Retired Archie Smith (2013-2021)

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Apr 3, 2012
58,148
66,409
AFL Club
Brisbane Lions
Pick 69 2013 Rookie Draft
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Position:
Ruckman
Height:
200cm
Weight:
97kg
Born:
19/7/95
Home club:
Mt Gravatt
2013 STATS​
Exciting and athletic ruckman who comes from a basketball background. Has an impressive vertical leap which often allows him to jump over his opponents and get first hands on the ball. A strong competitor who thrives in the physicality of the contest in the air and at ground level.
 
http://www.theage.com.au/afl/afl-news/teen-is-caught-between-two-loves-20130704-2pevv.html
Everyone Archie Smith knows has always thought the same thing: that he would become a professional basketballer one day. That's what happens when your father is Andre Moore, a Brisbane Bullet back when the NBL was big, and it was what Archie wanted too.

''When I was young it affected me a bit. I was known as Andre Moore's son, and I was a bit short, a bit fat, and not all that good,'' he said. ''I didn't have the emotional maturity to deal with it. He was awesome, so I wanted to be awesome, and I wasn't. But I grew a bit, I made my first state team, and as I got older I didn't mind the pressure at all. I started to think, this could be all right.''

As a basketballer, Smith is going places. Possibly to the US, where he has offers from 10 colleges, and is taking three of them seriously. He needs to decide soon whether to accept one, decline them all, or wait another year.
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Archie Smith's father Andre, playing for the Taipans in 1999. Photo: Getty Images

But the decision has become a lot more complicated than it was at the end of last year. That's when talent spotters from the Brisbane Lions academy watched him play basketball and asked him if he would like to do some pre-season training. The 17-year-old said yes, figuring it would make him a bigger and stronger basketballer. Then something happened: he started to really like football.
''It's such a hard call to make. It's the most stressful thing ever,'' Smith said. ''There's so many reasons to go [ to the US] - the education, the experience - but I keep thinking, what if I can improve to the point where I could get on an AFL list? There's a lot of good reasons to stay here and try to do that as well. I've been absolutely obsessed with basketball my whole life. But AFL's become that new obsession.''

Smith is raw, almost as raw as they come. But he's learning reasonably quickly. He played his first game at the start of the season, having only seen one live AFL game, and not learnt any of the rules. He played his fourth for the Brisbane reserves, in the same side as Simon Black, and still didn't really know where to run to or what to do there. He played for the 12th time on Thursday, for Queensland's under-18 team, and knows he has lots to learn.

''They still keep it pretty simple with me,'' he said. ''They don't want me over-thinking it. I still feel a bit like a basketballer, like I'm relating most things I learn back to basketball.''

Smith recently watched some vision of his first training session. He couldn't kick, couldn't handball and he couldn't run too far, though he could jump. Dunking is the thing he has missed most about basketball, but jumping up on the ruck bags has helped satisfy that urge.
''I love taking hangers. Who doesn't,'' said the teenager who, watching more recent footage, saw a more skilful, much fitter player.

He feels like he is picking up something new each time he plays, and his coaches are seeing it too. ''In every game you see something improve: his ground balls, his ruck work, his spacing, his positioning,'' said Queensland coach Ray Windsor. ''When he started, he had no idea what he was doing. He was just there to jump up in the middle and hit the ball.

''But his progress has been amazing, and he's a perfectionist. He wants to be really good. If he keeps progressing at this rate, clubs would be mad if they didn't go for him.''

Smith has some thinking to do, and a call to make. But starting completely over is something that appeals to him. ''I worked really hard to get to where I was in basketball, so it's been strange to go from being at the top of one sport to a nobody in the next,'' he said. ''I know I need to be patient, but I see that as a big challenge, to start from nowhere and make it there one day.''
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New Lions recruit Archie Smith only started playing AFL in bid to improve his basketball
November 27, 2013
Andrew "Hammo" Hamilton

When the Lions academy first asked Queensland basketball officials about Smith, they were told not to bother. They said the kid was 100 per cent hooked on hoops.

But the Lions persisted with a direct approach to Smith, whose interest was sparked even though he admits he had never followed the game.

"It was always expected that I would be a basketballer,'' he said. "I was narrowing down what school I was going to and everything was on course.

"Then I got approached by the Lions academy. I really liked the challenge of doing something new.
"I didn't know anything about AFL but after a few kicks they offered me a spot on the summer program.''
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Lions add three rookies
27 November 2013

The Brisbane Lions have finalised their 2014 playing list by adding two local Queensland talents and a mature-age midfielder via the 2013 AFL Rookie Draft.

The Lions welcomed Queensland U18 Captain Isaac Conway with their first selection (Pick No.6), before adding 23-year-old Zac O’Brien (Pick No.23). and basketball prodigy Archie Smith (Pick No.69). Smith, like Conway, was a member of the Hyundai Lions Academy in 2013, and the pair now join Jordon Bourke and Jonathan Freeman as successful graduates from the Club’s development program.

Smith, 18, was first identified as a potential AFL talent last year as part of the Club’s Future Stars program and has spent the past 12 months developing with Academy. The son of former Brisbane Bullets centre Andre Moore, Smith had received offers from a number of US colleges to head overseas on a basketball scholarship, but instead opted to try his hand at Australian football.

After just six months of training, Smith was selected to represent Queensland in the U18 AFL National Championships and also played a total of eight NEAFL matches with Mt Gravatt and the Brisbane Lions Reserves. His obvious talents earned him an exclusive invitation to the AFL Draft Combine at Etihad Stadium in October, where he displayed his athletic prowess by finishing first in the running vertical leap (97cm).

The 200cm spring-heeled ruckman will now get an opportunity to develop further as part of the Lions’ official playing list. “We’re really happy to have Archie on board,” Kerr said. “It’s a real coup for the Club and the Hyundai Lions Academy to convert such a promising basketball player to our code. Clubs spend a considerable amount of time scouring the world for such natural talents, and it’s terrific that we’ve been able to find one in our own backyard.

“Archie has shown an enormous amount of improvement over the past 12 months, and has many of the attributes to succeed in the AFL. “That said, he’s still very much a work in progress, and will require a considerable amount of development before he’s ready to play senior AFL football.

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This time last year, Archie Smith was fielding offers from a range of US Colleges to join them on a basketball scholarship.

Standing at 200cm and with an incredible leap, Smith had long dominated Brisbane’s junior basketball scene and had good pedigree considering he’s the son of former NBA player and Brisbane Bullets star, Andre Moore.

So Smith seemed destined to follow in his famous father’s footsteps and pursue a professional basketball career – that was, until he was identified by the Brisbane Lions and invited to train with the Hyundai Lions Academy.

Now, after only a short period of time in the system, he finds himself a listed Lions player after being selected by the Club in Wednesday’s Rookie Draft.

And he couldn’t be happier.

“It is fantastic and I'm over the moon,” Smith told Tom Boswell at Quest newspapers.

“People were a bit confused why I had given up basketball and I was tentative myself but I'm happy with the success I have had so far.”

With only limited background and training, Smith has realistic expectations ahead of his budding AFL career.

“I want to strive to improve and the best way to do that is to play in the NEAFL,” he said.

“Hopefully I'll build my body up a lot more, gain some strength and get a really good football sense.

“My goal is to have a successful year next year and push for a spot in the senior team in 2015.”

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http://www.lions.com.au/news/2013-11-28/smith-shelves-hoop-dreams
 
Son of a gun Archie Smith gives hoop dreams the drop punt
1 December 2013
Mike Whiting

ARCHIE Smith has just finished his first full training session with the Brisbane Lions.

He's done two-and-a-half hours of running, conditioning, ball work and finished off with some hard efforts on the exercise bike. He's the last player to finish. After a 10-minute cool down the Lions rookie comes over to chat, still dripping with sweat, but composed enough to recount his amazing story of the past 12 months.

Smith is the 18-year-old son of former NBA player and NBL legend Andre Moore, and seemed destined to blaze his own trail in the basketball world. Just last year he was in an Australian national team squad, going overseas to play in camps against the best in the world, and was being courted by eight Division One colleges in the US.

But with a little nudge from the Brisbane Lions Academy, some natural gifts of his own, and an appetite to switch sports and succeed, that has all changed for Smith. He is now a Lions rookie and hoping to follow in the footsteps of Dean Brogan, Kurt Tippett and Jesse White as having made the successful switch from basketball to the AFL.

It started when Lions academy coach Scott Borlace and talent identification officer Ashley Drake paid a visit to the Queensland Classics (basketball) last year. With Australian football still far from Queensland's top sport – particularly in the school system - Drake plies his trade combing rugby and league fields, basketball courts and athletics tracks looking for talent that may convert well to the AFL.
His private school was not interested, and it took six weeks of perseverance and building a relationship with his family to convince Smith to give the foreign code a go. "I lived and breathed basketball. I knew every NBA player and every future NBA player for the next 10 years," Smith said. "I knew absolutely nothing about AFL." So Drake and the Lions rolled out the red carpet, taking Smith on a tour of the Gabba before he'd even kicked a ball.

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Another young one who is grateful for the chance and really wants to be at the club.
 
At 200cm, and the son of a professional sportsman, you tend to expect a macho, confident kid with a booming voice, but he's soft spoken and comes across as fairly shy and even a bit nerdy.
 
He's a nice kid, he comes into my workplace a bit and is often wearing Lions shorts. Mustered the courage to finally ask him if he's a Lions player. Seems to have a cool, calm, professional demeanour. Should go well.
 
Smith praises program
15 January 2014
Sam Lord

Archie Smith would have never considered an AFL career had it not been for the Hyundai Brisbane Lions Academy. Smith looked set to follow in his father’s footsteps by becoming a professional basketball player, until he was spotted by the Club’s Northern and Pacific Talent Identification Officer, Ashley Drake, at a local basketball game.

His hard work was ultimately rewarded last December when he was selected by the Lions at the Rookie Draft. Without a program such as the Academy, a prodigious talent such as Smith might have been lost to the AFL forever. “There’s absolutely no chance that I’d be where I am today without the Lions Academy,” Smith told lions.com.au.
“It's great in the sense that it helped teach me the game of football from scratch, as well as set me up for a professional environment early on. “All the work that goes into it…it’s not just the training and gym during the week; the Academy also gets professional players in to go through some of the finer details with you. There’s a lot of care, and you really feel as though you’re being looked after.”

Smith said he will be forever grateful to Drake and the Academy coaches for helping steer his sporting future down a somewhat unexpected path. “(Ashley Drake) is pretty persistent to the point where he’s annoying, but he’s the best bloke I know,” Smith said. “The amount he’s done for me, I can’t find a way to repay him. Smith is still relatively ‘raw’ in terms of his AFL development and there’s no telling how his AFL future will pan out.

However, his story might open the door for more talented young Queenslanders with a non-AFL background to consider switching to AFL. And there’s no greater advocate of the Lions Academy than Smith himself.
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Link - http://www.lions.com.au/news/2014-01-15/smith-praises-program
 
The objectives for the Lions Academy are two-fold: one, to identify Queensland kids with talent and improve them as junior footballers and two, to use the program as a vehicle where they can attract some first-choice athletes to AFL football.

Freeman falls under the first category, Smith the second.

Smith had aspirations to follow his father, former NBA basketballer Andre Moore, into that sport. But through Ashley Drake, the academy's talent identification officer, Smith was spotted and then exposed to AFL football.

He joined the academy, worked closely with Drake, academy manager Luke Curran and head coach Scott Borlace, and was recruited as a rookie last year – only months after he played his first ever game of Australian Rules.

"We've looked at him purely from an athletic view and said well he's got this athletic capability, which is fairly good, are we prepared to put the time and the years in to try to turn him into an AFL footballer? The academy was able to fast-track the initial stage of that development to the point where we saw enough to say he's worth a spot on our rookie list," Kerr said.

"Lets hope over a long journey he progresses further. I watched him play a practice game maybe a fortnight ago and I was probably taken aback really, just in how improved he looked. He's going to be a big, big boy."
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....

The academy works hard, however, not to simply push first-choice athletes into a new game. Kerr says the Lions would allow a basketballer to keep playing basketball while he tries his hand at footy.

"If they're going to convert they've got to fall in love with the game," he says.

Smith's parents recently wrote to Brisbane Lions chief executive Malcolm Holms expressing that view; their pleasure that Drake, as the first point of contact, had not pushed Smith one way or the other as he decided his sporting future and their excitement that Archie had immersed himself into the club and is loving getting better each day.
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http://www.lions.com.au/news/2014-02-19/talent-born-from-academy
 
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