By DAVE O’SULLIVAN
Staff Writer
On X @GDsullysays
Last week, longtime Ocean City High football coach Kevin Smith announced he was stepping down from the position, as first reported by legendary Ocean City-based sports reporter Tom Williams.
Longtime defensive coordinator Sean Matthews will be taking over the program, according to Williams.
Smith guided the Red Raiders for 14 seasons, winning more than 70 games, and building the program into one of the toughest to beat in all of South Jersey. His teams were never the biggest or fastest, but they played a solid brand of football that saw them giving other teams fits in the state playoffs more often than not.
Smith also was one of the architects of the now hugely popular Battle at the Beach season kickoff showcase, which draws some of the best high school football teams from around the country, including IMG Academy in Florida.
The Red Raiders finished 6-5 last fall, making it to the second round of the state playoffs before falling to Somerville. Smith said he felt it was time to pursue some opportunities in the sports media field since he retired from teaching in December.
“I retired from teaching in December, and it was going to be hard to do and not be in the building,” Smith said. “I have an opportunity working for a sports media company, kind of covering the NFL for them. I’ll be doing some cool stuff. I’ll be out at the combine (this week), stuff like that.”
When Smith took over, the Red Raiders had won just two games the previous season, and the facilities were not exactly up to date. But his teams made do, practicing in the grass behind the bleachers at Carey Stadium, running on the boardwalk and beach, whatever it took to become more competitive. Eventually, Carey Stadium got a facelift in the form of artificial turf, and with the Ferris wheel in the background it became one of the most iconic stadiums in the country for high school football.
“We never got bored with that. There were days this past season when I would look around and say, ‘man, this is awesome.’ I had so many college recruiters who would come see our kids and would talk to me about coming over the bridge and seeing the Ferris wheel, the ocean and the bay, and would say, ‘we’ve been all over the country, this is a special place.’”
The scenery may have been great, but make no mistake, it was a grind for years to get this program to the point where it could compete with the best in South Jersey.
“(When I took over) we were coming off back-to-back 2-8 seasons, we didn’t have a weight room, we didn’t have a booster club. There were so many things we had to do,” said Smith’s who’s first and only head coaching job was at Ocean City. “The first slogan we ever adopted as a program was the old Chip Kelly slogan, ‘Win The Day.’ We felt like we had to try to get a little better every day. It sounds cliché, but it was true. If you thought about the big picture, it was overwhelming, but those little things started adding up to big things.”
One of Smith’s best seasons came in 2021, when the Red Raiders went 12-1, their only loss coming against Millville in the South Jersey Group 4 championship game. Ocean City also made the sectional championship game in 2019, falling to Shawnee.
Smith said he grew as a coach right along side his players as they were growing as athletes and young men.
“In Year One, it took me a while to learn how to practice. I had to bring on some other coaches who I learned a lot from, and they really helped me develop much better practice habits,” Smith said. “There’s so much practice and you only play once a week. It’s a sport that is so influenced by practice habits, so I think we got good when we learned how to practice well.”
Smith has had some tremendous players throughout his time as the leader of the program, and it’s the people, he says, who made his time coaching so memorable.
“I feel as though we left the program in a better place than we found it, that my time was worthwhile. You spend so much time and energy and you pour your heart and soul into it, and in the end you want to be able to step back and say, ‘hey, it was worth it,’” Smith said. “It’s gratifying when you feel like you’ve accomplished what you set out to accomplish.”
Some of the players Smith will remember most in the coming years weren’t necessarily the stars of the team, and he said that’s what is so great about high school football — the different ways it can impact each individual player.
“I think the things I’ll miss are the little things that happen day to day, the conversations in the weight room, the progress you see. When you see a kid get better and start to believe in themselves,” Smith said. “I got a text from Parker Bristol, who played for us back in 2017. He was a baseball player and wasn’t sure if he wanted to come out for football, if he could do it, physically. He struggled early on but I kept encouraging him and he wound up being a starter on a playoff team. I got a text from him thanking me for believing in him, encouraging him. That’s the kind of stuff when you look back on it, you feel a sense of satisfaction. That’s what you remember, the people you worked with and players you coached.”
