Like father like daughter: Anna Smrek is dominating above the net in college (2024)

Mike Smrek was a big man on campus at Canisius College 40 years ago. Make that really big. He is 7 feet tall.

Now his daughter, Anna, is a big woman on campus at the University of Wisconsin — and not just because she is 6-foot-9. Her Badgers will play in the women’s volleyball national championship game tonight at 7:30 on ESPN2. And she is the freshman prodigy who got them there.

The delicious irony is that the team Wisconsin will play for the title is the University of Nebraska. That’s the school that ended her father’s college-basketball career in the first round of the 1985 National Invitation Tournament.

“Yeah, I remember that,” Smrek says by phone from Columbus, Ohio, where the tournament is. “It’s funny how things come around, you know.”

He spoke in the hours after Anna led the Badgers to a five-set upset of top-seeded Louisville. Dani Busboom Kelly, coach of the previously undefeated Cardinals, told reporters that she “rolled the dice” by testing Anna, who only recently turned 18. Anna’s response: 20 kills and just one attacking error — the best game of her life.

“Up to this point,” her father says, “I would have to say that it was.”

Smrek has two NBA championship rings from his time with the Los Angeles Lakers. What means more to him: those rings, or a national championship ring for Anna?

“Hers, for sure,” Smrek says. “Although I do savor my rings from those years with the Lakers.”

He keeps them in a safe-deposit box. “I don’t wear them much. They’re pretty big and flashy.” Smrek, fair to say, is big and not flashy.

As it is, Anna already has a Big Ten championship ring. And Luke, her brother, has a Big East championship ring for tennis at Marquette University. Smrek figures maybe he’ll have to build a glass case for all of those rings.

Anna and Luke grew up in Welland, Ont., their father’s hometown. Anna was a competitive dancer from the age of 3, which may account for her nimble footwork on the court. She began playing volleyball in eighth grade. When you are her size, though, and your father played in the NBA, people are always going to ask: Why not basketball?

“I never had any interest in it,” she said on a CBC podcast this year. “And my dad was always really supportive of whatever we wanted to do. His passion, he never wanted to push that onto us. He wanted us to find ourselves and our own passion, which is really cool.”

Smrek never imagined playing in the NBA when he was growing up on the family farm, playing hockey on frozen fields. He didn’t start playing basketball until he was 17. Canisius coach Nick Macarchuk recruited him on the theory that you can teach basketball, but you can’t teach height. Smrek was a bit clumsy at first, but this farm boy was a hard worker, and he got better every year.

His Golden Griffins won 20 games in 1984-85, his senior season. He was selected as the first pick of the second round of the 1985 draft by the Portland Trailblazers. He played for five NBA teams over seven seasons. Teammates included Michael Jordan with the Chicago Bulls, and Magic Johnson and Kareem Abdul-Jabbar with the Lakers.

“The way I like to look at it now,” Smrek says with a happy laugh, “it’s no coincidence that I was there and they were good.”

HBO Max is making a drama series that begins in March called “Winning Time: The Rise of the Lakers Dynasty.” Quincy Isaiah will play Magic. Solomon Hughes will play Kareem. And who should play the backup center from Canada?

“Maybe I’ll have to cut my daughter’s hair,” Smrek says, “and she can play me.”

Smrek played overseas after his NBA career. He met his wife, Sanja, from Croatia, when he was playing for a professional team in Greece. She is 5-foot-9. They watched on Thursday night when Anna recorded her 20th kill on match point. Her father was not surprised she came up big in the big moment.

“She has been that way all along,” he says. “Her club coach used to pull her up to play with the 18-year-olds when she was 14. She has played with the junior national team in Canada and traveled to Egypt and Honduras. So she is not a stranger to playing in big games.”

Canisius lost a big game in Lincoln, Neb., in the 1985 NIT. (The game would have been in Buffalo, but Disney on Ice had the Aud.) Ray Hall, the leading scorer in program history, led Canisius with 16 points. Smrek had 14 points on six of seven shots from the field, but he only played 17 minutes because of foul trouble. Canisius closed to within 61-58 late, but fell, 79-66. The Cornhuskers took 41 free throws, and made 33.

That is the only time Smrek has been to Lincoln. This season, when Anna traveled there for the Badgers, he told her about the time he’d found disappointment there. He took a certain measure of satisfaction when Anna’s team won. Then the Badgers beat Nebraska again at home in Madison. Now they will face the Cornhuskers for a third time — with a national title in the balance.

Nebraska got the best of Mike Smrek in 1985. He’ll be courtside tonight when his daughter defends the family honor.

Revenge is a dish best served cold.