Ahmad Smith helps build programs throughout his career

Ahmad Smith has coached three Division-I programs and is currently the associate head coach at North Alabama. He also spent three years coaching a variety of teams and levels in Ireland. Throughout all of these stops, the Oklahoma native has demonstrated the ability to grow, adapt, build and win.

North Alabama, which has been a Division-I team for less than a decade, won a share of its first-ever ASUN regular season championship this past season. The Lions have finished .500 or better in the conference each of the last three seasons after winning just two league games in 2022.

Prior to Florence, Ala., Smith coached at Charleston Southern, where the Buccaneers posted the most regular-season wins in a single season and won a couple of Big South regular-season titles.

Before that, he was in Ireland for three years and coached all the way from youth to professional basketball.

Smith’s coaching career began at Appalachian State, where he was a part of the staff that led the Mountaineers to a then-program record 25 wins in 2007. He played at App State after suiting up for Cedar Valley Junior College for two seasons and winning a national championship in 2001.

He recently spoke to Mid-Major Madness’ Ian Sacks. Below is their conversation:

Ian Sacks: First off, take me through your career.

Ahmad Smith: I played at Appalachian State for my final two years of my college career. I was team captain. I wasn’t one of the best players on the team, but I did the little things. I did all the tough stuff. They offered me an assistant coach position after I graduated.

That first year as an assistant coach, I had the privilege of coaching under Houston Fancher, who’s on the women’s side at NC state now. While at App, I coached alongside Tony Pujol, who’s our head coach over here at North Alabama, Matt McMahon who is at LSU, and Richard Morgan who is at Reinhardt University. We had some winning years at App State at that time. We won a lot of championships and did some really great things. That was kind of my early start; my first four years.

In 2008, one of my friends approached me about a head coach position overseas. He was over there, and they were looking for a college coach to run a program. He asked me about it. It was just one of those deals where my wife and I didn’t have kids yet. I have a son who’s 13 now, but we didn’t have children, and didn’t own a home yet. We were like, ‘you know what, let’s go ahead try this thing out.’

In all my years of school and playing basketball, I had never been overseas and never had a passport. I thought it was a good opportunity to build my career. It was also an opportunity to try something outside the box. It was a little risky because I was already a Division-I assistant. It’s very difficult to get into this profession.

I took a huge risk going overseas. My goal was to become a head coach at some point, so I decided to accept the position with the Shamrock Rovers. It was a basketball club out there that was kind of on the rise. Unfortunately, right after I took the job and we moved, the country went into a recession. So, the club didn’t have the money and the means for everything it needed to be successful.

My first year and a half, I was coaching in Dublin, it was great. I started out really well. Then my best Irish player got hurt. My American player got hurt, then I started losing a lot of games. I went there with a mindset like ‘hey, this is easy. Being a head coach is perfect. I can do this.’

I felt pretty good. Then I got humbled really quickly. I had to learn how to run a team. It’s easy to be an assistant coach and tell the head coach your ideas, but it’s different when you’re the head guy.

The Superleague was their professional level. It wasn’t Spain or Barcelona – all those things we see all the time on the TV. But it was a great experience for me because when you work for these clubs, you work with underage groups too. I was coaching the professional team, but since it’s a club, you might have a semi-pro team, an under-20, an under-19 team, an under-17. It goes all the way down to under-six. So, we had a full range of ages to coach and develop.

Being there and getting to coach on so many levels as a head coach was one of the most effective training grounds for me. I coached the professional team on the weekends. I also coached an under-19 team that ended up winning the high school state championship. It’s really a national championship because they bring everybody together kind of like the NCAA Tournament, but they do it with the high school.

I learned how to work in different types of environments where, at times, I didn’t have everything I wanted. It’s not your typical ‘hey, here’s the gym and your weight room’ and all those different things that you might have over here in America. When I was in Dublin, it was hard to get in a gym. It was hard to get my team together sometimes because I had three or four guys that played full time, whereas my other players might have jobs, and could only come to practice after work at 6 p.m. But I learned to adapt and get better with what I had. I can’t tell you how many games I coached over there, but I was able to coach a lot, day in and day out. That experience was a huge blessing for me personally and professionally.

IS: Really interesting. A lot that I want to ask you to expand on. On the coaching side, how do you feel like coaching over there helped to grow you in this profession and as a coach?

AS: It helped me become more effective and efficient with the time I had on the court. When I was at Appalachian State, we had a weight room and we had the gym mostly anytime we wanted to have it. We had everything we needed.

When I first started coaching in Ireland, I was trying to coach like I was in America by taking my time and teaching in practice. Then I started to figure out I had to teach my X’s and O’s pretty quickly because we were about to start playing in a couple weeks. I had a new American player come in. He didn’t know what was going on. I had this whole new team. Only half the players were playing ball full time, and the entire team had to learn each other’s strengths really quickly. It was different and challenging.

To add to that, in Dublin, you might have a practice time from 6 to 7:30, and then somebody else has to take your time slot for something else. That made me understand I had to really be on point with my practice plans. I had to think about what really needs to be taught and worked on. You might have practice with all the guys say five to six times a week in the U.S. You might get maybe three to four in a week in Ireland. You had to really narrow down what was important for that practice.

I had to take time off the court to meet up with my players, but unlike at a college in the U.S., I didn’t have the luxury of having team meetings due to their personal schedules. I was going around meeting with the different players wherever I could meet them. I had to ride the Luas (the intercity train) to meet a guy for lunch at his job and make sure he was on the same page as the rest of the team.

I learned how to deal with uncomfortable situations and still develop coach/player relationships. If I could go all the way overseas and find a way to relate and build relationships there, with players from different cultures, with different personalities and different responsibilities, not having any other connections than the love of basketball, and still develop strong bonds that have lasted through the years, I knew I could do that with players here.

Time management, practice management, personnel management, flexibility, methods of communication, I learned and relearned those things coaching in Ireland. Now, as we are faced with the possibility of our teams changing year to year with the changes in NCAA rules, it’s not easy, but I feel I adapt more easily because of that training ground overseas.

IS: Tell me about living over there. What was that experience like immersing yourself in the culture?

AS: We only got to go home maybe three times in those three years living there, so we became really immersed in the culture there. We got into the community, made some really great friends, joined a local church over there, all those good things. The Irish people are great people. They were friendly and fun to be around. We had a great time while we were over there.

Figuring out how everything worked took a little while. A lot of things are different over there. Using Euros versus dollars, getting an apartment, figuring out the Luas and bus schedules, deciding whether or not to get a car to drive on the other side of the road. You have to make adjustments.

The food is really good and healthier there. You may buy a loaf of bread and if you don’t eat it in two days, it’s already gone bad. They allow a lot less chemicals in the food there. The pubs are great places to get meals, but they also have some American restaurants. I was a very picky eater before I went out there, but I became less so with all the types of food offered there. Not just Irish food, but authentic Indian, Chinese, etc. You walk a lot, so there’s a built-in health component there.

I knew I had been there a long time because one day a person was lost, and they asked me ‘do you know where this university is?’ And I was like ‘yeah, you go down the couple roundabouts, make a right.’ I was thinking to myself, I’m here. I’m here for real.

They have more vacation time over there, so it’s easier to find time to travel, and it’s less expensive to travel country to country. We went to Spain. We went to Paris, England, all these different types of places. We lived in Dublin, and traveled out west Galway, which is a beautiful place, down to Limerick. I got up to Belfast. All those places were great, but the people were amazing.

The people, the food, and just their way of life. They’re more relaxed. When you come to America, we’re fast-paced, we’re trying to do the next thing. They’re taking it easy, enjoying life. You kind of adapt to that lifestyle too.

IS: That sounds like an awesome experience. What brought you back to the United States?

AS: At the end of our second year there, we found out we were expecting a baby, so that’s why we decided to come back to the States.

When you’re over there, you meet people, and you have some friends, which is good, but the hard part is you miss out on family life. The birthdays, family reunions, and even just driving to your family’s house to hang out. If you’re in America, you can take a quick flight to get to your family. When you’re in Ireland and want to go home to the States, you have to plan two or three months out, and it’s going to cost you a lot of money. That is probably the part that I always think about. You miss out on family, but if I had to do it again, I’ll still do it because the experience was amazing.

Once my wife got pregnant, we were like ‘we got to get back to grandma and grandpa. We gotta make sure they’re around for all of this.’ We could have gotten dual citizenship and all that type of stuff and stayed over there, but I was like ‘nah, we’re not doing that. Let’s get back to the States.’

I finished up with all my coaching positions over there. I had already started making calls to see who might know of positions coming up. I came back to America in early May. I had already coached in Division I at Appalachian State University, but it was a risky thing to leave for three years and then expect you’re going to get a Division-I job.

I hadn’t been recruiting. I didn’t know the players. I’d been gone for three years. Out of sight, out of mind.

I just got blessed to be at the right place at the right time. Charleston Southern, where Barclay Radebaugh was head coach, had a spot open at the moment. I did a couple phone interviews, then went down there and talked with him a little bit. I told him ‘I know I haven’t been in the profession, but I know how to deal with the recruiting. I understand what it takes to build a team. I know what’s going on because I was taught by some of the best dudes: Matt McMahon, Houston Fancher, Tony Pujol.’ Coach Radebaugh decided to take a chance on me, and I am forever grateful for that.

So there I was, hired as an assistant coach at Charleston Southern two or three weeks after I got back. Throughout my years there, I was on staff with some great coaches like BJ McKie, Joey Murdock, Brad Dobbles, Rick Duckett, Tyler Murray and Thomas Butters. You’re talking about the winningest years in program history. We had some great times over there at that small school. It ties back to doing more with less. That’s what we did over there, more with less. We used to ask ourselves ‘how do we get it done?’. It just got done. Blessings.

IS: You’ve been a part of some of the most winning seasons, first at Appalachian State, then Charleston Southern and now at North Alabama. What is it about what you do that you’re able to have so much success and lead programs to new heights and such great history?

AS: I think it’s that I always remember why I wanted to coach. I got into this profession to develop people, develop players, develop coaches, and I’m always excited about different missions. We had a mission at Charleston Southern. Appalachian State before that. We were winning. I’m okay with coming in and helping to build a program. It’s challenging. It’s fun. It’s tough. It’s definitely not easy. When I went to Charleston Southern, they had losing records. Same thing over here. We were transitioning from Division II to Division I.

I’m very big on building the things around me. When I was over in Ireland, my two feet were there. When I was at Appalachian State, my two feet were there. When I was at Charleston Southern, same. And more recently with North Alabama. These are some of the best places in the country. I feel like these are the places for me. Where I am coaching at that moment, is where my mind and heart is. I don’t look ahead to what’s next somewhere else, I focus on how I can make the place I am at the best it can be.

Building is a big key for me. I love doing it. It seems like God always places me in these situations: building. I would love to have a situation where it’s already set up. It just seems like every time I’m in any of these scenarios I always get in these building scenarios. So, I go ahead and get to work.

You gotta have some tough skin, and you have to be tough if you want to build something from scratch because everybody wants everything right now. Coaches want to move fast, but sometimes it doesn’t work like that. You gotta have people around you that help you build, help your team grow, and fight through the tough times.

Even over here at North Alabama, it wasn’t perfect all the way through. We had one year where we just won nine games. We were young. And it was like ‘okay, we gotta get older.’ Sometimes these mistakes help you grow into the situation where we are right now. When we won this year, I was thinking we made some great decisions, but we also made some bad decisions that helped us get to where we are right now too. If you understand that, the build and all those things, it helps all these programs sustain and then have winning seasons like we’ve been having these last couple of years.

IS: Why North Alabama? What brought you there?

We were together at Appalachian State. He was a high school coach out of Miami. I was a player at Appalachian State, and they gave me a job after I graduated. Tony and I were assistant coaches together for two years before he went off to VCU and Alabama. He did his Wyoming deal, and then he got the job in North Alabama.

I was at Charleston Southern at the time. As soon as he got the job, he called me up and said ‘hey, I got this situation. It’s not your typical situation because we’re transitioning here at North Alabama. Would you like to come down?’

In our profession you want to have people around you that you know have your back. You want people that are family. People that are going to really invest their time in the program and go to work. I knew him, and I got to work with him and his family. My wife and his wife are really good friends. Once he got the job and offered it to me, I knew where my next move was going to be. I didn’t know anything about Florence, Alabama or UNA at the time, but I knew if we got together, we could do some great things here. We just put our heads down and started working. Great things have happened since we got over here.

IS: Tell me about your relationship with him. How would you describe it?

AS: We have a great relationship. That’s what happens when you know somebody has your back; I have his and I know he has mine. Sometimes we wrestle with the best way to handle different situations, but we always end up on the same page. Whoever has the best decision, whoever has the best answer for the situation we are facing, he will roll with it. He just wants to create a culture of greatness. At the end of the day, it’s all about North Alabama. We want to make North Alabama basketball one of the toughest teams in the mid-majors; the toughest place to play in the mid-majors.

What Tony brings to the table is that family atmosphere for real. Our staff is close. We know if we want to build this thing up to where it needs to be, we have to make sure we’re close and we’re tight with our staff, managers, all the way up and down. The hard part about different programs is everybody does it differently. But he’s really about it, and it trickles down to the staff. Then it trickles down to the team because they feel like they’re a part of it. It trickles down to our managers. It trickles down to the administration because people feel like they’re a part of it. And then it extends out to the community.

This year our games were completely sold out. It came down to the relationship from the top, and then it just keeps growing. That’s our relationship. We have a good time, and we want to make sure that North Alabama is one of the premier teams in the game of basketball.

IS: What are some lessons that you try to instill in your players?

AS: Number one is we want you to be a good citizen. We want you to be a good person. What are you doing on a day-to-day basis as a man? In the classroom? What are you doing when you’re dealing with the other students at the university? How are you acting? What type of consistency are you going to bring on a day-to-day basis?

You’re dealing with 18- to 20-year-olds, right? They’re not going to be perfect. We understand the leeway that we’re going to have to give them at times, but then we understand telling them the truth at the same time too. I like to be truth-telling. I’m old-school. I want to tell guys the truth. This is what it is. If you want to play, this is the door you’ve got to go through. If you keep doing this, then you can’t play. I think the truth always helps our guys. They understand that it goes back to us caring about them. When people understand that they care about you and they understand the truth, then you can get the best out of the player.

Everybody talks about the basketball part. That’s cool, but if you understand the player, the man, the person first, then you can start dealing with the basketball piece. If you start with that part first, it’s easier to do all the other things. I always try to develop the person because at the end of the day, you’re not going to be a basketball player your whole life. If you come through here, if you come to North Alabama, we want you to be great citizens. We want you to be great men off the court. Then we want you to have great successes on the court. We show them that too.

These last four or five years, it’s been great. We’ve been killing it academically. We’ve been helping out in the community. We got guys playing overseas. It makes us feel good when guys are coming back, knowing they are still part of our program. I think that’s the biggest key. If you can establish a healthy culture and relationship with your team, and if you can tell these guys the truth, that helps everything.

IS: Coach, I’ve really enjoyed talking with you. Anything else you could think of?

AS: I appreciate you letting me come on and talk with you. We’re excited about North Alabama, and what’s happening here. I just want to say it’s been great these last couple of years as we’ve been building and keep building this thing up. Having the people around us and the community back us was one of the most amazing things that I saw this past year. Our mentality is that we want to keep expanding it. We don’t want to maintain it. We want to expand it and keep growing it. We’re really excited about that.