Hall of Fame basketball coach Pat Summitt literally passed the Olympic torch to Chattanooga’s Joe Smith for a leg of its journey to the 1996 Games in Atlanta.

He’ll soon do a figurative passing of the torch as the boxing portion of the Beijing Games ends.

Smith’s newest biggest Olympic thrill is about to reach its climax in the capital of China, concluding his arduous but fulfilling year as team manager for the United States boxers.

“I don’t know that any of it has been what you’d call fun,” he said this past week from Beijing. “It’s been a lot of work and responsibility, and I’ve been away from home a lot more than what I was told, but I have enjoyed it. I’ve especially enjoyed seeing all the places I’ve got to go to this year, like Switzerland and Argentina and Trinidad — and here twice. And it was great to bring some of this group to Chattanooga for the exhibition against the Dominican Republic.

“But I think the real reward is going to be walking through that tunnel at the opening ceremony.”

Beyond that thrilling moment Friday, he’s expecting to share in the joys of podium finishes for the U.S. boxers. He thinks at least two will win gold medals, and the nine-man team should finish in the top three.

“I’m just humbled by this whole experience,” said Smith, 54, who has been involved in boxing only 16 years.

The regional director for the Chattanooga YMCA’s Y-CAP program for at-risk youth has been working with older young men than usual, but the issues have not been so different.

“These boxers have adult bodies and they are world-class athletes, but they’re still boys in a lot of ways,” he said, citing “homesickness” and “bad choices” among the challenges he has tried to help them with.

“There is a tremendous amount of work that goes on behind the scenes to get an athlete ready to compete on this stage,” Smith said.

For the first time in 20 years, the boxers picked for the U.S. team went into lengthy residence together. After competing in the World Championships in Chicago in October and “test games” in Beijing in November, they convened at the U.S. Olympic Training Center in Colorado Springs, Colo., at the beginning of the calendar year — taking leave from family and jobs while receiving stipends for their time.

There were complaints along the way, including criticisms of Olympic coach Dan Campbell by some of the boxers’ personal trainers. One fighter — light flyweight Luis Yanez from Duncanville, Texas — was kicked off the team after being a no-show for three weeks and not responding to calls and a certified letter to explain his absence.

Yanez, a Pan American Games gold medalist, later said he was taking care of the four children of his sister, who was in drug rehab, and he was reinstated to the team less than a week before its departure to Beijing.

“He’s a 19-year-old kid, and I think he was getting some bad advice,” Smith said. “But he had to forfeit his stipend for the time he was gone, and he had to sign a public apology to the coach and his teammates and USA Boxing. And I’ll say this: What was written, he’s acted out. He’s been working like a Trojan.”

Yanez is one of the U.S. boxers Smith thinks could win Olympic gold, especially if he gets a favorable draw. The top candidates are flyweight Rau’shee Warren from Cincinnati and welterweight Demetrius Andrade from Providence, R.I. Both are reigning world champions.

“This group is young but loaded with talent,” Smith said. “From a talent standpoint, this is probably the best team we’ve taken to the Olympics since the late 1970s or early ’80s. But a lot of this tournament is about the draw.”

Russia is the clear-cut team favorite, he said. The USA is ranked second, but perennial power Cuba did not get a ranking because it did not send a contingent to the last World Championships.

“We don’t know much about Cuba. That’s the only country we don’t have film on,” Smith said. “We’ve been told they may be in a rebuilding time, but we know they’re going to be good.”

Smith has been spending most of his time in Beijing with the boxers as they run and work out in the gym and eat, but that will change after the Games open Friday. Then he’ll add a “lot of meetings” to his schedule.

But the end of his term as team manager is near, and he’s looking forward to getting back full-time to his local and regional boxing responsibilities, Y-CAP duties and other work with children.

“My wife (Paula) has more or less had to keep the ministries going, as this has taken so much of my energy and so much of my time,” he said. “But a chance like this comes only once in a lifetime, and I’m grateful I took advantage of the opportunity.”

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