Buffalo Sports Hall of Fame: Lamar Smith's sprinting records still stand after 40 years

Lamar Smith goes back to the very beginning of his track and field career when asked to name his most memorable moment at Bennett High School.

“If I had to pick one out, it’d be the time trials before anybody knew I could run, that sticks in my head,” Smith said. “It was at Bennett. I was just trying out for the team as a freshman. There was grass growing on the track, there were stones falling off the wall. I looked and said this isn’t fair. But I beat everybody on the team, and that’s where my career started.”

Smith went on to become the greatest sprinter Western New York has produced.

He still holds the Western New York high school records for the fastest 100 meters – 10.64 seconds, set in 1981 – and the fastest 200 meters – 21.34, set in 1982.

Those marks are 40 and 39 years old, respectively. They are the oldest individual records on the Western New York  track and field books for boys or girls. Most of the other event records have been set in the last 20 years.

Of the six relay records for boys and girls in track and field, five were set in the past 11 years. The other? It’s 40 years old, from 1981, when Smith anchored the Bennett 1,600-meter relay team to a time of 3:17.64. The first three legs were run by James Davis, Rayford Bragg and Brian Hooks.

Smith was a runner for all times. He will be inducted into the Greater Buffalo Sports Hall of Fame at the 31st annual induction ceremony and dinner on Oct. 13 at the Buffalo Niagara Convention Center.

“After 40 years, it’s still exciting to be honored, very exciting,” said Smith, 57. “It’s hard to believe the record still stands. I actually followed it for awhile. But didn’t see any improvements. These guys run on state-of-the-art tracks. You would think it would be broken. I went back and looked at the old track I used to run on. It was pretty much cinders and dirt.”

“And the shoes were not nearly as good,” adds former Bennett coach Larry Veronica, also a GBSHOF member. “That shows you how great those records are. And there have been plenty of good sprinters who have come along since then.”

Smith’s record times arguably could be considered lower.

A week after he won both the 100 and 200 meter races at the New York State high school championship, he went to Sacramento, Calif., for the Golden West Invitational. The top 10 state champions from across the country in each track and field event were invited. The meet still is held today.

Smith placed fourth in the 100 meters in 10.60 seconds and third in the 200 in 21.26. In both races, he beat Sam Graddy of Atlanta, who two years later won a gold medal as a member of the U.S. 400-meter relay team at the Los Angeles Summer Olympics.

Even though Smith didn’t graduate until a couple of weeks later, Section VI does not consider any races after the state championships for its record books.

Smith grew up on Blaine Avenue, near Canisius College and was one of 10 children.

Why was he so fast?

“Well, there was 10 of us and you had to get to the dinner table quick,” he quips.

He moved to North Carolina for two years due to the fact his father was ill, but he was back in Buffalo by age 12.

Veronica remembers Smith’s tryout for the track team as a freshman.

“I had a couple 10 flat sprinters in Eric Cutter and Michael Towns, and he comes along and beat them all; he ran 9.9 as a freshman,” Veronica said, referring to the 100-yard time.

“Strength was his great asset,” Veronica said. “It used to be back then you wanted someone tall with a long stride. But it changed over the years to muscle building and weight lifting. He was a power sprinter, like the 909 coming down the tracks.”

The late Harvey Austin, a Greater Buffalo Sports Hall of Famer as a basketball and track and field great and a longtime coach in the Buffalo Public Schools, compared Smith’s explosiveness to that of Buffalo Braves legend Randy Smith.

“Lamar is a super athlete who reminds me a lot of Randy,” Austin told The News in 1982. “They both have extremely well built legs and both are natural athletes. Lamar is the best pure sprinter I’ve seen in Buffalo.”

Lamar Smith had a playful streak. At the Sweet Home WNY Classic his senior year, Bennett’s 400 relay team dropped the baton on the first handoff.

“We gained ground in the second and third legs,” Veronica said. “Lockport still was way ahead. Lamar caught the Lockport runner at the turn and turned his head and talked to him then blew by him and won. Everybody was booing. He said to me, ‘I don’t know what everybody’s getting excited about, all I said to him was, ‘I’ll see you later.’ ”

“I said, ‘Lamar, if you're going to talk, at least wait until the race is over,' ” Veronica said. “And he said: 'The race was over!' ”

“A thing like that wasn’t accepted then,” Smith said. “Nowadays you can get a brand with it.”

Smith went to the University of Alabama, where he made All-Southeastern Conference in the 400 in 1983 and ran on a 4x400 relay team with Olympians Calvin Smith and Emmit King that posted a time of 3:02.3, which was No. 1 in the world at the time that season.

He made the quarterfinals in the 400 at the U.S. Olympic Trials in 1984.

Then he transferred to SUNY Buffalo State for his final two seasons, where he set more records.

“The reason I left Alabama was my mom was having heart attacks, and I just didn’t have the will to stay there,” Smith said.

For the past 17 years, Smith has lived in Cheraw, S.C., where he works for Highland Industries, a manufacturer of airbag fabric.

"It was so much fun," Smith said of his running career. "The time of my life."