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More than a game: Bryant Smith's Auburn education supports his mission to serve through sports

Bryant Smith, a team captain of the 1999 Auburn basketball team, returned to Auburn as a graduate assistant to receive his undergraduate degree in sociology and a master's in community planning. Twenty-five years after his team won the SEC championship, Smith gets the unique opportunity to help lead the 2025 Auburn Tigers through another extremely successful season.

After his time at Auburn, Smith played basketball in Europe for almost 14 years. He played in five countries: Cyprus, Bulgaria, Israel, Italy and France. Smith explains that while widely different, all the experiences were great. He is grateful to have gotten the chance to live outside the United States and indulge himself in different cultures and ethnicities.

While still playing overseas, Smith's siblings invited him to help them out at a summer program for the Boys and Girls Club.

"One of the better choices I've made," Smith said. "Getting to help out 30 young men from the environment that I grew up in. We brought them into my old high school, really just got them away from video games, we did Bible study, ate lunch and gave them the game of basketball."

Smith wanted to continue that mentorship role when he returned to the U.S., so he started the Winning Foundation, a nonprofit organization that mentors young men in Huntsville city schools. After three years, Huntsville was able to receive a mentor grant, enabling the program to see every student in the school system. The Winning Foundation celebrated 10 years last August.

Smith also expanded his mentorship program to juvenile education enhancement. The program leads young men to trades such as construction, plumbing and HVAC. In the United States, Smith believes "we have it all messed up," because many young people frown upon trades despite them being a six-figure annual income and a career for the rest of your life.

"Information is power and it's just sharing their knowledge, but also building that relationship with young people," Smith said. "They can trust you to follow that instruction or that plan you might have for them."

Smith realized he spent much of his time in Europe observing and studying other people. Without speaking the native language, learning to read people's body language was integral to his success. When he returned to Auburn, he discovered sociology was the perfect major for that.

"Sociology makes me try to find the history of that person, their background, before I try to really interact deeply with that person. You have these experiences that have warped or trained you to believe and think a certain way. I need to kind of tear back some of these layers first before I can start to pour into this kid," Smith said. "My major, understanding how different behaviors and habits are developed within the human being helps me navigate my relationships with the man."

While back at Auburn, Smith became aware of the Master of Community Planning program as an opportunity to help create a tangible, ground-up solution to some of the issues he has tried to conquer with his mentorship program.

The community planning program works to try to understand a community's wants and needs and transform them into achievable action plans. Recently, Smith got the opportunity to head down to York, Alabama, and form his own comprehensive plan. To do that, Smith uses his sociology training to ask the right questions, find barriers and identify solutions.

"I'm so thankful to be able to come back to Auburn, to finish my degrees, because I don't think my story happens often. Normally, you play at a school, you leave without a degree and you just don't come back," Smith said. "But for me, I get to come back and be a coach and finish two degrees in three years. I couldn't write my story any better." 

Smith got the opportunity to come back to Auburn and help out with their basketball summer camps through an old friend still involved on campus. Smith came back to the camp for three years, just to volunteer and help out. As the third summer came, Bruce Pearl offered him the position of graduate assistant.

As a graduate assistant, Smith's job is to "fill the blanks" per se. Smith helps players work on shots, moves and continue to help their game evolve. Smith has a responsibility to research and write an overview of the team, including their offense and defense, turnovers and free throws. On the road, Smith's position shifts to other responsibilities, like making sure they're where they're supposed to be, being on time to things and pretty much anything a coach can't or doesn't have time to do.

"As a graduate assistant, you have these responsibilities that may not be listed, but you take them on because you see the need for it. Because I come from mentoring, I'm one of the big brothers for the young men as well," Smith said. "Sometimes, our young men need to hear a different voice with a similar message to the one of their coach. They can't have the same honest conversation with the guy who controls their playing time as they can with me. So I get to build that genuine relationship with them."

Being a former student athlete himself, Smith understands a little bit of the world that the players are living in now, so he tries his best to help them navigate it through his experiences, the good and the bad.

Smith spends his days in the locker room, where the athletes are always coming through to get a workout or a snack. He explains how magical it is to hear the conversations that they are having even when nobody else is around. He emphasizes that this is more than a basketball team, it's a brotherhood. The team even has Bible study together, helping each other see their faith, which supports them on the court as well as in life.

"It is amazing to see how this team started in the summer to how they are now. Not just about the statistics they are putting up, but I got to watch them grow as a unit, to grow close to one another, and grow genuine friendships," Smith said. "It's genuine, that's the key word. They're genuine about it. It's not a facade. It's not one of those things where they are being told to do it. It's none of that. It's effortless and it makes our job a whole lot easier."

This year, it's hard not to hear about Auburn basketball in the headlines, but for Smith, this season is not about the record books. Even 25 years after his own time on the Auburn basketball team, Smith continues to credit Auburn for the upstanding values he holds dear.

"If you are at Auburn, you are family. There's something about Auburn that kind of sticks with you, kind of grabs you and won't let you go. Being surrounded by Auburn people allows us to be genuine with one another because we know where we come from," Smith said. "We understand our creed, education, faith and hard work. That all goes together. Once you start to understand and you start to live that, then that's when you become Auburn."

Tags: Alumni Sociology Political Science