to be inspired by him."
Soon after Butler's Butler head coach Chris Holtmann heard the news, he phoned Stevens, a long-time friend.
"How are you doing?" Holtmann asked.
There was momentary silence. "Phewww," was all Stevens could muster.
"Is there anything in particular you want me to say (to the media)," Butler's coach wondered.
"No, just tell people who you heard he was and who you know he was," Stevens said.
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Understand, Holtmann didn't know Smith all that well, never coached him during Butler's glorious back-to-back NCAA Finals appearances in 2010 and 2011. But he's spoken to so many people who did know Smith well, people like Stevens and Kellen Dunham and Roosevelt Jones and assistant coach Terry Johnson and others – he feels like he knew him like a son. So when Holtmann stood in front of a bank of cameras around 6:00 Tuesday night at Hinkle, he spoke with the raw emotion of a man who knew him intimately.
"From what I've heard from Brad, from what I've heard from (long-time assistant) Terry Johnson and from his former teammates, he was such a giving person, and I think that really shined through in his battle with cancer," Holtmann said. "He and Samantha were instrumental in getting others to get in the bone marrow registry; I did it myself, prompted by Samantha and Andrew. This is a day for us to celebrate his life and to keep him and his family in our prayers."
When Smith came to Butler as a lightly recruited big man from Covenant Christian, there was little reason to believe he would become the player he became. He was a freshman on that first NCAA Finals team, averaging 1.0 points per game in 4.9 minutes per game. By the time he was a senior, he averaged 11.3 points and 6.1 rebounds in 27.5 minutes per game and was a centerpiece. Beyond all of that, he was an Academic All-American his senior year and graduated with a degree in finance.
He was what Butler represented and continues to represent.
After graduating Butler in 2013, Smith went on to join the Oklahoma City Thunder's Summer League team, and eventually went on to play professional basketball in Lithuania. Then the problems started when a medical exam revealed a mass in his chest. The frightful diagnosis was made – non-Hodgkin lymphoma. And the fight was joined.
And let me tell you about his fight and his family's fight. They fought with such grace and courage and faith in a higher power, it's as inspiring today as it is sad. Every couple of days, his wife shared stories of their battle in her beautifully crafted blog, providing a glimpse into a fight that so many people have waged. Even as he was dying, even as Samantha and those around them struggled to find strength, they showed us how to live.
Matt Howard, a long-time Butler teammate and friend, tweeted a picture of Andrew riding a stationary bike while wearing a surgical mask.
"This is who my friend was," Howard wrote. "He beat cancer by the way he lived. Incredible toughness. He gave it all, always."
A few weeks back, the Smiths were able to attend the Butler-Purdue game at Bankers Life Fieldhouse. A game that Butler won, by the way. "You know, he came to our game at some risk," Holtmann said. "He had to get put back into the hospital after that appearance. And it meant so much to our players. It really showed his love for this place, how connected he was to his basketball family and his university family."
Samantha Smith noted that Andrew "peacefully passed away in his sleep and in my arms as I told him I loved him this morning." Now, there is no more pain, no more suffering. There are no words, not when somebody so young and so promising leaves too early. But you find those words, and you celebrate a life, a life that ended way too soon.