Steve Nissim Sports: Cedric Smith Aims For Turnaround At PHS Football

Steve Nissim is the “Chief Storyteller” for The Studer Family of Companies. Prior to joining SFOC, Steve was an award-winning TV Sportscaster for nearly three decades. Steve Nissim Sports will bring you entertaining and informative sports features from throughout Northwest Florida. The area is known for great athletes, coaches, teams, and just an overall passion for sports. There is no shortage of great sports stories to tell!

Cedric Smith figured out his desired path in life pretty early.

Cedric Smith “I knew back in high school that I wanted to be a football coach”.

But it would take the Alabama native him a little while to start realizing that plan. After graduating from Georgiana High School in 1994, Smith played a year of junior college ball before joining the Navy.

It wasn’t until 2002, while stationed in Pensacola, that he jumped into coaching youth football. It didn’t take long for Smith to stand out.

Smith: “One of my parents came up to me, he said, coach, I don’t want you to take this the wrong way but you mind is too advanced for these little league coaches, you need to be coaching high school football.”

Smith would break into that level at Washington in 2008, followed by a five-year stint on Harry Lees staff at West Florida Tech. He quickly figured out coaching was a lot more than just trying to win championships.

Smith: “Patience is a must. You have to be patient with the young men because they’re coming from so many different variables in their lives that you have to be patient and know that the expectations that you have, still has to be there but sometimes it takes longer to reach that expectation”.

Coach Smith got his first crack at being a head coach in 2016. He spent one season leading JF Shields, a small school in Alabama. It was an eye-opening experience.

Smith: ”When you’re working at a One-A school you have to do everything. You have to do the offense, the defense, the laundry the pre-game meal, cutting the field, painting the field, so it was really practice for this stage of scale right here”.

Smith went back to an assistant role at Fort Walton Beach. He spent four seasons helping a struggling program start to turn things around, eventually becoming the offensive coordinator, but his sights were set on being a head coach again.

Smith: “I truly knew that I had the ability to do it, it was just the lack of opportunities in this area. I even thought about moving out of the area to seek that opportunity, and when this opportunity came available it was like a dream”

A dream is not exactly how most would describe the status of Pensacola High Football. A proud program that won state as recently as 2009, has fallen on hard times, with eight straight losing seasons. But that’s not what Smith saw when he took the head coach job in December.

Smith: “What was appealing about his job is when I saw a lot of the young men, they reminded me of myself and some of my friends. Great kids, they just didn’t have somebody to mold and shape them into great young men.”

It’s been pretty rock bottom for the Tigers the last two seasons. They’ve lost 15 of their last 17 games.

Zurik Williams/PHS Senior Lineman: “It’s been hard to have two wins and go repeatedly with losing, and then getting up every day out of bed and say I’m going to keep on pushing, keep on pushing, keep on pushing.”

Dredrick Bell Jr./PHS Senior Cornerback: “It’s been really tough having to fight through adversity with people transferring and just numerous players transferring over the years.”

Smith stepped into that situation and made an immediate feel-good impression.

Williams: “My first impression of Coach Smith was, he’s a cool dude, he’s just chill, he’s just like one of us. He cares about the community so much, and you really don’t get that with a lot of coaches. It’s crazy to see that somebody cares about everybody. He cares about everybody from the most talented to the least talented, to the person who doesn’t even play on the team. The speech that he gave that day gave everybody chills, it’s time to go, it’s go mode time.”

While he inspired the crew that was out there, a lack of numbers that has plagued the program is still an issue. They have less than 30 players out for spring practice. Recruiting athletes in the hall hasn’t been easy.

Smith: “I’ve been getting some lukewarm responses cause at the end of the day in the back of their mind, the football program hasn’t won a lot of game, why would I want to come out there.”

Bell: “It will change once the fall comes and we start winning games and see the culture that coach Smith is providing for us.”

The buy in from the current players is undeniable and they’ve already made significant gains in the weight room. If optimism is an accurate gauge, Coach Smith is already picking up some wins.

Williams: “What he says is word. You just want to do it. You just want to make him proud.

Smith: “There is a young champion in that locker room right now. It’s young, but we have a great nucleus of ninth graders, tenth graders that are doing everything I’m asking them to do. Once I saw that I knew that the culture is changing and we’re on the cusp of something big.”