Smith’s daring takes him to new heights
EAST LANSING, Mich. — Michigan State football coach John L. Smith lives in a world of superlatives.
The best tackle, the biggest play and the hardest hit are all part of the coaching language.
Nowhere in the coaching manual, though, does it explain how to describe the perfect sunrise atop the largest mountain.
That’s what Smith faced the morning of July 21 as he sat at Uruhu Point (19,340 feet), atop Mount Kilimanjaro in Tanzania after making the climb of his life.
“The sunrise was so special because you dream and talk about sitting on top of that mountain and watching the sun come up, and when it happened, what a moment, I couldn’t stop crying,” Smith said Thursday. “It was that unbelievable.”
Describing the sunrise as “a highlight of your life,” he grinned, then recalled “the giant red ball that comes up through the clouds.”
Smith, 55, was one of 11 climbers who worked together to reach the summit of Kilimanjaro, the highest freestanding mountain (not a part of a range) in the world. The six-day, five-night journey began as the next step in Smith’s continuing desire to conquer the world’s great challenges.
In past years he has flown a fighter jet, skydived from an airplane and participated in the Running of the Bulls in Pamplona, Spain.
Yet he admitted Thursday that those all paled in comparison to climbing the great mountain, which required physical endurance and mental focus.
“There were boulders bigger than this room moving all over that mountain — they were doing some strange things,” he said of the mind tricks induced by the oxygen-deprived altitude. “They were jumping everywhere. It was different.”
Smith’s group went on the guided climb with 35 support people, including 29 porters. They climbed the Rongai route.
The ascent and descent of all 11 climbers was its own achievement. The group was warned that in a party that size, only five or six probably would reach Uruhu Point.
But the entire group made it and showed no lasting ill effects, said participant Jill Witzenburg. Much of that, she said, was because of Smith’s leadership ability.
“He was really down-to-earth, very high energy, very positive about the whole experience, and he was a team player all the way,” said Witzenburg, who lives in East Lansing and was making her second ascent of Kilimanjaro. “He kept emphasizing we had to get to the top as a group.
“He was our coach. We were an 11-member team, and there are 11 members on a football team. He was our quarterback.”
Among the group were Smith, his two sons — Nicholas and Sam —Witzenburg, her husband, Gary, and John McCallie, husband of MSU women’s basketball coach Joanne P. McCallie.
The climb concluded a trip that lasted from July 8-23 and began for many of them with an African safari.
Smith embraced the animals as well, as much as he could behind the protection of his vehicle. The group saw lions, hippos, crocodiles, “enough flamingos to turn a lake pink,” Smith said, wildebeest, zebras and 16 rhinos in one day.
But the lasting image — the one that will remain embedded in his dreams and nightmares — was the elephant that charged the group. It took repeated shots from the guide to scare the animal away.
“He stopped, and all you could see was ears and eyes,” Smith said.
To many, that would be a death wish, but Smith saw it as “major excitement.”
Now that he’s back in East Lansing — after heading straight for a McDonald’s when the group stopped in Amsterdam — Smith has begun to shift his focus to football and his second season as MSU’s coach.
He admitted this will be a transition year with a number of young players, but he insists the goals remain to send the seniors out on a winning note, compete for a Big Ten championship and ultimately reach the Rose Bowl.
That’s why a faded Rose Bowl sweatshirt hangs in his office and why he might use some of his trip’s lessons to inspire the Spartans.
“It’s a young group that has to stay healthy,” he said.