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ANN ARBOR, Mich. — Sometimes, when you’re younger, you meet something of a mentor in your desired field, someone who can help you along.
For Michigan senior point guard Mike Smith, that mentor is NBA star Jimmy Butler, the former Chicago Bulls forward who now plays for the Miami Heat.
It’s a relationship that started when Smith was in high school at Oak Park (IL) Fenwick, and it was all because he didn’t get star struck and took a chance that so few people might have in his situation. What started as a working relationship blossomed into a true friendship, and according to Smith, helped him develop that much more into the basketball player he is today.
It’s best to hear Smith tell the story.
“My senior year in high school, my high school at Fenwick in Oak Park was sponsored by Jordan,” Smith said. “And each year, they had a reveal of our jerseys. And that year, I guess they asked Jimmy to be one of the people to come there, because I guess he was sponsored by Jordan. He was on the Bulls at the time. We went to, I think it was Station 23 or Jordan 23 — it was downtown. I think it was on State St. or Michigan Ave. And we went there and we got to ask him a question. I asked him a silly question — I’m really goofy, I think so, and a funny guy — that’s besides the point, sorry, I’m getting off-topic.
“Basically, he went to sign a wall after he had his talk — everybody, all the teams got to ask him questions all these things. He went like to go sign the wall and something inside of me asked myself: ‘Why can’t you go ask him to work out?’ So I went to ask my high school coach, Rick Malnati, ‘Hey coach, you think I should go ask him to work out?’ He’s said, ‘Yo! Worst comes to worst, he says no.’ So I said — it’s funny I tell this story now, because we’re really close friends — I went up to him and went, ‘Hey, Mr. Butler, can I work out with you? I don’t want a picture, I don’t want anything else. I want to be where you’re at, I just want to get better. I just want to be in the NBA. I just want to make the same amount of money that you make, because that is ridiculous.’ I didn’t say that, but in the back of my head, I was saying that, because it’s a lot of money that they make, and I love the game and I want to be exactly where he’s at. And he’s like, ‘Yeah, it’s not against NCAA play rules? I’m like, ‘No, I’m 18, you’re not paying for anything. So, can I work out with you?’ He’s like, ‘Yeah, take my trainer’s number down and he’ll text you one of these days.’
“Fortune enough, he texted me the next day and was like, ‘Hey Mike, don’t be late.’ His trainer said, ‘Hey Mike, Jimmy wants you to work out with him at X amount of time,’ — it was some time, it was like 6 p.m. at the Bulls facility — and he was like, ‘Don’t be late!’ I was like, ‘You don’t have to worry about it, I’ll sit in my car for two hours at the Bulls practice facility because I’m not gonna be late because I’m not gonna give up this opportunity, no way in chance.’ And then he texted me again saying, ‘Hey, I wanted you to come out to eat with us.’ It was Sunday, so he was like, ‘Hey, I want you to come out to eat with us before we go.’ I was like, ‘What? No way!’
“So I’m about to go out to eat with Jimmy Butler and his trainers before we go work out. That kinda shows you what kind of guy he is. And after that, we became really good friends, spent all my summers with him after that and trained with him all summer and hung around with him. It shows what kind of character he has and what kind of guy he is to take me under his wing and to help me grow as a man and as a basketball player and to pick his brain, for sure.”
It’s a great lesson that we’re all human, and if you take that chance at something you don’t think is possible, anything can happen.
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