Ball State Alum Sam Smith And ESPN's The Last Dance

Sam Smith isn't exactly sure what year it was, but it was sometime in the late 1980s and he was on a golf course playing against Michael Jordan. The 1974 Ball State graduate was a Bulls beat writer for the Chicago Tribune and was friendly with the superstar at the time. Jordan wanted to make their round of golf more "interesting" and Smith wasn't agreeing to the terms.

"I couldn't go home and explain to my wife that I lost $2,000 playing golf with Michael Jordan," the long-time journalist said.

Smith finishes the story in a way that captures the essence of Jordan. The two played 18 holes and Jordan hadn't shot all that well that day as they approached the 18^th green. By then, scores of people had learned MJ was playing on the course and had come to watch him. Jordan had a 40-foot putt lined up in front of what Smith estimates was 60 people on the 18^th green. With the pressure on and people watching, Jordan was at his best. He sank the long putt.

Smith, a Ball State Department of Journalism Hall of Fame inductee and author of several basketball books, has found himself in the spotlight recently due to his history with the 1990s Chicago Bulls and the ESPN docuseries The Last Dance. He appeared in several of the 10 episodes in the popular series and estimates he's done more than 30 interviews during its run, talking to outlets as far as Australia, China, Italy and Spain.

Smith's journey from his youth in New York City to Muncie to riding shotgun with basketball's most famous dynasty is as unlikely as Jordan's journey in basketball. He graduated from Pace University in NYC with a degree in accounting and played baseball there, but a career poring over financial statements didn't seem fulfilling for him. He dabbled in writing while at Pace and wanted to take the unconventional route from accounting to journalism.

"One thing when I was really young was I wanted to find something to do that I had a passion for doing. The money was not relevant. The reward was in the work," Smith said.

Smith started looking for graduate journalism programs and his knowledge of sports informed his applications. He nearly went to the University of Kansas ("I knew Wilt Chamberlain went there") but had an offer to come to Ball State, which he'd only heard of because of a thrilling running back there named Tim Brown. In 1973, Louis Ingelhart, the Ball State department chair, called Smith to offer him a full tuition graduate assistantship to keep the business books for Ball State's yearbook The Orient. Ingelhart was impressed with his business background, even if Smith was trying to leave it behind for a life in journalism.

"I didn't really know where Ball State was," Smith said. "I had never even left New York City. But I remembered the Eagles had a good running back named Timmy Brown who ran back-to-back kickoffs for touchdowns and I'd remembered he went to Ball State."

For Smith, Muncie might as well have been Mars. It was a long way from New York. The son of Ukranian immigrants, Smith's father was a postman and his mother a secretary. They grew up during the Great Depression and wanted their son to pursue honest work. Beyond the basics, school was labeled as foolish. But Smith found his way in Muncie, living in Shively Hall while working for the yearbook, taking night classes and writing about all topics he could. News, sports, the offbeat. Smith was "directionless," but enjoyed that Ball State allowed him to find his strengths.

"Ball State turned out great for me," he said. "I had so many opportunities to test myself and try different things and stories. Sports, investigative work. I had never really done anything before. It was an opportunity for me to try everything I didn't know how to do."

After a year of postgraduate work in Muncie, Smith says he applied to 70 newspapers and received a single writing job offer – a job covering business news and the Denver Broncos in Longmont, Colorado. By the time he traveled to Colorado and back for the job interview, he'd also been offered a job at the Fort Wayne News-Sentinel so he took that job and after a few years ended up covering politics in Washington, D.C. before coming to the Chicago Tribune in 1979. jordan rules

He recalls getting to the Chicago sports scene at just the right time, as the Bears and White Sox had been improving and in 1984 the Bulls took a young Mike Jordan out of North Carolina.

"It was serendipity. I was in the right place at the right time," Smith said. "Nobody knew we had the next big thing coming. It wasn't until 1991 when they won that he became a big star. He was honest and open and was really great to be around. Dealing with him was a very casual thing."

In 1992, Smith published one of the most famous basketball books of all time: The Jordan Rules. The book, sometimes critical of Jordan, peeled back the layers of the relationships and conflicts of the most famous team in sports. As the book made waves across the world when Jordan was at the peak of his fame, Smith stood by his reporting and went to the basketball stay face-to-face.

"When I wrote The Jordan Rules, it was about the combination of his incredible drive and competitiveness with the inexperience and youth of the team," Smith said. "But there were these episodes that were mentioned and some were maybe out of context and so of course there was an incredible controversy at the time about the book. But my background as an investigative reporter means you stand by what you write and I talked to Michael and he was always great."

After that, golf games and dinners with Jordan disappeared but the two maintained a respectful working relationship and Smith has conducted one-on-one interviews with Jordan in his current position writing for the Chicago Bulls website. Even after the tension, Smith calls Jordan "great fun to be around and a terrific guy."

Since The Jordan Rules was published in 1992, Smith has endowed a journalism scholarship at Ball State in his name. It's his way to give back – but no overachievers allowed.

"I wanted it to go to average students, because that's what I was," Smith said.

As the '90s Bulls have brought Smith back into the spotlight with interviews across the world, the long-time journalist remembers his time at Ball State fondly.

"Ball State was a jumping off point for my career," Smith said. "It gave me a lot of confidence. I am indebted to my experience at Ball State."

Ball State Alum Sam Smith And ESPN's The Last Dance

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