Blue & Gold Illustrated: America's Foremost Authority on Notre Dame Football
Issue link: https://comanpub.uberflip.com/i/109499
Grounded Heir: Jaylon Smith Preps To Carry The Weight Of Great Expectations By Dan Murphy It's been 14 minutes since he started and Jaylon Smith has yet to finish walking from one end of the Bishop Luers High School gym to the other. The Fort Wayne parochial school picked the night of its basketball homecoming game in early February to pay tribute to Smith, the region's first winner of Indiana's Mr. Football Award. The school surprised him an hour before the opening tip by retiring the black and red No. 9 jersey he wore for four years and four state championships at Luers. Now, wearing a blue Notre Dame warmup jacket and Fighting Irish hat, the 17-yearold rising star is patiently wading through a stream of autograph seekers. He pats the heads of waist-high fans and signs a pair of game Smith won the Butkus Award as the nation's top high school linebacker, was named Indiana's Mr. Football, and was tabbed as a firstteam Parade and USA Today All-American in 2012. photo courtesy U.S. Army All-American Bowl programs for a graybearded man in a plain blue baseball cap and a dated, hoodless sweatshirt. He occasionally stops to say hello to a face he recognizes. The game mercifully begins and Smith makes his way to the student cheering section at the far baseline. He pulls off the Notre Dame jacket and slips into the second row, disappearing between a pair of skinny jeans and an upperclassman in a blue bathrobe covered with penguins. It's hard for Smith