Alcorn State Interviews And Broadcasts · Charles Edmond

Devon Smith

January 22, 2026·17 min·1 clip

Devon Smith reveals how a controversial loss teaches players to control what they can and react with character.

1. Devon Smith, first-year assistant coach and travel coordinator for Alcorn State men's basketball, speaks with interviewer Evans at halftime on Martin Luther King Day. 2. Smith previously served as a player development specialist at the University of Texas Arlington and at Wichita State, and has worked with multiple current NBA players; his connection to head coach Fred Morton traces back to Howard Garfinkel's five-star basketball camp. 3. The episode covers Smith's reflection on MLK Day, a controversy from a recent game, the program's culture under Morton, and Smith's philosophy for developing players toward professional careers. 4. Smith describes what Martin Luther King Day means at an HBCU as 'the concentration level of black excellence, the concentration level of the things that people like Dr. King fought for.' 5. During Alcorn's recent Alabama road trip, Coach Morton showed the team a film session incorporating the 1955 Montgomery bus boycott and the Fountain area in Montgomery where enslaved people were auctioned — connecting basketball opportunity to civil rights history. 6. Smith quotes Morton as saying the hair on his arm stood up at the chance to represent Alcorn State successfully, and frames this as the program's educational mandate: 'How can you see your future unless you know your past?' 7. A controversial game-ending sequence is addressed: Alcorn celebrated a win in the locker room before learning they lost on two late free throws, and Smith offers his measured personal view that when a referee extends both arms, the game should be over. 8. Smith redirects from the controversy to the coaching lesson: 'It's not about what happens to you but how you react to it' — and tells players to stop leaving outcomes in officials' hands. 9. Alcorn is noted as the last Division I program to play a home game this season (January 17), and Smith uses this to illustrate the team's 'any time, any place' competitive standard, citing coach David Whitney's 1979 game against Bobby Knight in Bloomington as a historical precedent. 10. Smith met Coach Morton at Howard Garfinkel's five-star basketball camp when Smith was a player at Ohio State; the camp was also attended by Rick Pitino, John Calipari, and Mike Krzyzewski as coaches or instructors. 11. Coach Morton's relationship with Smith has spanned 15 to 20 years of mutual support across both their careers; Smith frames Morton's loyalty as the primary reason he joined the staff. 12. Smith says Morton tries to connect with the current generation of players and argues that 'the kids never change — the kids want to learn and yearn for discipline; it's the adults who change.' 13. Coach Morton enforces a strict conduct standard: no slides in airports, trousers at the waist, 'yes sir/no sir' — and businessmen who encounter the team on travel days have approached Morton to compliment the players. 14. Smith argues these interactions directly create future employment: businessmen who remember specific players from airport encounters seek them out after their playing careers end, and 'I'm going to hire him.' 15. The program's individual instruction model — players coming in between classes daily for shooting and skill work — is described as the foundation of Smith's development philosophy. 16. Smith teaches financial literacy alongside basketball: he discusses ETFs, the S&P 500, and compound interest with players, then maps the same concept onto daily shot-making accumulating into March performance. 17. The 10,000-hour rule is cited as the non-negotiable framework: 'It's years in the making, time on the court — not a thing where you just walk out and hope and wish.' 18. The interview has a conversational but substantive tone, with Smith delivering practiced frameworks — the bank deposit/withdrawal metaphor, the compound interest metaphor — that suggest he gives similar talks to players regularly. 19. Coaches, athletic directors, and basketball fans interested in program-building philosophy and player development will find Smith's frameworks for teaching discipline and long-term skill accumulation most engaging. 20. Listeners seeking SWAC standings updates, game analysis, or tactical X's and O's will find the episode too philosophical to satisfy those interests.

As heard by us

A steady halftime talk that turns logistics into team culture.

The episode is a halftime check-in on the unglamorous work that keeps Alcorn State basketball moving, from travel logistics to the standards that hold the group together before Florida.

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You want the real work behind Alcorn State's road stretch.

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