'It's All Them': H-F's Smith Credits Players For 500 Career Wins

FLOSSMOOR, IL — Tony Smith has never concerned himself too much with how many games he has won as a girls varsity basketball coach. Instead, he worries more about the way his players go about their business — on and off the court and instilling them with lessons they will carry on later in life.

But in 21 years of coaching at the varsity level — including 11 at Homewood-Flossmoor — the victories have piled up, eventually approaching milestone status. So, when the Vikings defeated Sandburg 49-19 on Tuesday night to notch their eighth victory of the season, Smith earned his 500th career win.

For Smith, who coached for 10 years at Bolingbrook before arriving at Homewood-Flossmoor in 2013, the victory is more representative of the lives he says he has been blessed to have been a part of more than it is about the approach he has taken in guiding his teams to 500 wins. That's because Smith, who started coaching at age 23, maintains that his job has always been more about having a positive influence on young players than it has been about achieving any measure of personal success.

“It was all them — they played the game, it was how they played the game, they won a lot and it was all on them,” Smith told Patch on Thursday. “They were driven, and I was I was just fortunate to be part of it.”

Smith, a former football player, says that he has always pushed players to be their best while stressing a defensive-minded style of basketball. He says that over the years, an intensity that carried over from his football-playing days has perhaps has diminished; a fact with which he wonders if some of his players would agree.

He credits having great players, teams, families, and colleagues to work with first at Bolingbrook and then at Homewood-Flossmoor for his ability to find a sustained run of success. Because of the cooperation he has found at both schools, he said his coaching job has been made easier, making his role one more of “just not messing it up” than anything else, Smith said.

In more than two decades of coaching, Smith said he has adapted to the way kids have changed over the years. Despite when or where he was, however, he always demanded that his players compete with effort and discipline. Even in practice, Smith says he always required players to keep their shirts tucked in — a reflection of the values with which he was raised.

He says he encountered a former player last year who says to this day, she keeps her shirt tucked in when she goes to the gym to work out, an homage to her time playing for Smith. It is the little details like that that Smith says mean the most to him, understanding that the lessons he has tried to drive home with his players have stuck.

While he says he may have mellowed out over the years, Smith says his teams are still defined by their ability to play with grit and to get after teams defensively — all while having a good time doing it. In doing so, the wins have taken care of themselves in some ways, leading to Tuesday’s milestone victory.

He says he can tell he has a good team when practice doesn’t seem to go as long as it actually goes and in the way that his players respond to his coaching methods. During his coaching career, Smith’s teams have made multiple trips to the Illinois High School state tournament, including in 2015, when Homewood-Flossmoor finished fourth in the state. The Vikings reached the Super Sectionals in 2016, 2017 and 2020.

Smith guided Bolingbrook to state championships in 2006, 2009, 2010, and 2011 while also finishing up as the IHSA runner-up in 2007 and 2008.

This year, Smith, who has a career record of 500-125 according to school officials, was nominated to the Illinois Basketball Hall of Fame – an honor he puts more on his players than he does himself.

“That’s what it’s about — it’s about helping youth and then watching them grow and seeing them become the teachers and the coaches – that’s what it’s about,” Smith told Patch. “That’s what I enjoy the most. The wins and losses, yeah, you think about them at the time but the growth. That’s what it’s really about.”

Even as his 500th victory approached this year, Smith was more concerned about where his team was at. After beginning the year at 1-3 and two straight 1-point losses, Smith has watched as the Vikings (8-3) have reeled off seven straight wins. After Tuesday’s 30-point victory over Sandburg, Smith was honored by school administrators who awarded the long-time coach with a plaque recognizing the achievement.

The reminders that Smith was on the verge of reaching the milestone were hard to miss afterward with signs boasting the 500 victories popping up around the gym. But now that he has reached a number that many coaches never will see, Smith says he will go back to focusing on keeping the Vikings winning while continuing to send quality people out into the world once their time playing for him is complete.

Smith says that he will continue to coach until he feels like he can’t get the most out of his teams — a sign, he acknowledges, that the time will have come to pass the torch. But until then, he will keep doing what he has to get to this point knowing that he has found a measure of success just trying not to mess it up.

“I’ll know because you can tell by the way (teams) play,” Smith said Thursday. “If they’re not playing with a spark and you see us playing a zone (defense) or something, you know my time has come. That’s when I know it will be time. I enjoy a certain style — a certain way that looks and the way (the game) is played and so if I can’t get that out of my student-athletes, I will know it’s time to pass the torch.”