FA’s Smith to play football at UMaine

By Ernie Clark
Staff Writer

DOVER-FOXCROFT — Foxcroft Academy athletic standout Hunter Smith will experience one of the crowning moments of his up-and-down senior season of football Wednesday evening.

File photo

FUTURE BLACK BEAR — Foxcroft Academy senior Hunter Smith will be continuing his athletic career as a member of the University of Maine football team. Last week Smith verbally committed to accept a full athletic scholarship, and he is scheduled sign his National Letter of Intent to join the Black Bears during a ceremony at 6 p.m. on Wednesday, Feb. 3 at Foxcroft Academy.

That’s when he’ll will sign a National Letter of Intent accepting a full athletic scholarship from the University of Maine during a 6 p.m. ceremony at the academy.

Smith, the son of Dean and Laurie Smith, plans to major in business and made official recruiting visits to both UMaine and Division II Bentley University before opting to play football where his father was a basketball star for the Black Bears during the late-1980s and early 1990s after graduating from Foxcroft.

“I’ve been going to the UMaine football camps every summer since I was a freshman,” said Smith, “so they had a pretty good idea of who I was and after one of the camps, they decided to offer me, so I had that offer early.”

The UMaine offer came before Smith suffered a dislocated hip during a preseason football game Aug. 28, 2015, at Orono High School.

Smith missed his entire senior season for Foxcroft but did get to compete in one of the nation’s more prestigious high school all-star games, the Blue-Gray North-South All-American Bowl on Jan. 9 in Tampa, Florida.

“When I got hurt, a lot of people who had been previously talking to me stopped talking to me,” said Smith. “So it came down to UMaine and Bentley as the two schools that kept contacting me, and it wasn’t an issue to them that I dislocated my hip because after I came back for basketball season and the all-star game, they could see I was at 100 percent.

“It’s been a windy road to get here,” he added, “but I’m glad I’m here now so things can calm down from here on out.”

The 6-foot-4, 180-pound Smith will play wide receiver at UMaine despite seeing only periodic duty at that position during his high school career. He expects to redshirt as a freshman on the Orono campus.

“They’ve got a pretty deep depth chart at wide receiver, and I definitely would like to have that year to acclimate my body to Division I speed and strength,” he said. “But if they end up having injuries, I might have to step into a role.”

Smith played junior varsity quarterback and some tight end as a freshman at Foxcroft, then moved to wide receiver as a sophomore and earned all-conference honors. He shifted to quarterback early in his junior year and went on to rush for 1,037 yards and 22 touchdowns.

Despite missing his entire senior season of football, Smith continued to contribute to the team in other ways.

“He was an unquestioned captain of a team that he didn’t even get to participate with on the field of play,” said Foxcroft Academy coach Danny White. “He motivated us in practice and during game situations while on the sidelines, and certainly his influence on his teammates was felt even with the circumstances he was under.”

Smith returned to competition this winter with the school’s basketball team and recently scored his 1,000th career point for the Ponies during a game against Old town played in front of a crowd that included four members of the UMaine coaching staff, among them new Black Bears head coach Joe Harasymiak.

Smith also is an accomplished track athlete. He is the defending Class C outdoor state champion in the 110 hurdles and high jump while placing second in the long jump and third in the 300 hurdles last spring.

Smith joined the Foxcroft indoor track team for a meet last weekend in preparation for the coming outdoor season and swept the long jump (20-8½), triple jump (40-11½) and high jump (6-6). He currently has no plans to participate in track at UMaine.

“His skill sets are so unique and so broad that he’s able to do so many things in the field of competition,” said White. “He has incredible speed and for his height and age is incredibly agile and incredibly skilled. His athleticism is way above normal, and the most important thing I’ve seen over the last couple of years is that he’s learned to compete at a different level. I think he’s grown into that.

“Regardless of any personal accolades, he just wants to win,” he said.