H
ow about feeling a little older for a moment? Do you perhaps wonder where yesterday went? Maybe reflect on your history while remembering the career of a familiar face in Central Indiana? If so, then let’s play a Hoosier edition of What’s My Line? • It has been 25 years since the Indiana Pacers selected this Netherlands native with the second pick in the 1988 collegiate draft. (Yes, he still remains the only NBA player ever drafted from the Red Foxes of Marist College.) • It has been 13 years since this towering Zionsville resident last played in the National Basketball Association. (Indeed, his last appearance was in Game Six of the 2000 NBA Finals when he was sparring against someone named Shaquille O’Neal.) • He is now 47 years old. (That’s right, 47.) • And hold on to your jumper – not only does he have a 20-year-old daughter (Jasmine) in college, but his son is rapidly becoming one of the state’s premier high school basketball players as a junior at the local high school on Mulberry Street. Somehow, surprisingly, the onetime Dunking Dutchman, Rik Smits of Netherlands, Marist and Pacer fame, is entering middle age and appears on the verge of surrendering the Smits family basketball title to his son, another 7-footer, 17-year-old Derrik. The letter “c” may be forgotten occasionally in the Dutch alphabet, but there is another sighting of a Smits on the American basketball landscape. The name Smits is not disappearing anytime soon. In fact, it may again cast a huge shadow in Indiana and beyond. “He [Derrik] can become as good as he wants,” assessed one Hoosier
Crossroads Conference coach. “He is getting better and better.” That is wonderful news for the college recruiting crowd that is always circling over head for potential centers. Derrik recently visited Xavier and Clemson, while Butler, Purdue, Notre Dame, Indiana, Tennessee and numerous NCAA Division I scouts have been following his exploits since his sophomore season when he led the Eagles in blocked shots while averaging 7.1 points. The younger Smits enters his junior season three inches taller and filled out to 220 pounds. Derrik is also fresh off a robust and competitive AAU summer season with the Spiece Indy Heat team. “I found out that I can get better at a lot of things,” he said, “especially rebounding and consistency.”
“I could see it coming,” said Rik, who averaged 14.8 points; shot over 50 percent from the field; and made the NBA All-Star Team in 1998 during his illustrious career as Reggie Miller’s sidekick. “My injuries were getting worse. I had my mind made up [during the playoffs] that it was time to retire.” And he was not alone in retiring. Larry Bird left the coaching world after the six-game loss to the Lakers. “I owe a lot to Bird,” said Rik, who played for nine different coaches in 12 years with the Pacers. “I had a great time playing for him.”
Ironically, the recruiting saga for the second Smits is unfolding differently than the one encountered by his father almost three decades ago. Despite being over 7 feet tall and playing as a 16-year-old for the Netherlands National Juniors Team, Rik was missing from virtually all American NCAA Division I recruiting lists. The pipeline from Europe to the United States was barely dribbling talent in 1982. “No one saw me play,” remembered Rik. “They didn’t know who I was, so I sent out a lot of letters. Finally, I got one offer.” The offer came from Marist, an outpost in Poughkeepsie, New York. His height (7’ 4”) and skills (a deadly shooter) were not overlooked by NBA scouts in 1988 when the Pacers snared him with the No. 2 pick, hoping in time to train the Dutchman to replace the injuryriddled Steve Stipanovich someday at center. That forecast changed dramatically during Rik’s rookie season. After an
injury early in the season knocked out Stipanovich, Rik became the Pacers’ starting center for the next 12 seasons. Ironically, injuries (foot) also forced him into retirement after the 2000 NBA championship finals.
With basketball now in the rear mirror, Rik turned his attention in 2001 to another passion. He returned to a childhood hobby, racing in dirt track motorcross events throughout the Midwest. He even constructed a track behind his Zionsville home. “Once you’re in the NBA, they’re not too keen on you riding,” he recalled in an interview in 2011. “I was combining an interest and a hobby.” Rik was also a talented rider despite his vast size which forced him to be a sit-down rider because if he stood, he could not reach the handle bars. He was known as a “mudder” on the tracks. “You couldn’t miss me,” admitted Rik, who won races and honors on the American Historic Racing Motorcycle Association. “I was a bat out of hell when I took off. I was hooked.” But he again went one-on-one with pain. This time, his struggles involved recovery from back surgery nine years ago to repair two cracked bones. The pain eventually forced the world’s tallest motorcycle rider to the sidelines.
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