About Adrian Smith (basketball)
Adrian Howard "Odie" Smith (October 5, 1936 – April 28, 2026) was an American professional basketball player. He played college basketball for Northeast Mississippi Community College and Kentucky, winning the NCAA championship with the later in 1958. Following his college career, he was drafted by the Cincinnati Royals with the 85th pick in the 1958 NBA draft. He joined the Royals in 1961 after serving in the U.S. Army and went on to play 10 seasons in the NBA and one in the ABA. In his lone NBA All-Star appearance in 1966, he was named the All-Star Game MVP. Smith was a member of the United States national team that won gold at the 1959 Pan American games in Chicago and the 1960 Olympic games in Rome. == Early life and education == Smith was the fifth of six children of Oury and Ruth Smith of Farmington, Kentucky. The family lived in a farmhouse that had no electricity and no indoor plumbing. He was nicknamed "Odie" after a comedian on the Grand Ole Opry. As a child, he attended a three-room schoolhouse in rural Graves County, Kentucky. Because the family didn't have money for a basketball, he learned to shoot one his mother made from rolling up his dad's socks. He attended Farmington High School, where he nearly didn't play high school basketball until the school's principal and basketball coach agreed to give him a ride home, a distance of seven miles, after practices.
Biography source: Wikipedia. The profile adds birthday-specific historical context from the Celebs Birthday Today editorial database.