Hard-hitting Smith signs with Carroll

Don’t be surprised if you see Maxl Smith flipping a giant tire through the mud this spring or knocking off a few wind sprints at the practice field wearing a 60-pound backpack. It’s all part of a training regimen that has chiseled the 215-pound senior into Carroll College’s latest football recruit from Whitefish High School.

“I like to get out in the raw elements and get dirty,” Smith told the Pilot in an interview last week. “That is a big part of my training.”

Smith signed this winter to play with the 2010 NAIA national champion Fighting Saints of the Frontier Conference. He will attend Carroll College on a full-ride athletic scholarship.

Not surprising, it’s Smith’s work ethic that garners the most attention from gridiron coaches and school administrators.

“Maxl has an incredible work ethic,” Whitefish head football coach Chad Ross said. “He was our strongest guy and the fastest.”

Whitefish athletic director Jackie Fuller calls Smith a great young man.

“This man worked very hard to get where he is at,” Fuller said. “He’ll be an impact, not only on the field, but in the classroom.”

Smith’s time in the mud flipping tires and running through knee-deep snow in the winter helped lower his 40-yard dash time to a blistering 4.57 seconds, the fastest on a Bulldog roster full of speedsters. He’d like to lower it to a 4.5 flat by the summer.

Carroll is looking for Smith to play outside linebacker and use his speed to their advantage.

“They’ll bring him off the edge, and he could play strong safety if needed,” Ross said.

Smith isn’t too concerned about which position he’ll play, he just knows he wants to be on the defensive side of the ball.

“I just love to lay the wood on someone,” Smith said. “A lot of guys like the glory of offense, but there’s nothing sweeter than popping a guy right in the chest when he’s not expecting it.”

In fact, his love affair with defensive football goes back to a single middle school game.

“Since I was four years old, I was set on being a professional hockey player,” Smith explained. “Then in fifth grade we moved here and I starting watching football a little closer.”

By sixth grade he was padded up and catching touchdowns.

“My last game that year, coach moved me to linebacker,” he said. “I came in and hit a kid so hard that I knocked the wind out of him. The coaches had to carry him off. That was the point that I knew I wanted to be a football player — when I was listening to him gasp a little bit. This was my sport, not hockey.”

Family genetics certainly have played a role in Smith’s athletic prowess. His father, Barry Smith, is a professional hockey coach and played some pro hockey. His deceased mother, Carolyn Smith, was an All-American basketball player at Great Falls High School and later played at the Univeristy of Alaska.

Carolyn passed away unexpectedly in August of 2010 due to a blood clot in her lungs. Smith says the memory of his mom was the driving force behind his football career. He wrote her initials and basketball number on the back of his cleats this season.

“Before each game I’d kiss my hand and touch the back of my cleats,” Smith said. “I’d pick a cloud somewhere in the sky and I’d visualize that’s where she was sitting and that was her spot in the game.”

He thinks his mom would be proud of his decision to sign with Carroll.

“I heard that from a lot of my family, that she would be so proud,” Smith said.

Smith said one of the reasons he chose Carroll was because of his relationship with their head football coach Mike Van Diest.

“After my mom passed away [Van Diest] was one of the first outside of my family to get in contact with me and give his condolences,” Smith said. “That was big for me — knowing this was a guy I’d like to play for.”

Still, Smith wavered on his decision to sign with Carroll for many months. He always envisioned going to a bigger school, like the University of Colorado or the University of Montana.

“I was under a lot of stress for a long time before I made my decision,” he said.

In the end, Carroll’s offer was too sweet to pass up.

He decided to sign with Carroll while on a DECA trip to Helena. The first person he called after making the choice was 2011 Whitefish graduate Mac Roche, who also was recruited by Carroll.

“I called Mac and told him I was signing and to buy me a hat so I could put it on at the DECA dinner,” he said.

With only Van Diest and Roche knowing his decision, Smith walked into the DECA dinner at Carroll with a Fighting Saints sweatshirt on. Van Diest announced his intentions to the crowd, Smith put on the Carroll hat, then sat down and signed the papers.

“I had a lot of butterflies that night,” he said.

Smith plans on studying business marketing and foreign politics and hopes to one day work in Italy or Portugal.

He says he’ll miss Whitefish athletics and that the Bulldogs will always be a highlight of his football career.

“I’ve moved around to a lot of big towns because of my dad’s job,” he said. “Coming to a real hometown atmosphere in Whitefish was a big thing. I’ll miss going under the Friday night lights, and the Saturday afterward, eating a burger at the Bulldog and getting a pat on the back. I’ll miss that. Whitefish will always be home to me.”

The top moment in his prep career? That’s easy.

“The Columbia Falls mud game,” he said. “I’ve always liked the dirty, muddy, blood, sweat and tears games, and that was all of the above.”