KANSAS CITY, Mo. — With good posture, the massive man stands on the sideline, proper hand over his coronary heart.
The nationwide anthem performs and Chiefs guard Trey Smith appears to be like like he’s in a dream. A tear rolls down his cheek.
Because the music concludes, followers at Arrowhead Stadium change the ultimate phrase. “And the house of the CHIEFS!”
“That,” Chiefs middle Creed Humphrey says, “fires him up.”
Then with the smoke from fireworks nonetheless within the air, the sport begins and Smith hits with such pressure and depth that he may create sparks.
“On that first drive, he’s seeking to ship a message,” Humphrey says. “He’s placing folks on the bottom and letting them understand it’s going to be a bodily recreation.”
The fervour is exceptional and uncommon.
The place does it come from?
It was destined that Trey Smith can be a Professional Bowler and Tremendous Bowl champion. However he can’t cease considering it nearly didn’t occur.
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When Trey was 5, he determined he needed to be a soccer participant. However as a self-described “fats child,” he knew he needed to be a sure sort of soccer participant. So he hit his knees each night time and prayed he would develop to 6-foot-5.
It was a tall order, provided that peak didn’t run in his household. His father, Henry Jr., stood between 6-1 and 6-2. His mom, Dorsetta, was 5-6, and his solely sibling, sister Ashley, is 5-6.
By the point Trey was 12, he was near his present peak of 6-5 1/2, his prayers answered after which some.
He was unusually robust, too, partly due to how he spent his weekends. His grandfather owned a farm in Bethel Springs, Tenn., and Trey helped as a farmhand.
In eighth grade, Trey was invited to a soccer camp at Mississippi. There, Ole Miss coach Hugh Freeze supplied him his first school scholarship. Trey and Dorsetta laughed on the provide, considering Freeze was kidding, but it surely was no joke.
It wasn’t lengthy earlier than different universities adopted Mississippi’s lead — Tennessee, Clemson, Georgia, Alabama, Notre Dame and on and on.
Artis Hicks performed offensive line within the NFL for 11 seasons, and his first NFL coach was Andy Reid. His patio ignored the sector the place Trey’s staff practiced. When Trey was a sophomore in highschool, he and Henry approached Hicks after a Sunday service at Love & Reality Church in Jackson, Tenn., eager to know if Hicks would prepare Trey.
Hicks knew most youngsters didn’t have the psychological fortitude to be price his time. He agreed to place him by way of a exercise, but it surely wasn’t what Trey anticipated — he took him on a run of practically 5 miles.
“I needed to see if I may break him,” Hicks says.
As they parted, Hicks thought he had heard the final of Trey. That night, nonetheless, Trey texted asking if they may work out once more the following day.
“Routinely, I knew I had one thing as a result of he had the scale already,” Hicks says. “As soon as I noticed he wasn’t afraid to be uncomfortable, I actually opened up and dumped every part I had in me into him.”
Hicks took Trey to the fitness center after college the place they lifted and conditioned. He taught him NFL strategies that he realized in Philadelphia from his line coach Juan Castillo and his teammates Jon Runyan, Hank Fraley and Jermane Mayberry. After highschool video games, and even typically throughout video games, Hicks offered teaching suggestions.
Trey was thriving on the sector when Dorsetta was hospitalized with congestive coronary heart failure. He visited her within the intensive care unit at Vanderbilt Medical Middle in early 2015. She was intubated and couldn’t converse, however he had one thing he wanted to say earlier than it was too late.
He needed his mother to know that he would graduate school and play within the NFL. He promised.
Dorsetta, at 51, died shortly after.
Trey Smith, left, with sister Ashley, mom Dorsetta and father Henry, misplaced his mom when he was 15. (Courtesy of the Smith household)
Not figuring out the right way to let go of somebody who means a lot, 15-year-old Trey buried his grief in sport.
“He channeled the unhappiness and frustration and launched it by way of soccer,” Ashley says. “Shedding her motivated him to honor her legacy and fulfill his promise.”
As his sorrow grew deeper, his play grew to become fiercer and his star brighter.
“He grew to become like an alien on the sector,” Hicks says. “He was a canine, he was expert, he was technical and he was athletic. He didn’t seem like anyone else within the nation.”
ESPN named him the No. 1 prospect within the nation and Trey, with roughly 40 scholarship provides, introduced his determination to attend Tennessee stay on ESPN. A marquee in New York’s Occasions Sq. proclaimed the information.
After his freshman season, he was voted second-team All-SEC and was on his strategy to fulfilling his promise.
Then, in a observe after his first season, he handed out. Within the coming days, he misplaced energy and weight. Trey was recognized with blood clots in each lungs.
He took anticoagulants for a lot of the offseason and was cleared to play however was informed if there was a recurrence, he’d have to surrender soccer. Every part was positive till a observe six video games into his sophomore season when he couldn’t catch his breath. Assessments indicated the blood clots have been again.
All he had prayed for, dreamed of and promised appeared unattainable.
“I fell right into a despair,” he says. “I felt like I didn’t have any price. In my eyes, I failed my mother as a result of I couldn’t hold the guarantees I made to her.”
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Mendacity in a hospital mattress, Trey questioned why soccer had been taken away from him. That’s when Hicks known as. They talked about what Trey’s future with out enjoying may seem like, and Hicks supplied to place him in contact with buddies who may assist him get on a training path.
They hung up and Hicks stepped into the bathe. It was there, he says, he had a imaginative and prescient.
“I noticed him happening to changing into what he’s now,” Hicks says. “And this is able to simply be the start, that this is able to be a platform he makes use of to the touch lives and glorify God.”
Hicks known as him again.
“God didn’t carry you this far to allow you to down,” Hicks informed him.
Trey believed him.
Shortly after, on New 12 months’s Eve 2019, Trey drove his GMC Sierra to Knoxville from their residence in Jackson. The music “One thing About The Identify Jesus” by The Rance Allen Group performed.
After which he had a imaginative and prescient of his personal. It was his future, in shoulder pads.
He known as Ashley, who is nearly 9 years older than him, and informed her God informed him he would proceed enjoying soccer.
Along with his college offering the monetary help and Henry and Ashley offering the emotional, he noticed specialists at Cleveland Clinic, Harvard and Vanderbilt. A number of the testing forged doubts on whether or not he had blood clots.
He traveled to the College of North Carolina Hemophilia and Thrombosis Middle, the place Dr. Stephan Moll steered an experimental plan. Trey couldn’t take anticoagulants whereas enjoying as a result of an damage may trigger uncontrollable bleeding. However Moll thought he may attempt intermittent dosing — taking blood thinners through the week whereas avoiding all contact drills in observe, then coming off the treatment the day earlier than the sport.
Earlier than the season opener, Trey was nervous.
“What if I’m going on the market and get a concussion or one thing?” he questioned. “Am I going to die on the sector?”
Trey Smith was voted All-SEC thrice at Tennessee however wasn’t picked till the sixth spherical of the NFL Draft. (Kim Klement / USA Immediately)
A pal texted him the Bible verse Jeremiah 29:11. Trey learn it and stated it again and again the day of the sport. “For I do know the plans I’ve for you,” declares the Lord. “Plans to prosper you, and to not hurt you.”
He finally returned to doing what he had at all times completed — making defenders go the place they didn’t need to. That 12 months, with out ever practising, he was voted first-team All-SEC. Trey maintained the routine as a senior and thrived on the sector, being voted all-conference for a 3rd time.
After his senior season, he was one in all 10 student-athletes chosen for “The Huge Orange Mix,” which gives behind-the-scenes experiences at main sporting occasions. That 12 months, the vacation spot was Tremendous Bowl LVI in South Florida.
In the course of the recreation, some Tennessee followers acknowledged him as he was serving as an usher/greeter and requested if he needed to sit down with them in an open seat. Trey watched as Patrick Mahomes led the Chiefs from a 10-point fourth-quarter deficit to a 31-20 victory over the 49ers. He heard the Chiefs chant and questioned what it might be prefer to put on that pink and gold.
Trey had just lately graduated from Tennessee, fulfilling half of what he promised his mom. However on the time, Trey’s NFL future was unsure. Many scouts thought he had the qualities of a first-round decide. Many common managers thought he had the medical information of a reject.
ESPN despatched a digicam to his home for the primary spherical — the spherical he thought he can be taken in. When he wasn’t picked, ESPN returned for Rounds 2 and three. Trey stayed out of sight, enjoying Rocket League in his bed room.
The community needed to be with him for the third day of the draft, however Trey and his household, fearing the worst, declined their request. Because the rounds handed, Trey “freaked out,” in his phrases, considering he wasn’t destined for the NFL in any case. He questioned himself. Was he ok? Did he play effectively sufficient to justify a staff taking a danger? Did he do all he may need to put himself in the most effective place he may have?
After 225 gamers had been chosen, the Chiefs picked Trey within the sixth spherical.
By his first coaching camp observe, he was operating with the primary staff. He didn’t have any of the same old rookie homesickness, given a few of the pleasant faces round him. He and Humphrey, the staff’s second-round decide that 12 months, had been tight since they met at an Arkansas soccer camp after they have been highschool freshmen.
That summer season, the Chiefs started the Norma Hunt Participant Personnel Fellowship Program. Ashley had labored in numerous roles at Tennessee when Trey was there, beginning as government assistant to the top coach and ending up as assistant athletic director for soccer. She utilized for the fellowship with the Chiefs with out telling anybody who her brother was.
Chiefs common supervisor Brett Veach interviewed her in a video convention. Veach informed her she was overqualified and requested if she was certain she needed the place, which entailed watching tape, onboarding, offboarding and transporting gamers. Ashley needed the job, and he or she shocked the overall supervisor by telling him if he picked her, she wouldn’t be the one member of the household he selected that offseason.
After spending coaching camp with the Chiefs and her brother, Ashley grew to become a participant engagement supervisor for the NFL. Trey, in the meantime, was voted to the all-rookie staff.
Siblings Ashley and Trey Smith each joined the Chiefs in 2021. Ashley now works for the NFL. (Kyle Rivas / Getty Pictures for Hallmark Media)
Chiefs tight finish Travis Kelce has known as the 328-pounder “the enforcer” of the offense. NFL Community analyst and former guard Brian Baldinger goes additional.
“While you’re taking a look at the most effective guards within the NFL, do they get any higher than Trey Smith?” he requested in a video posted on X.
In Trey’s second 12 months, the Chiefs ran a display screen go in Denver. When linebacker Josey Jewell tried to shoot the A spot, Trey, with a cross-body swat from his proper arm, gave him a style of the grime. Then Trey sprinted straight at security Justin Simmons, obliterated him and cleared the house for operating again Jerick McKinnon to take the ball into the top zone.
In subsequent seasons when the Chiefs have put in the play, they’ve proven that clip, which invariably has gotten an enthusiastic response from Trey’s teammates. “It’s at all times enjoyable to observe it,” Humphrey says.
Trey finds inspiration watching tape of guards recognized for pushing the boundaries, reminiscent of Richie Incognito, Ryan Jensen and Quenton Nelson.
“I need to play the sport with unhealthy intentions however throughout the confines of the rulebook,” he says. “I play to be violent and to launch my feelings.”
He tied for the staff lead in snaps this season and in his profession has missed just one recreation due to damage out of 78. He has not taken blood thinners for probably the most half since he’s been within the league, and he hasn’t had any extra clots.
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Chiefs followers have taken to him, understandably, and he looks like an adopted son of Kansas Metropolis.
Trey and Humphrey just lately used their collective pressure to push a automotive out of a snow financial institution after a Sunday morning church service on the town.
On a shelf in his downtown condo is a powerful assortment of bottles of barbeque sauce — sufficient sauce, it appears, to fill a sizzling tub. A plaque commemorating his championship in a wings-eating contest hangs on the wall. A tray of burnt ends is on the countertop.
In some methods, he’s the quintessential Chief.
However he won’t be for lengthy. Trey’s rookie contract will expire after the season. Professional Soccer Focus charges him because the No. 2 upcoming free agent at any place. The expectation is the 25-year-old will develop into the highest-paid guard within the league. The query is who will probably be writing the checks?
The lens he appears to be like by way of is extra fisheye than telephoto, so Trey says he’s much less involved about the place free company could lead than he’s about his subsequent snap, his subsequent opponent and the chance to three-peat.
But it surely’s behind his thoughts. Trey would love a household sometime and contemplates how cash may allow future generations. He additionally thinks about alternatives to make an impression philanthropically and inspirationally.
It’s not as if he’s planning to purchase a yacht or a jet.
“I’ll be trustworthy with you,” he says. “I’m only a nation boy from Tennessee and there’s not an entire lot I essentially need. I simply want somewhat land the place there’s quiet house.”
He could have that already. He and Ashley, who’re believed to be the one brother and sister ever employed by the NFL, inherited their grandfather’s 150-acre farm. It’s been vacant for practically a decade, and he plans to clear the land and use the property for turkey searching and off-roading.
It’s a dream he doesn’t take with no consideration. He doesn’t take something with no consideration. How may he?
The Chiefs trailed the 49ers late in Tremendous Bowl LVIII final February, as that they had within the Tremendous Bowl that Trey attended when he was in school. He may do one thing about it this time, and he did, throwing dominating blocks that helped the Chiefs win in extra time.
After, as his teammates hugged and ran round like little boys, he sat ultimately zone alone, helmet by his facet.
Trey Smith cried. However he didn’t cry the way in which he cries earlier than the nationwide anthem. This was sobbing, chest-heaving crying — very moist and loud.
All of it got here again to him.
Praying to be 6-5.
His promise.
Blood clots.
The telephone name from Hicks.
The imaginative and prescient in his automotive.
Journeys to medical facilities throughout the nation.
Jeremiah 29:11.
Taking part in with out practising.
Panic through the draft.
All his mom missed.
“To be thus far down and to expertise all of this,” he says, pausing, wiping his eye and taking a deep breath. “It simply reveals God’s grace.”
(Prime picture: Nick Cammett / Diamond Pictures through Getty Pictures)