When Indian Creek golf coach Bob Smith was in the process of ordering shirts for his team before the season, the players approached him with a simple request — they wanted "#CHASESTRONG" embroidered on them as a show of support for Chase Smith, a 2020 Indian Creek graduate and the coach’s grandson.
Actually, it wasn’t so much a request as a statement.
"I said, ‘Guys, thanks for the gesture, but you don’t need to’ — and they said, ‘Then don’t get us shirts,’" Bob Smith recalled.
Chase Smith died on April 4 at the age of 19 after fighting cancer for almost seven years. His impact on the Indian Creek community, both in life and death, has always been large, and even the Braves’ golfers who just had brief interactions with him were affected by him in some way.
Braxton Christie, the team’s No. 1 player, was only in school with Chase for one year but remembers crossing his path in the pool when the basketball team would go in for periodic swim workouts.
"You could always tell he was a leader," Christie said. "He definitely showed us how to live."
Chase’s aura as a leader was such that even the adults in his life often wound up playing the role of follower. Bob Smith says that the finality of Chase’s passing hit him and his son, Chase’s father Brad, harder than either expected it to immediately afterward.
"We followed Chase," Bob Smith said. "We handled what we had to handle because we were with Chase, and he took us through that. What’s been really hard for both Brad and myself, now with him gone, we’ve had to rely on each other."
They’ve had a good support system around them to help with that. Indian Creek’s golfers rallied around their coach, and in the process they became closer with one another during what has been an emotionally tumultuous season for all of them. Christie’s grandfather also passed away on April 20.
The tragedies that the Braves have faced together ultimately brought them together, and allowed a relatively inexperienced squad to enjoy more success than many expected. Indian Creek placed third in the Western Indiana Conference tournament last month, with Christie and Clark Haywood tying for third individually.
On Thursday, the team was fifth in the Johnson County tournament at The Legends, but they’re performing well enough that their ultimate goal of making it out of next Monday’s sectional on this same course isn’t a complete pipe dream.
Even if the team can’t move up into the top three, Christie and Haywood could potentially advance to regional as individuals. Plus, with five of their top six players coming back next spring, the Braves have the luxury of being able to be patient.
"We have a program that’s ready again next year if we don’t accomplish what we want to this year," Bob Smith said. "And we’re close."
Close in more ways than one.
Ryan O’Leary is the sports editor for the Daily Journal. He can be reached at [email protected].
