<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE </div><div class='quotemain'>Miles Smith was bruised and embarrassed. The junior linebacker at Lake Forest High School had just been run over by Stevenson's Dan Dowd -- in fact, he was dragged for five yards before being dumped in Dowd's wake -- and he was wondering what his father, who was sitting calmly in the bleachers, might be thinking.''Every step Miles takes I see -- every good play, every bad play, what he should have done,'' Bears coach Lovie Smith said. ''I remind him that Brian Urlacher misses tackles, too.''After the Stevenson game [Lake Forest lost 30-16 Saturday], I told him: 'You have to finish the job.' With [the Bears], we talk about playing hard and being physical and finishing the game. You have to do all three each week. If you don't, there is a chance you will lose.''Miles, a 6-foot, 205-pounder who is touted among the leading non-senior prospects in the Chicago area, doesn't have to be reminded. He saw the film as Dowd broke a 47-yarder to set up Stevenson's first touchdown.''I definitely won't put that on my highlight film,'' he said. ''I replayed it in my mind, what I did wrong. I hit the guy good. It was a good hit. But I didn't square up on him. He is a good player, and I underestimated him. I was disappointed in myself. I don't miss very many tackles. My coach said: 'Miles, you need to wrap him up.' I didn't.''It is part of the maturing process of a youngster who understands the pressure and high expectations that go with being the son of a high-profile professional football coach and is anxious to establish his own identity.Miles began to realize his father's celebrity when he read newspaper articles about him and saw him on television. ''It was a strange feeling to see him on TV. 'Wow, that's my father,' I said to myself. But when I realized he was getting big was one day, when I was 12, I went on e-Bay and typed 'Lovie Smith' and a lot of stuff popped up,'' he said.So Miles knows why TV cameras record his every move on the football field and why reporters request interviews. He has been around the game long enough to know that friends and neighbors, not just the media, are critics who expect a lot from his father and from him, too.''People expect a lot out of you based on who you are,'' he said. ''I'm lucky that I'm good at football. But people always expect greatness. It seems unfair at times. The kids at school don't realize how it is to be the son of the Bears' head coach.''It is important to have my own identity. It's good for TV cameras to follow me around and for reporters to call. But when they follow me just because it's me, not because I'm Lovie Smith's son ... well, that's where I need to be, not because of my father but because of who I am.''The family hasn't been overly protective. ''He knows what it is like to be a coach's kid, to be perfect every day,'' Lovie Smith said. ''When we have lost, he has been ripped by his friends. As a little kid, we had to hold him out of class after a tough loss. He can't run from being my son, and he doesn't want to. He knows he will be judged by the type of football player he is.''Miles is encouraged to meet the media head-on, like a hard-running fullback, with no restraints. He has seen his older brothers deal with it.Mikal played at Arizona and coaches defensive backs at Trinity International. Matthew is a second-year student at Northwestern who plans a career in medicine.''I'm fine with it, and Dad was all for it,'' Miles said. ''It seems about the right time. Last year, it would have been too soon, too young. But I'm confident enough in myself that this isn't one of those things that I'm known because of my Dad but also because I'm a good football player.''How good?''This is a biased opinion,'' said Lovie Smith, who attends every game.''Miles is the best athlete in the family. I think he can play and go from there. They [Lake Forest coaches] have done a great job with him. He is a big kid with good speed and good agility and decent hips. He's been around the game. He knows what it takes on and off the field.''Miles is described as ''a skilled position player, extremely disciplined, very instinctive, athletic and well-mannered'' by Lake Forest coach Chuck Spagnoli, who admits Smith is playing out of position and is projected to play running back and free safety as a senior.''Miles is good enough that he will get all the attention he needs down the road,'' Spagnoli said. ''But we treat him no differently than any other player. At Lake Forest, so many kids are sons of athletes. We're cautious not to put the spotlight on them. In school, they are just another student.''Spagnoli recalls the first time he saw Smith on the field. He knew his bloodline. But did he have any talent? Would the youngster play up to expectations, like the sons of Archie Manning or Michael Jordan? Or, heaven forbid, would he be a benchwarmer?''It's easy to have expectations of someone because of their parents,'' Spagnoli said. ''I said: 'He's Lovie's son. But maybe he can't play at all.' But he was a pleasure from the time we got him on the field. From his first day of practice as a sophomore, you could see that he was mature enough physically and mentally to stand in there with older players.''Miles played freshman football in St. Louis, when his father was defensive coordinator for the Rams. When the family moved to Chicago in January 2004, Miles spent a semester at Loyola, then transferred to Lake Forest because he didn't like the long commute to Wilmette.He and junior wide receiver Kevin Finney have emerged as the best prospects on a 4-2 team that could qualify for the state playoffs for the first time since 2001 and post the first winning season since 1998.While his father dreams of Super Bowl rings, Miles dreams of a scholarship to play football in the Big Ten. If the choice is his to make, he said he will be playing safety at Iowa in two years.In the meantime, he must pass muster in the Smith household. C's are not tolerated on his report card. If he gets a C, his computer is shut off. When he was a freshman, to get their point across, his parents threatened to prohibit him from playing football.On the field, his parents -- mother MaryAnne is vocal while Lovie is a silent observer -- and his brothers count loafs in every game, plays that Miles takes off. He usually has fewer than seven. If the number reaches 10 or more, he gets a lecture.''You told me you want to be a Division I athlete, but you definitely aren't playing like it,'' his father will tell him.''I know when I screwed up, when my parents and brothers are upset with me. I look up there [in the stands] and they give me that look, like after that long run on Saturday. My dad squints his eyebrows together. It's a scary look. He moves his finger in a circle very fast. It means I have been loafing and have to hustle more.''That's the best advice my father has given me -- to hustle on every play,'' Miles said as he prepared for Saturday's homecoming game with Lake Zurich. ''You can be an average football player, he told me, but if you hustle, you can make plays. That's what separates the great players from the good ones.''</div>http://www.suntimes.com/sports/football/be...iekid06.article
