Khai Smith is a senior who has played on the Varsity Basketball team for four years and won a state championship. He recently scored his thousandth career point and has committed to play college basketball at Clark University in Worcester. 

Register Forum: What made you choose Clark University to play college basketball?

Khai Smith: It’s not even just the basketball. When Clark reached out to me, they were talking about the education and what I’m really good at, which is marketing. They were talking to me about the marketing classes and that caught my attention and they were explaining everything pretty well. For the basketball team, they were telling me that they were just missing one piece. I’ve seen a couple of games and they were missing that one piece—which is the big man—and I feel like I can fit in perfectly. 

RF: What makes Cambridge basketball special to you?

KS: Cambridge basketball means a lot to me. It’s just all the players that played through the Cambridge system: Patrick Ewing, Rumeal Robinson, and Louis Ford. I look up to that, especially Patrick Ewing—it makes me want to go harder every day, knowing that those Cambridge basketball players played in the City of Cambridge.

RF: What did it take for you to reach 1,000 points?

KS: To be honest, when I was a freshman, I didn’t even think I was going to reach a thousand points. When sophomore year started and how I was scoring, especially with all layups, I was like, “I can really do this, I can get to a thousand points.” And this year, senior year, I did it, I got to a thousand points, and it felt good. 

RF: Are there any particular moments, playing Cambridge basketball, that you will always remember?

KS:  Probably my freshman year, when I went to Springfield with the championship team. I really felt like that was a moment, a really good moment in my life. I thought it was amazing, and every year I say I want to do that again, but we have to keep trying every day, grinding every day to get to that moment again.

RF: What is the end of this season going to look like?

KS: We’re definitely going to get up there, trust me. 

This piece also appears in our February 2020 print edition.