Tag: college-basketball

Adam Howard was born to coach

Adam Howard always seemed destined to become a head coach, so it came as no surprise to those who have followed his career that Troy selected him Saturday night to lead one of the Sun Belt Conference’s most successful basketball programs.

Coaching has been in his blood since he was a kid. More on that in a moment.

Howard was essentially a coach on the floor for Mike Flynn during his high school basketball days at Ashland. He rarely made mistakes, didn’t force bad shots and kept the offense running smoothly. Flynn proved to be a tremendous coaching mentor. Howard was a solid player for the Tomcats, but he understood that playing wasn’t going to be his long-term ticket.

When he signed with Western Kentucky University, he was given no promises about playing time. That didn’t matter. He remained a great teammate despite limited minutes, and what he was really doing was learning. He watched and absorbed everything from the best seat in the house.

Adam Howard, holding his 7-month-old son, after Troy captured the Sun Belt Conference tournament to qualify for the NCAA tournament.

Howard spent most of his four seasons at WKU on the bench, but it was far from wasted time. Not for someone like him, who was like a sponge when it came to learning the game and the coaching profession. And no one worked harder. As it turns out, he was also a strong student.

From 2009 to 2026, Howard built his coaching résumé as an assistant coach, associate head coach, recruiting specialist and defensive guru at eight different schools. He was on Donnie Tyndall’s staff at Morehead State in 2011 when the Eagles stunned Louisville in the NCAA Tournament. As a player at WKU, he was also part of two postseason teams.

Howard’s coaching stops include Morehead State (2009–12), Southern Miss (2012–14), Tennessee (2014), South Alabama (2018–22) and Nebraska (2022–25), along with stints at Troy and NC State. He served as associate head coach at South Alabama during the 2021–22 season.

Adam Howard on the bench during Troy’s 2017 Sun Belt Conference play in 2017. He has become the head coach of Troy on Saturday night.

He now takes over a Troy program that has won 20 games in each of the last five seasons and reached the NCAA Tournament in the last two. The Trojans lost to Nebraska in the first round of this year’s tournament on March 19.

Howard previously served on the Troy staff under fellow Kentuckian Phil Cunningham from 2016–18, helping the Trojans win the Sun Belt Conference Tournament and reach the NCAA Tournament in 2017. He spent this past season as an assistant coach at North Carolina State.

Every step along the way, Howard has continued to learn, soaking up knowledge from every coach he worked with. Head coaches admired his work ethic and relied on it.

Howard replaces Scott Cross, who left last week to take the Georgia Tech job. Cross coached the Trojans to 125 wins in seven seasons, including Sun Belt regular-season and tournament championships and NCAA Tournament appearances in each of the last two years.

Now Howard moves over one chair and becomes the man in charge. He’ll have to be a good salesman in his new role. He will try to keep much of Troy’s roster together, but senior guard Victor Valdes has already entered the transfer portal. Among key returning players with eligibility remaining are All-Sun Belt forward Thomas Dowd and starting guards Cooper and Cobi Campbell.

If there’s one thing Howard can do, it’s recruit. He has an electric personality and is known as an outstanding recruiter, something that should serve him well at Troy.

Howard comes from a great family. His parents, Rick and Chris, are his biggest supporters, along with sister Jenni and brother Chad. They are down-to-earth Ashland people who have proudly worn whatever school colors their youngest son represented.

Now, here’s how I knew years ago that Adam Howard was born to coach.

He played Little League for the Ashland American Indians coached by Tony Grossl and was teammates with my son for a couple of years. Stephen was two years older than Adam, who at age 10 put on the catching gear because we didn’t have anyone better suited for the job.

That’s not a knock on our team — he was simply the best option, even though the catching gear looked a few sizes too big on him. To this day, I still picture that 75-pound Little Leaguer wearing that oversized catcher’s gear.

One game, Stephen was throwing a no-hitter and had two outs in the bottom of the sixth inning. He fired a fastball right down the middle, but the umpire called it a ball. Stephen was visibly upset and thought the game was slipping away. Adam called timeout, walked to the mound and calmly settled him down. On the next pitch, a ground ball to second base ended the game.

Without whatever Adam said in that moment, that no-hitter might have disappeared quickly. And he was only 10 years old. As a side note, Stephen pitched that game with a black eye – the result of a bad-hop grounder in practice the day before – and Adam was battling pink eye.

I enjoyed following Adam’s career as a basketball player at Ashland, including his first varsity game when he lit it up from 3-point range, and have continued to follow his coaching journey. He once gave my wife, me and some friends a tour of the basketball facilities at Tennessee when he was an assistant there. He always returned my calls when he took a new coaching job. Adam Howard has simply been a joy to follow.

Troy and Liberty University will now be two of my must-watch teams during the college basketball season especially when Kentucky frustrates me (often here recently). I believe Adam will be successful has a head because he’s successful in life. He and his wife, Renee, have three children. Their life is immersed in basketball. Make that Troy basketball now.

The bottom line with Adam Howard is simple: He is a winner who was born to coach.

Darryl Smith will be remembered for all the right reasons

The news that Darryl Smith had died while taking his morning walk on Monday was hard to process. He was a former Ashland Tomcat two-sport standout about the time I was trying to figure out this sportswriting business. I’ve written numerous stories about him through the years when he was an athlete, a coach and a highly successful college basketball referee. I always considered him a friend.

Darryl Smith during the 2019 CP-1 Hall of Fame induction in Ashland’s Central Park.

He was an outstanding athlete in baseball and basketball and an even better person. He came from good stock, and one of the best Tomcat families in history. The late John and Rhoda Smith had five sons – David, Doug, Darryl, Daniel and Deron – and the Ashland community benefitted from having this fine family in the area for reasons far beyond sports. People like the Smiths were building blocks of great communities.

Darryl was a crafty left-handed pitcher, and he turned around at the plate and batted righthanded. He was good at both. He also was on back-to-back 16th Region basketball championship teams in coach Paul Patterson’s first two seasons as head coach.

But baseball was where it was for Smith, who went to Cumberland College to pitch.

After college, Smith signed on to coach Mike Tussey’s inaugural Stan Musial team in 1982 and played every summer through 1986 where he was a dominating pitcher and first base with a powerful bat.

Smith delivers his speech at the CP-1 Hall of Fame in 2019.

He hung up playing for coaching as he became a mentor for baseball players in Boyd County when he coached Catlettsburg Post 224’s Legion team, including winning a state championship in 1988.

For all that, Darryl Smith was an easy choice as one of the 101 people to be inducted into the CP-1 Hall of Fame. He was in the 2019 class. I remember calling him to tell him the news and he was so excited and honored. It was something he never expected and appreciated so much. Darryl would join his younger brother, Daniel, in the CP-1 Hall of Fame.

He was living in Jacksonville, Fla., and I asked him if attending the August ceremony would be a problem and he said, absolutely not, he would be there. Smith came that sunny afternoon and so did his parents. They were so proud of him and the rest of his athletic siblings.

Of course, travel wasn’t a problem for Smith. He was used to that after more than a decade of being a college basketball referee and, naturally, a good one. He rose through those ranks rather quickly and that was no surprise to anyone who knew him.

Jody Hamilton, a former teammate on the Tomcats, called him a great teammate. Jody also had superlatives about the Smith family, which was all about the Tomcats.

“Darryl was much like his dad. Never panicked, calm with strong presence,” Hamilton said.

The entire infield of the 1976 Tomcats baseball team – Smith (pitcher), Herb Wamsley (catcher), Mark Swift (second base), Greg Jackson (third base), Don Allen (shortstop) and Hamilton (first base) – are in the CP-1 Hall of Fame along with their coach, Frank Sloan. They were regional champions.

Teammates like these all raved about the competitiveness and quiet confidence that was a part of Smith’s DNA as an athlete. He was a winner who played the game the right way.

Darryl Smith, back row second from left, along with the other inductees in the 2019 CP-1 Hall of Fame.

Smith was a role player for Patterson because that’s what everyone did for the coach who never lost a game to a 16th Region opponent in his four seasons. During his senior year, he was surrounded with great talent – Jeff Kovach, Jim Harkins, Mark and Greg Swift, Dale Dummitt, Don Allen and others. That 1977 team went 30-2 and reached the state semifinals before losing to Louisville Valley in Freedom Hall.

Smith had several games in double figures and led the Tomcats twice with 14 against Ironton in a hard-fought win and 18 on Senior Night against Montgomery County. But he was mostly in there for rebounds, screening and defense. That was the Patterson way.

Darryl Smith with Colin Porter, a former Tomcat star and current Liberty University senior guard.

As a college basketball referee, he would often cross paths with players who had ties to the 16th Region. He 2010, he was officiating a game where Paul Patterson was coaching at Taylor University. Scott Gill, a former Russell High star and son Ashland grad David Gill, was playing for Taylor. He posed for a photo with them afterward.

Last Thanksgiving, he met former Tomcat point guard Colin Porter and his mother, Hilary, in the lobby of the hotel where Liberty University was playing. Darryl, who was officiating the tournament Liberty was participating in, was always affable.

Darryl Smith, who graduated from Ashland In 1977, will be remembered for a long time for how he carried himself as an athlete, a coach and in life. His death leaves a void for his family and friends that is hard to fill. He is gone far too soon.

An open letter to Colin Porter

Dear Colin,

Just a note of congratulations and appreciation for how you handle yourself not only on the basketball court, which is nothing short of sensational, but how your faith and belief in Jesus Christ comes shining through.

You are the most valuable leader of a team that has made it to the NCAA tournament by playing the kind of basketball that should make others envious while offering a blueprint for wild success. Your play at point guard for Liberty University is the model and something that Ashland fans witnessed and will never forget during your three seasons as a Tomcat.

Even though everyone was sad to see you graduate early from Ashland (academics was never a problem either, obviously), we can clearly see it was the right decision. You were ready for college basketball.  

Watching your teammates gather around and celebrate with you during the national television interview after the win over Jacksonville State in the CUSA championship game Saturday night warmed hearts in Ashland. Through the magic of ESPN+, most every Liberty game has been on our televisions. We love the Wildcats but the Flames have a little fire, too.

Colin Porter will lead Liberty into the first round of the NCAA tournament Friday against Oregon. (Liberty photo)

Future Tomcats going through the program and the ones already there have no one better to admire and strive to be like on and off the court than you. “Be Like Colin” should be stamped on headbands and passed out to potential point guards.

Your mother and father certainly should take a bow, too, to raise a son with the characteristics that you possess. In these days and times, that is no simple task.

Basketball is something you do extremely well but you are winning at life, too, and that is far more important. People want whatever it is that is inside of you. Basketball gives you a platform to share that life-changing message of Jesus and you use it well. Your competitive spirit, those (Tom)cat-like reflexes and instincts, your flair for the dramatic play and leadership skills make people and teammates stand up and notice.

Through it all, you have remained a humble, hard-working young man who would rather watch a teammate succeed more than yourself. Liberty has a rare gem.

Ashland will be watching on Friday when the Flames take on fifth-seeded Oregon in the NCAA tournament. Anybody who has watched Liberty play this season (or the last three for that matter) will hesitate before choosing Oregon on their bracket. Those who see only “the 12th seed vs. the 5 seed” without knowing how Liberty plays could well be sorry when the clock strikes midnight.

But whether that happens or not, Porter has joined an exclusive club of former Ashland Tomcats (and Kittens) who have had the opportunity to be in the Big Dance. It is a smaller list than I imagined. This may not be an exhaustive list – and if somebody is left off please let me know –  but it is certainly a who’s who of Ashland Tomcat (and Kitten) basketball.

Colin, put your name beside the great ones: Earl “Brother” Adkins (UK), Larry Castle (WKU), Warner Caines (WKU), Gene Smith (Cincinnati), Larry Conley (UK), Ray Kleykamp (WKU), Clint Wheeler (UK), Jeff Kovach (Tulsa), Jim Harkins (Miami of Ohio), Jeff Tipton (Morehead State), Adam Howard (WKU) and Mykasa Robinson (with Louisville on the women’s side) who were on teams that played in the NCAA tournament.

 Our greats from the 1920s and 1930s like Ellis Johnson and Darrell Darby came before the NCAA tournament started in 1939 although they played in the national tournament of that time .

The humble Porter can take his place among the all-time greats in Ashland history. He is an absolute maestro with the basketball, with passing skills reserved for big stages and bright lights. His clutch playmaking during a pivotal sophomore season when Ashland went 33-0 during the COVID year that is part of a run of seven consecutive 16th Region championships, was the bittersweet season of a lifetime. Undefeated and uncrowned state champions.

Colin, basketball is what you do so well and have done well for most of your life, and this week is a dream come true for you. But God has a bigger purpose and plan. Just wait and see.