"My mom wasn't a strong believer in tattoos, but when I told her I wanted to get a tattoo of my father, she said, 'It better look like my husband,' " Smith recalled Thursday.
"I said OK and went and got it. I just wanted something that I could always look down to when I'm thinking about him. I know he's always watching over me, and that he's behind me."
There is definitely karma at work here. Derek Smith helped lead Louisville to the 1980 national championship, in which the Cardinals defeated UCLA at the since-demolished Market Square Arena. Now 30 years later, Nolan Smith gets his chance to make it two championships in the family.
"I've had a chance to watch some games and talk to his teammates, hearing about how he played," said Smith, who was 8 when his father passed away. "Now I have a chance to follow in his footsteps and do the same thing he did. It means a lot to me. It really gives me a lot of extra motivation to go out and leave it all out on the court."
Derek Smith played nine seasons for five teams during an NBA career marred by a serious knee injury in the 1985-86 season. Still, he remained a valued team member because of a strong work ethic, uncanny focus, and a willingness to learn as much as he could.
The younger Smith, called "the unsung hero of our team" by Duke coach Mike Krzyzewski, seems to have inherited those traits. He leads the team in scoring (18.5), three-point shooting (6 for 13, 46.2 percent) and minutes played (38.2) in the tournament while showing an uncanny knack for scoring as the shot clock runs out.
He said comparisons by people who knew his father "mean everything to me."
