Appalachian Figures Series – The Story of Sam Smith of Perry, Kentucky
In the mountains around Hazard, Kentucky, the name Sam Smith shows up everywhere in the records. Nineteenth century tax lists and cemetery stones carry it. So do twentieth century rosters and modern police reports. For basketball fans in eastern Kentucky, though, Sam Smith means one man in particular.
Samuel “Sam” Chestley Smith was a 6 foot 7 forward who carried the ball from coalfield courts to a national championship and a title run in the old American Basketball Association. Born in the coal camps around Welch, West Virginia, and raised in Hazard, he became one of the first three Black players to integrate the University of Louisville men’s basketball team before leading Kentucky Wesleyan College to its first NCAA Division II championship and then winning an ABA title with the Utah Stars.
His story sits at the crossroads of Appalachian migration, the civil rights era in college sports, and the long fight of former ABA players to be remembered and compensated. It also sits alongside an older tangle of Sam Smiths in Perry County, men whose lives appear in faded family Bibles, Revolutionary land grants, census schedules, and online family trees.
Welch, Hazard, and a Coalfield Childhood
Most modern reference works agree that Sam Smith entered the world on January 27, 1943, in Welch, West Virginia, a coal boomtown on the Tug Fork in McDowell County. A funeral home obituary written by his family likewise describes him as “born in Welch, West Virginia” and notes that the family later moved to Hazard, Kentucky.
The Notable Kentucky African Americans Database, compiled out of archival and newspaper sources, instead lists him as born in Hazard, Kentucky, the son of Van C. and Myrtle A. Olinger Smith. Taken together, the near primary sources suggest a familiar Appalachian pattern. His birth took place in a coalfield hospital town in West Virginia. His roots and memories, and the way people later told his story, were tied to Hazard on the North Fork of the Kentucky River.
What is consistent across the obituaries and biographies is the family setting. Sam grew up in a working class Black household that moved where the work was, crossing the state line the way many coalfield families did. In Hazard he found both a home and a stage. He attended Hazard High School in the late 1950s and early 1960s and starred in both football and basketball, growing into a lanky 6 foot 7 guard and forward who could run the floor and rebound with bigger post players.
In 1962 he was selected to the Kentucky high school All Star team that faced the Indiana All Stars, a showcase game that marked him as one of the best prep players in the state. For Black teenagers coming of age only a few years after Brown v. Board of Education, that kind of spotlight offered more than just athletic promise. It hinted at the possibility of attending a formerly white university and playing in front of integrated crowds.
A Hazard Bulldog Helps Integrate Louisville
In the early 1960s the University of Louisville men’s basketball program, under coach Bernard “Peck” Hickman, was a rising power that had not yet opened its roster to Black players. That began to change when Hickman recruited three young men from Kentucky high schools: Sam Smith from Hazard, Wade Houston from Alcoa by way of Louisville, and Eddie Whitehead from Central High in Louisville.
When Smith arrived on campus in 1962 he stepped into a complicated moment. Louisville was an urban school in a border state, located in a city where civil rights protests were targeting segregated public accommodations even as the basketball team tried to keep up with national powers. The three recruits became not only the first Black players at Louisville but, according to later accounts, the first Black scholarship players at a traditionally white university in Kentucky.
On the court, Smith quickly proved that he belonged. As a sophomore on the varsity he led the Cardinals in scoring, averaging just over nine points per game, and became the first of the trio to crack the starting lineup. Off the court, he navigated all the pressures that came with being a pioneer, from the daily grind of classes and practices to the quieter slights that did not make it into box scores.
Midway through the 1963–64 season, academic trouble cut that first chapter short. Smith was ruled ineligible under university standards and left Louisville, later telling interviewers that the school felt “too big” and impersonal. His departure did not erase his impact. Louisville’s own athletics department would later honor Smith, Houston, and Whitehead as the men who integrated Cardinal basketball and opened the door for later generations of Black players.
Kentucky Wesleyan And A Last Second Shot
After leaving Louisville, Smith transferred to Kentucky Wesleyan College, a small Methodist school in Owensboro whose basketball program was just beginning to build a Division II powerhouse. Under coach Guy Strong he joined Dallas Thornton and George Tinsley to form a front line that would change the school’s athletic history.
In two varsity seasons at Kentucky Wesleyan he averaged around nineteen points and twelve rebounds per game according to college and NCAA statistics, earning All American honors and becoming one of the best small college players in the country.
The moment that most people remember came in March 1966 at the NCAA Division II championship game in Evansville, Indiana. Kentucky Wesleyan and Southern Illinois were tied at 51–51 in the final seconds. The Panthers worked the ball inside, and Sam Smith drove for a layup that broke the tie and sealed a 54–51 victory. He finished with more than twenty points and was named the tournament’s Most Outstanding Player, the first of several Wesleyan stars to earn that title.
Owensboro newspapers and later college features always paired that shot with a simple image. A tall Black forward from Hazard, who had already lived through the turbulence of integration at Louisville, now stood at center court in Indiana holding the ball that made Kentucky Wesleyan a national champion. For many mountain fans listening on the radio or reading clippings sent back to Perry County, it was proof that a kid from Hazard could win on a national stage.
Muskies, Colonels, and Stars in the ABA
In 1967 the Cincinnati Royals selected Smith in the third round of the NBA draft, but he instead signed with the Minnesota Muskies of the upstart American Basketball Association. The ABA promised more playing time, a faster style, and new markets, and it fit Smith’s game.
He made his professional debut on October 22, 1967, against the Kentucky Colonels, scoring 24 points and grabbing 14 rebounds in his first ABA game. In his rookie season he averaged 9.8 points and 7.6 rebounds in more than 28 minutes per game and ranked among the league leaders in defensive win shares and low turnover rate, according to basketball statistic compilations built from the original box scores.
After one year in Minnesota he joined the Kentucky Colonels, bringing him back to his home state in a professional uniform. In Louisville he played significant minutes for two seasons, peaking in 1969–70 with nearly ten points and almost nine rebounds per game and ranking among the league’s top twenty rebounders. When Dan Issel arrived in Louisville, Smith’s minutes dropped and he was traded late in the 1970–71 season to the Utah Stars.
His role in Utah was smaller. He played limited minutes and appeared in only one game in each playoff series. Yet that spring the Stars won the ABA title in seven games over the Colonels, making Sam Smith a league champion at the professional level. When his four year ABA career ended he had scored 2,007 points and pulled down 1,776 rebounds, averages of 8.2 points and 7 rebounds per game.
Later oral history interviews and player tributes stress what the numbers do not. Teammates remembered him as a quiet but fierce competitor who relished doing the hard work of rebounding and defense, the kind of player championship teams are built around even if his name never appeared in large print across the sports pages.
Life After the ABA
After the ABA, Smith returned for a time to Owensboro, where local accounts have him playing in neighborhood tournaments like the Dust Bowl and working ordinary jobs outside basketball. He eventually settled in Indianapolis with his wife, Helen Ruth, with whom he shared a 56 year marriage, and their two children, Sam Jr. and Felicia.
In Indianapolis he remained active in local recreation leagues and in his parish, St. Lawrence Catholic Church, where friends later described him as a steady presence who had carried his faith and sense of discipline from the hardwood into everyday life.
Like many former ABA players, Smith lived far more modestly than modern fans might expect. When the National Basketball Association absorbed four ABA franchises in 1976, many players found themselves caught in a confusing web of pension rules and eligibility requirements. A 2022 article in Black Catholic Messenger reported that Smith died nearly penniless after a prolonged struggle to qualify for an NBA related pension despite his years in the ABA. The nonprofit Dropping Dimes Foundation, which advocates for former ABA players, honored him after his death and had previously helped him and other retirees cover basic expenses.
He was inducted into Kentucky Wesleyan’s Panthers Athletic Hall of Fame in 2013 and named to the school’s All Century team in a fan vote, recognitions that linked his name permanently with the eight time Division II champions he helped launch.
Smith died on May 18, 2022, at age 79 in Indianapolis after complications from a stroke. His funeral Mass was held at St. Lawrence Catholic Church later that month.
Older Sam Smiths in Perry County
For genealogists and local historians, Sam Smith’s story in basketball is only one thread in a much older fabric. The hills around Hazard, Ary, and Dwarf have long been home to men named Samuel or Sam Smith whose lives intersected with wars, land grants, and the slow carving of Perry County out of earlier districts.
Find A Grave and associated cemetery records document a Samuel “Sam” Smith born 7 May 1802 in Kentucky and buried at Engle Cemetery near Dwarf after his death on 4 December 1863. His stone, marked with “PVT,” has led family researchers to describe him as a Confederate private whose death fell in the middle of the Civil War. Collaborative trees at Wikitree, FamilySearch, and related sites tie this Samuel Smith to a larger Smith and Combs kin network in Ary and Dwarf, often identifying him as a son of Richard Thomas Smith, an earlier patriarch who died in Ary in 1836 and is buried in a family cemetery there.
A genealogy blog titled “Everyone Has A Story” pulls together those compiled sources with the 1830 Perry County census and local cemetery notes and points readers back to the Engle Cemetery memorial as a key piece of evidence. Another family narrative, preserved on the “Smith Family History” page at a Tripod site, describes a Smith Bible with births and deaths recorded and traces the family’s migration from the Holston River in what became Hawkins County, Tennessee, into the Ary area of present day Perry County.
Those near primary materials, combined with census images and county tax lists that researchers can consult directly through Ancestry or FamilySearch, show an older Samuel Smith anchoring a large clan on the North Fork at a time when Perry County was still young and the Civil War was tearing families and neighborhoods apart. None of the published work yet firmly ties that Samuel Smith to the twentieth century basketball star. The connection may exist, but it will have to be proven carefully through land records, probate files, and DNA studies rather than assumed from the shared name.
Later in the nineteenth century a Samuel Smith Jr appears in Perry County records, born about 1844 and dying in 1937. A widely circulated compilation on the Yeahpot genealogy site describes him as a son of Samuel Smith Sr and Nancy Jones and lists his marriages to Nancy Owens and Nancy “Nanny” Singleton, along with long lists of children who spread into Knott and Wolfe counties. Again, the details come largely from transcribed vital records and family tradition, but they show how deeply the name Samuel Smith took root in the Troublesome Creek region and beyond.
For local historians, this older web of Sam Smiths is important for two reasons. It reminds us that the families who produced twentieth century athletes and activists had been rooted in the mountains for generations. It also warns us not to flatten every Samuel or Sam Smith we meet in a record book into the same person. Genealogical blogs, cemetery indices, and collaborative family trees are valuable guides, but they rest on the underlying primary sources that still must be checked line by line.
A Common Name, An Uncommon Legacy
By the time Sam Smith died in 2022, Hazard fans and Louisville alumni alike spoke of him as a pioneer. Louisville’s men’s basketball program publicly mourned “one of the first three African American student athletes to integrate the U of L men’s basketball program.” Local news outlets in eastern Kentucky remembered him as a Hazard High legend who carried his hometown onto the national stage and then came back often to visit and mentor younger players.
His life also intersected with harder stories in the present. In the 2020s, as newsrooms in eastern Kentucky reported on separate tragedies involving young men named Samuel Smith, one killed in an ATV shooting near the Knott–Perry line and another found dead near Ary, readers could be forgiven for feeling the weight of a name that keeps returning in local headlines. Those recent cases involve different families and different circumstances, but they underline the same fact the genealogical records show. Sam Smith is a common name in the mountains, and each man who bears it carries his own story.
For the Sam Smith who grew up in Hazard, that story runs from a coalfield childhood to a role in integrating major college basketball, from a game winning layup in the Division II national championship to an ABA ring in Utah, from long nights on the road to quiet years in Indianapolis where he leaned on faith and community more than on professional glory.
In the end, what sets him apart is not that he escaped the hard economics of Appalachian life or the injustices of professional sports. It is that, for a few shining years, he carried a piece of Perry County into arenas across the country and showed that a boy from Hazard could stand at center court with a championship trophy in his hands.
Sources & Further Reading
Wikipedia contributors. “Sam Smith (basketball, born 1943).” Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sam_Smith_(basketball,_born_1943). Wikipedia
“Smith, Sam.” Notable Kentucky African Americans Database. University of Kentucky Libraries. https://nkaa.uky.edu/nkaa/items/show/216. nkaa.uky.edu
Hatter, Evan. “Hazard Basketball Legend Sam Smith Dies at 78.” WYMT, May 19, 2022. https://www.wymt.com/2022/05/20/hazard-basketball-legend-sam-smith-dies-78/. https://www.wymt.com
Day, Kevin. “Hazard Basketball Legend Sam Smith Passes Away.” 103.9 The Bulldog (WXKQ-FM), May 19, 2022. http://www.1039thebulldog.com/?p=63083. Basketball Reference
“Samuel ‘Sam’ Chestley Smith.” Obituary. Owensboro Times, May 18, 2022. https://www.owensborotimes.com/obituaries/110766-samuel-sam-chestley-smith/. The Owensboro Times
“Samuel ‘Sam’ C. Smith.” Obituary. Flanner Buchanan Funeral Home, Indianapolis, 2022. https://flannerbuchanan.com/obit/samuel-sam-c-smith/. flannerbuchanan.com
“Remembering Sam Smith.” Dropping Dimes Foundation. https://www.droppingdimes.org/remembering-sam-smith/. droppingdimes.org
Long-García, J. D. “Former Pro Sam Smith Dies Amidst NBA Pension Controversy.” Black Catholic Messenger, June 2, 2022. https://www.blackcatholicmessenger.org/sam-smith-obituary/. Black Catholic Messenger
“Sam Smith (basketball, born 1943) Facts for Kids.” Kiddle Encyclopedia. https://kids.kiddle.co/Sam_Smith_(basketball,_born_1943). Kiddle
University of Louisville Athletics. “Men’s Basketball to Honor Houston, Smith, Whitehead.” February 17, 2014. https://web.archive.org/web/20220523214553/https://gocards.com/news/2014/2/17/Men_s_Basketball_to_Honor_Houston_Smith_Whitehead. Wikipedia
Kentucky Wesleyan College Athletics. “Sam Smith (2013).” Panthers Athletic Hall of Fame biography. https://web.archive.org/web/20220523220143/https://kwcpanthers.com/honors/hall-of-fame/sam-smith/17. Wayback Machine
Kentucky Wesleyan College Athletics. “Ex-KWC Star Sam Smith Embracing Visit to Owensboro.” KWC Panthers News, March 3, 2016. https://kwcpanthers.com/news/2016/3/3/mens-basketball-ex-kwc-star-sam-smith-embracing-visit-to-owensboro.aspx. Kentucky Wesleyan College Athletics
“Sam Smith Stats.” Basketball-Reference.com. https://www.basketball-reference.com/players/s/smithsa01.html. Please provide a complete URL for me to determine the name of the website.
“Kentucky High School Athletic Association Tournament, After Integration, 1957–1963.” Notable Kentucky African Americans Database. University of Kentucky Libraries. https://nkaa.uky.edu/nkaa/items/show/300004908. nkaa.uky.edu
“PVT Samuel ‘Sam’ Smith (1802–1863).” Find A Grave Memorial 29546028, Engle Cemetery, Dwarf, Perry County, Kentucky. https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/29546028/samuel-smith. Find A Grave
“Samuel Smith Sr (1802–1863).” WikiTree. https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Smith-54752. WikiTree
“Richard Smith (abt. 1771–1836).” WikiTree. https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Smith-54746. WikiTree
“Samuel Smith (1802–1863).” FamilySearch. https://ancestors.familysearch.org/en/LKV3-YDP/samuel-smith-1802-1863. FamilySearch
“Richard Thomas Smith (1771–1836).” FamilySearch. https://ancestors.familysearch.org/en/MB1T-QJD/richard-thomas-smith-1771-1836. FamilySearch
“Samuel Smith Jr and Nancy Owens.” Yeahpot Genealogy. https://yeahpot.com/smith/samueljr.php. yeahpot.com
“Samuel Smith and Nancy Jones.” Yeahpot Genealogy. https://yeahpot.com/smith/samuel.php. yeahpot.com
“MRIN-8 Richard Smith and Elitia Combs.” Everyone Has A Story (Beth’s Blog), May 28, 2012. https://beth0607.wordpress.com/2012/05/28/mrin-8/. Everyone Has A Story (aka “Beth’s Blog”)
“Smith – Kentucky.” Everyone Has A Story (Beth’s Blog). https://beth0607.wordpress.com/category/surnames/smith-kentucky/. Everyone Has A Story (aka “Beth’s Blog”)
“SMITH FAMILY HISTORY.” Thomas Family genealogy site. https://thomasfamky.tripod.com/smith_family_history.htm. thomasfamky.tripod.com
“Perry Co. Sheriff’s Office Investigating Deadly Shooting.” WYMT, March 31, 2024. https://www.wymt.com/2024/03/31/perry-co-sheriffs-office-investigating-deadly-shooting/. https://www.wymt.com
“Perry County Shooting Suspect Arrested.” WYMT, April 1, 2024. https://www.wymt.com/2024/04/01/perry-county-shooting-suspect-arrested/. https://www.wymt.com
“Samuel Smith, Age 19.” Gun Memorial, April 4, 2024. https://gunmemorial.org/2024/04/04/samuel-smith.
Author Note: As a historian rooted in central Appalachia, I wanted to follow both the basketball and genealogical trails behind the name Sam Smith. I hope this piece helps you see how one Hazard Bulldog’s journey fits into a much older web of families, records, and memories in the mountains.