PHILADELPHIA — Only one man in America has coached an NCAA champion in each of the last four years.
And his name isn’t John Calipari, Bill Self or Mike Krzyzewski.
And only one man in America had players on eight different teams when this NCAA Tournament began.
And he isn’t an agent, a runner or a high-profile AAU coach.
His name is Steve Smith, and he’s the head coach at Oak Hill Academy in Mouth of Wilson, Va.
When March Madness began, Smith’s former players were on eight teams in all four regions: Ben McLemore (Kansas), Damien Wilson (Memphis), Quinn Cook (Duke), Lamont “Momo” Jones (Iona), Jordan Adams (UCLA), D’Vauntes Smith-Rivera (Georgetown), Tyler Lewis (N.C. State) and Baye Keita (Syracuse).
After the second round of play, only McLemore, who left Oak Hill after he was dismissed in February 2011, Wilson, Cook and Keita remain.
“I feel a little pride because they played good enough to play on the next level and good enough to qualify for the NCAA Tournament,” Smith told SNY.tv by phone. “We’ve had nine or 10 [players in the NCAA Tournament] in some years.”
Smith, 57, is now rooting for Kansas, Syracuse, Duke or Memphis to cut down the nets in Atlanta so he can keep the Oak Hill streak of having an NCAA champion going.
It began in 2009 when Ty Lawson won the title with North Carolina. In 2010, Duke’s Nolan Smith won, followed by UConn’s Roscoe Smith in 2011 and Kentucky’s Doron Lamb in 2012.
“We’re trying keep our string of keeping a guy in the Final Four alive,” Smith said.
Lamb, a Queens native who left New York’s Bishop Loughlin High School for Oak Hill after his sophomore season and now plays with the Orlando Magic, guaranteed that that would happen.
“At least one’s going to make the Final Four, guaranteed,” he told SNY.tv last week before the Magic played the Knicks.
“Oak Hill’s a powerhouse school. It speaks for itself. It’s always top in the country, always plays the best teams so everybody wants to go there so they’re always going to have great players.”
Cook, who dished out 11 assists in Duke’s 73-61 win here over Albany on Friday, said he stays in touch with Wilson and McLemore, his former Oak Hill backcourt mate, and is proud of his Oak Hill connection.
“It’s the best high school program in the country, with all the pros and all the college guys,” Cook said.
“It’s good to see a lot of the guys I played with here in the tournament. My first high school, DeMatha [Catholic], also has a lot of guys so I’m just blessed to be a part of two great programs.”
Like many players, Cook left his regular high school, DeMatha, in order to further his career at Oak Hill, which often gets players for only a year or two before they head off to college.
Oak Hill has won eight national championships since 1993, according to its Website. They will shoot for a ninth next month when they play in the ESPN National High School Invitational at Georgetown Prep.
Smith says the success of his former players is a “combination” of their natural talent and the skills they developed at Oak Hill.
“We like to think we helped them along the way,” Smith said. “We were a steppingstone. We’re a high school, not a college.
“They come here whether it’s one year or two years, they know they’re going to get an environment similar to college. They’ve got to work in the weight room, work in the gym, keep their grades up, travel. It’s similar to what they do when they get to college as freshmen.
“A ton of coaches tell me your guys are like sophomores when they get here. And the kids say, “I want to be ready when I get to college,’ and they feel like coming here enhances their ability to play when they get to college.
“I can spend more time with them than a public school or a lot of places can. They work out from the day they get here in August till day they leave in May. It’s not a seasonal thing.”
Smith said he came close to leaving Oak Hill a couple of times to take college assistant jobs at Pittsburgh in the early 1990s and at Louisville in the late ’90s, but his children, Stephanie and Sean, weren’t in love with the idea.
“The timing was never perfect,” he said.
Smith said he plans to coach another five years, until he’s 62, and then call it quits.
For the next two weeks, he’ll be preparing his own team for another run at a national championship — and rooting for one of his former guys to get to another Final Four.
“I’d like to see those guys do well,” he said.
