Family, community and a desire to be great: Inside Jeremiah Smith’s rise to stardom

PARKLAND, Fla. — The evening crowd at Starbucks has begun to thin as Rod Mack, a former linebacker at Miami, thumbs through his phone to scan thousands of photos and videos preserving the memories of a football team that defined a generation. Between sips of his strawberry acai lemonade — “My guilty pleasure,” he calls it — Mack finally unearths the clip he’s been searching for: a cinematic entrance plucked from a noteworthy YouTube channel that, on Aug. 3, 2019, decided to broadcast the Miami Gardens Ravens live for the first time. He presses play and turns the screen toward his guest.

Beneath the last fading pinks of a darkening, cloud-filled sky, a line of players snakes its way through the parking lot toward the stadium at Monsignor Edward Pace High School in Miami Gardens, Florida, where a cauldron of noise and a sold-out stadium and an opponent from California await.

“Yoooooo!” a coach shouts. “Yoooooo!” the players shout back.

“Whose house is this? … Our house!”

“Whose house is this? … Our house!”

“Daaawwwwg check!  … Woof!”

“Daaawwwwg check! … Woof!”

“Check! Check! Check! … Woof! Woof! Woof!”

It’s at this moment, as the team makes a right-hand turn to approach the gates, that the music blaring through the facility’s speakers grows clearer. The slow and unmistakable buildup to “In the Air Tonight” by Phil Collins greets the Ravens as they leap and bound their way into the fray, though it’s quickly drowned out by rapturous screams and applause.

Hundreds of spectators, including players and coaches from other programs, have lined the entrance to dole out high-fives and helmet slaps to the No. 1 team in the country. There are social media mavens wielding cameras and reporters holding microphones for pregame interviews. An air horn pierces the scene as both teams converge near midfield, the referees forming a buffer between them. And in the far end zone, where some of the South Bay Whitehouse Gauchos are warming up, a handful of players hoist flags and one poses with a boxing-style championship belt. There are several thousand people jammed into the bleachers despite a forecast that calls for rain, with hundreds more arcing around the perimeter and separated from the spectacle by ropes.

Contrary to the mental image this scene might conjure, the Miami Gardens Ravens were not a traditional high school powerhouse akin to Mater Dei Academy in California or Bishop Gorman in Las Vegas. Nor were they a reality television-aided JUCO like East Mississippi Community College, the program made famous by “Last Chance U” on Netflix. Instead, the Ravens were a team made up of children, a little league juggernaut that won five national championships in three years from various governing bodies. The crowd that night — and so many other nights — had turned out to watch a locally sourced roster strewn with future Division I players. And nobody attracted more eyeballs than the 13-year-old wide receiver known as JJ, a star of stars, whose full name was Jeremiah Smith. 

“We would go to national tournaments and I’m telling you,” said Mack, the Ravens’ head coach and a close family friend of the Smiths, “you would see him like Tiger Woods walking to the green. All the kids would come and want his autograph. It was just wild to see from a young age.”

For Smith, an almost folkloric aura was forged in the crucible of a football-obsessed community that canonized his youth career and mythologized him from the moment he became the No. 1 overall player in the 247Sports Composite rankings, on Oct. 12, 2023, partway through a senior season in which he led Chaminade-Madonna College Preparatory School in Hollywood, Florida, to a state championship. By the time college football’s early signing period arrived two months later — at which point talent evaluators were repeatedly describing the 6-foot-3, 215-pound Smith as a “generational” talent — the mania surrounding what his presence would mean for whichever school succeeded in signing him felt dizzying. Perhaps that’s why Ohio State head coach Ryan Day, who has secured numerous five-star receivers in the past, pretended to faint when he was informed mid-news conference that Smith would be honoring his verbal commitment to the Buckeyes.

That none of the attention, adulation or vast monetary offers thrown Smith’s way have impeded his deliverance on a lifetime of sky-high expectations underscores the environment in which he was raised: from the years of microscopic media coverage that no longer faze him to the unwavering support of a family that is equal parts nuclear and communal, his future meticulously protected by those who desperately want to see him succeed. He’s parlayed their teachings into an unassuming persona and otherworldly work ethic that, taken together, have catalyzed a record-breaking first season at Ohio State — 52 catches for 899 yards and nine touchdowns thus far, all of which have eclipsed the freshman marks held by ex-Buckeye Chris Carter since 1984 — and sparked discussions about just how prodigious his talents might be. As Smith prepares for his debut in one of college football’s greatest rivalries, with No. 2 Ohio State preparing to face Michigan on Saturday (Noon ET on FOX and the FOX Sports App), there’s little question he would be a first-round pick in the 2025 NFL Draft if underclassmen were allowed to declare. 

“The ones that do it at the highest level for the longest period of time with consistency,” said Brian Hartline, the co-offensive coordinator and wide receivers coach at Ohio State, “those guys are the best of all time.

“That’s what he’s chasing.”

*** *** ***

MIAMI GARDENS, Fla. — The restaurant where Jeremiah Smith’s father, Chris, elects to meet earlier this month is a stone’s throw from Hard Rock Stadium, home to both the Miami Hurricanes and the Miami Dolphins. It’s an apt location considering just how close Jeremiah came to flipping his commitment on the day he ultimately signed with Ohio State last December, when the temptation of playing alongside childhood friends nearly trumped the Buckeyes’ assembly line of four first-round picks at wide receiver over the last three years. In fact, Lorna’s Caribbean & American Grille is the same place where the Smiths routinely dined with college coaches during recruiting visits, Brian Hartline included.

Punctuality is non-negotiable in the Smith household, so Chris, who owns both a moving company and a commercial and residential cleaning business, arrives early following a morning workout. He’s pleased when a reporter walks in promptly at 12:30 p.m., after years of stressing to his children the importance of being on time. 

Chris Smith, 44, was raised in South Florida with strong Bahamian roots. One of his uncles, John Daniel Smith, better known as Danny Smith, was a national champion and three-time All-American hurdler at Florida State who twice represented the Bahamas in the Olympics. Another uncle, William Horatio Butler Jr., amassed a professional boxing record of 77-14-3 under the name Yama Bahama, fighting out of Bimini, and Chris said he once sparred with Muhammad Ali. Among the reasons why the Smith family eats so frequently at Lorna’s is because it serves classic Bahamian dishes like the conch salad Chris excitedly orders.

The importance of family took hold for Chris decades earlier, around the age of 8 or 9, when his mother and father finally split after they’d been on and off for years. From that point forward, Chris said, he grew up without a father and turned instead to the guidance of his older brother, Geno Smith Jr., whose own son, Geno Smith III, is now the starting quarterback for the Seattle Seahawks. Chris promised his mother that if he ever had kids, he’d always be part of their lives, no matter the circumstances. He had two children from an earlier relationship — one daughter, one son — before meeting his current wife, Lativia Newberry, in 2001 and welcoming two more boys into the family: Jeremiah, followed by Angelo.

“I always was a nurturing type of person,” Chris said. “My kids just made me better as a person, as a father.”

Though Chris describes all four of his children as “my best friends,” he acknowledges that the connections with his three sons felt different because of how his childhood unfolded. He refers to their relationships as “man bonds,” and from the very beginning that meant a shared passion for sports, with Chris having loved to play basketball and football with the neighborhood kids in Miami Gardens. (Newberry, who works at the post office, ran track in middle school and high school but defers to her husband on matters related to Jeremiah’s football career. She and her son are extremely close and speak daily by phone, with both parents traveling to watch him play for the Buckeyes.) 

Jeremiah’s introduction to football came when he tagged along to his older brother’s practices in the park at age 3. He and his father would play catch for hours along the sideline, day after day, week after week, until Chris signed him up for little league the following year. Basketball, track, flag football and chess soon followed. To this day, Chris still laments not getting his son involved with tennis. When Jeremiah wasn’t playing sports, he often spent time at church with his grandmother or playing with the toy animals his father bought by the jug from Target. Dinosaurs, wolves, elephants and sharks were his favorites.

“He just wanted the best for me and my little brother and just kept us busy,” Jeremiah said. “Anything you could think of, he was going to have us busy doing something so our minds don’t get out of line and [we] don’t experiment with the wrong thing.”

The deeper in love that Jeremiah fell with football, the more inseparable he and his father seemed to become. They were constantly working out at parks and fields and gyms across South Florida on a daily basis, sharpening the skills that made Jeremiah into an elite prospect before anyone knew how tall or strong he would ultimately become. Father and son came to relish the lengthy car rides that afforded them chances to deepen their relationship.

Still, nothing about football was ever forced on Jeremiah — an important distinction cited by several people close to the family given some initial concerns over the rabidity of his training. Before the start of every season, Chris would ask his son if he was still having fun, if he still wanted to play. Chris didn’t care if Jeremiah played football or not. His only rule was that Jeremiah couldn’t quit a team midyear because he wanted his son to understand the value of finishing whatever he started. But Jeremiah had become so obsessed with football that even getting cut from the Miami Gardens Vikings at 7 years old never dissuaded him. He only worked harder from there.

“He always had this seriousness about him,” Geno Smith III said, “even when he was 4 and 5 years old, 7 and 8 years old. Super serious. We couldn’t get him to smile. I think it’s just because he was so determined, and he knew what he wanted to be at a very early age. My grandma tells me that’s the one thing that we have in common is [that] since we were very young, we already knew what we wanted to do in life.”

They wanted to play football. 

*** *** ***

MIRAMAR, Fla. — The night when everything changed for the Miami Gardens Ravens began with a touchdown pass to Jeremiah Smith, the long-armed and rail-thin pre-teen whose helmet seemed far too big and whose jersey bore the number 00. He beat an undersized cornerback off the line of scrimmage and hauled in a deep pass down the left sideline, breaking one tackle on his way to the end zone. An air horn shrieked as a grown man in a bright orange shirt and camouflage hat jumped to bump hips with the player who was seconds away from announcing himself to South Florida and beyond.

“I told you they couldn’t stop me!” an 11-year-old Jeremiah chirped directly into a nearby camera, his high-pitched and prepubescent voice undercutting the intended malice. But the outcome that evening was indisputable: By thumping the Miami Gardens Chiefs, 34-0, Jeremiah and his team had supplanted the reigning kings of the local youth football scene.

“That was kind of surprising that night,” said Darrell Streeter, the founder of Footballville, a popular YouTube channel that chronicles the sport at a grass-roots level, and the man whose lens Jeremiah shouted into that night. “It kind of caught everybody off guard. But then they became like the talk of the town.”

As Streeter explains during an interview at a local coffee shop, the Ravens quickly morphed into a social media-backed phenomenon that was revered in football circles around the country, dominating the landscape from ages 11 through 13. The team’s profile was bolstered by an influx of content creators, like Streeter, who covered the once-in-a-lifetime roster the way beat writers follow teams in college or the pros. The Ravens’ offense alone featured at least nine future Division I skill players in quarterback CJ Bailey (NC State), running backs Davion Gause (North Carolina), Vincent Shavers (Nebraska) and Ryan Mack (Miami), and wideouts Lawayne McCoy (Florida State), Chance Robinson (Miami), Joshisa Trader (Miami), Jose Leon (Appalachian State) and Jeremiah (Ohio State).

Head coach Rod Mack’s team became such an attraction that it regularly sold out local high school stadiums and traveled as far as the West Coast to find adequate competition. Retired NFL players who resided in South Florida were frequently spotted on the sidelines. Once, more than 5,000 people showed up to watch the Ravens play on a Tuesday night despite large-scale power outages from a recent hurricane. The players themselves — most notably Jeremiah, whose penchant for making breathtaking one-handed catches had already begun — became miniature celebrities as highlight reels complete with music and special effects racked up hundreds of thousands of views across various social media platforms. Opposing players sought selfies with Jeremiah before and after games. And whenever the Ravens returned to school the following week, even their non-football-playing classmates were eager to discuss what transpired.

“We was the show, really,” said Miami defensive back Ryan Mack, a former player for the Ravens and the son of head coach Rod Mack. “And it just made it more important for us to put on for everybody.”

With so much talent on the roster, putting on a show meant developing an understanding for how important it was to spread the ball around — no matter how dominant some of the top-end players might have been. The Ravens benefited from a collection of highly involved dads and male role models, nearly all of whom had grown up together in South Florida. Together, the players’ fathers imparted lessons about how debilitating ego can be to a team’s overall success. And they encouraged everyone, parents included, to focus less on how many times certain individuals touched the ball and more on how those players could maximize production. It was a philosophy that bred remarkable selflessness among a group of players who truly became each other’s best friends.

The Ravens doubled as an extended family with parents taking turns hosting social events or birthdays and transporting the kids from field to field, workout to workout. One of the reasons why the team practiced five nights per week — in addition to realizing that playing against themselves was better competition than most opponents could provide — was to safeguard the players from the unsightly side of life in South Florida. There’s a video on Mack’s phone of him and the rest of the coaching staff shouting for players to lie face down on the grass as gunfire breaks out near Walt Frazier Park.

“Most kids our age — just where we’re from — don’t grow up with both parents or their dads,” Jeremiah said. “So just to have that father-figure in the house that tells us right from wrong is something big and teaches us discipline as well.”

Which is why that group of dads always promised to take their kids out to eat if they ran hills at Vista View Park every Saturday. It’s why they signed the boys up to work with a well-respected wide receiver coach every Sunday. It’s why they kept the Ravens together for tackle football every fall, flag football every winter and then encouraged everyone to run track in the spring. They loved seeing their kids spend hours trying to recreate Odell Beckham Jr.’s famous catch for the New York Giants or dip out of restaurants early to play a version of “walking football” in the parking lot because all of those things were preferable to being out on the street.

That Jeremiah could thrive in every setting reminded Mack of his time at Miami, when the Hurricanes’ roster included several future Pro Football Hall of Fame inductees in tailback Edgerrin James, wide receiver Reggie Wayne and safety Ed Reed. There was something different about the way each of those players worked, Mack remembered thinking at the time, and he recognized a similar mindset in Jeremiah. It was the only explanation he had for why Jeremiah was able to outwork a group of hard-workers, outshine a roster bursting with future stars and out-run the handful of teammates who participated in the Junior Olympics. 

“He wants to be the best to ever do it,” Mack said. “He has wanted that for a very long time. So it’s like if somebody would say you’re worried about Kobe [Bryant] burning out or worried about [Michael] Jordan burning out.

“Naw, he’s wired a little bit differently.”

*** *** ***

PLANTATION, Fla. — Beyond the glass doors on the second floor of a multipurpose building is a law office that belongs to attorney Mario L. Perez, who moonlights as the offensive coordinator at West Broward High School in Pembroke Pines, Florida. He has three state championship plaques affixed to the left wall from his time at nearby powerhouse American Heritage, and there’s a laminated practice script on Perez’s desk from the morning installation periods. A giant television screen behind his desk loops practice film on Hudl ahead of an opening-round state tournament game to be played later that week.

Perez was the head coach at Monsignor Pace in Miami Gardens when a certain prodigious talent aged out of little league football and matriculated in high school. For years, Perez had heard “folklore” about the exquisite route running, wondrous body control and breathtaking speed of a lithe wideout named Jeremiah Smith. But having coached the likes of future NFL Draft picks Sony Michel, Isaiah McKenzie, Patrick Surtain II, Brian Burns and Khalil Herbert, among others, Perez wondered if South Florida’s latest anointed star would pass muster on a bigger stage.

“Sometimes the hype doesn’t live up to the reality,” Perez said. “The reality exceeded the hype with JJ.”

From the moment Jeremiah arrived in high school, the unparalleled work ethic that had prompted his youth coach, Rod Mack, to tell anyone who would listen that he was on track to become the No. 1 wideout in the country — even if he never grew another inch — transformed the youngster into a standard-setter for a rebuilding program. He comported himself with an attitude Perez likened to that of a “coal miner” because of how consistent, blue-collar and honest Jeremiah’s effort was on a daily basis. A shoulder injury that sidelined Jeremiah for much of the season never deterred him from showing up to every practice and team meeting.

An unexpected coaching change prompted Jeremiah to transfer partway through his sophomore season, and the family enrolled him at Chaminade-Madonna because of some preexisting relationships with the coaches and a roster that included several former members of the Miami Gardens Ravens. Chris Smith still remembers the cheek-splitting grin that stretched across the offensive coordinator’s face when he dropped Jeremiah off at practice for the first time in 2021. By then, Jeremiah had embarked on the growth spurt that would remodel a 5-foot-11 beanpole into a 6-foot-3, 215-pound “bully,” as Darrell Streeter described him, who manhandled opponents all over the field. So dominant was Jeremiah during his initial few weeks of practice, Chris was told, that the coaches tried to prevent word of his exploits from leaking into the community. They didn’t want any colleges to stop recruiting Chaminade-Madonna’s defensive backs. 

“All the work he put in had met with his size,” Streeter said. “And he became this force that was faster than you and stronger than you.”

Jeremiah climbed to No. 11 overall in the 247Sports Composite rankings the summer before his junior season, by which point he’d already held scholarship offers from Miami, Georgia, Florida, Florida State, Penn State and Ohio State for more than a year. He caught 58 passes for 1,073 yards and 20 touchdowns in 13 games while leading the Lions to an FHSAA 1M state championship on Dec. 8, 2022, and then gave his verbal commitment to the Buckeyes a week later. His recruitment reached a full-throated frenzy the following year, in mid-October, when Jeremiah surpassed five-star quarterback Dylan Raiola to become the highest-ranked player in the country. And when the recruiting cycle ended with Jeremiah in that same position a few months later — after making 88 receptions for 1,376 yards and 19 touchdowns en route to another state championship — he became the first wideout to top the final rankings for a given class since Dorial Green-Beckham 12 years prior.

The attention surrounding Jeremiah became so intense that Chaminade-Madonna’s head coach, Dameon Jones, gave thought to hiring a police officer to protect him during the second half of the 2023 season, especially amid the team’s state tournament run. Fans of all ages, including grown men that Jones described as “groupies,” formed lines by the Lions’ buses in hopes of landing a post-game autograph. One spectator told Jeremiah he was a Buckeye fan who had flown in from Ohio just to see him play. A child to whom Jeremiah gifted his receiving gloves nearly collapsed with glee. More than once, Jones had to pull his exceedingly accommodating star away from reporters because Jeremiah was too polite to end the interviews on his own when the team was trying to leave.

“Pandemonium,” Jones said. “Now I know how rock bands feel, you know? Everywhere we went, he was the show. Everybody wanted to see him.”

Eventually, word reached former Notre Dame quarterback and Columbus, Ohio, native Brady Quinn about the wunderkind receiver making headlines not far from where he currently resides in Florida. Quinn, who now works as a college football analyst for FOX Sports, decided it was worth the short drive to see Jeremiah play.

What he saw was only comparable to one thing Quinn had ever witnessed with his own eyes: a high school basketball game involving LeBron James at the Schottenstein Center on Ohio State’s campus nearly 20 years prior.

“It reminded me of that,” Quinn said, “like seeing a kid at that level be so dominant.”

*** *** ***

HOLLYWOOD, Fla. — Hours after having two of his wisdom teeth removed, Dameon Jones removes an ice pack from his cheek and tells the story of Jeremiah Smith’s final day at Chaminade-Madonna. Jones is seated in a black leather chair behind the U-shaped desk that dominates the space in an office attached to the football locker room. There are three state championship footballs and six championship rings on display for visitors to admire, and the walls are adorned with framed jerseys worn by some of Jones’ most talented former players. He’s already planning to hang one of Jeremiah’s in the near future.

For most of Jeremiah’s time at Chaminade-Madonna, his fellow classmates left him alone. Sure, everyone in the student body knew how talented he was in both football and track — it was impossible not to given how often his recruitment was discussed on national television — but Jeremiah is equal parts quiet and introverted by nature, and no one saw any reason to bother him. 

Until, that is, his final day on campus. 

“Everybody knew it was his last day,” Jones said, “and then he kind of got bum-rushed by all the kids. ‘Sign this!’ But it was crazy because he was like, ‘Y’all see me every day,’ but they don’t say nothing [to him]. He signed it all.”

The stress of an incredibly high-stakes recruitment had faded by that point, with Jeremiah overcoming two brief windows of cold feet to officially join the Buckeyes. Several months had passed since he toyed with the idea of flipping to Florida State, a program far closer to where he grew up and with a roster full of players he already knew. Chris Smith said it was the first time he’d ever seen his son “rattled” by the pressure to commit to an in-state school, which also happened to be his wife’s original preference. The swell of emotion eventually subsided.

But questions about the strength of Jeremiah’s commitment resumed late last year when the early signing period approached. There were increasingly aggressive phone calls from coaches at FSU, Miami and Florida — all of whom were desperate to keep Jeremiah closer to home — that sparked widespread angst on the morning of Dec. 21, 2023, a few hours before the scheduled signing ceremony. It was during those final hours, his father said, that Jeremiah nearly flipped to Miami, the school he and his former teammates with the Miami Gardens Ravens all dreamed of attending as kids. Suddenly, there were last-minute phone calls between Jeremiah and Chris, Jeremiah and his brother, Jeremiah and his uncle, Jeremiah and numerous people inside the Woody Hayes Athletic Center in Columbus, including star receiver Marvin Harrison Jr., the No. 4 overall pick in this year’s NFL Draft.

Everyone assured Jeremiah that Ohio State was the place he needed to be, the place that could incubate his generational talent and mold him into one of the all-time greats. It was the last batch of reassurance he needed before signing a letter of intent. In the end, Jeremiah did what his father always taught him by finishing what he started. 

“I’m just so happy to see people talk about him,” Rod Mack said, “and see the words people say and [have] the country get to see something that we’ve been here just waiting — just waiting — for him to reach the point where the world can see.

“He’s been a very special talent for a very, very long time.”

Michael Cohen covers college football and basketball for FOX Sports with an emphasis on the Big Ten. Follow him at @Michael_Cohen13.

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