So it’s the morning of Dec. 28, and The Wife and I are meeting Fred and Ethel for breakfast at Nancy’s, a North High Street diner/dive and a campus-area institution for at least a couple of decades. Four seats open up at one of the counters, and we shuffle over to claim them; as we sit, Ethel and I both notice a guy sitting in one of the booths in back.

He’s a young black guy, with dreads. He’s eating breakfast with someone we guessed was his girlfriend. Ethel turns towards me: “That’s somebody … someone on the team?”

I steal another look. Oh. “I’m pretty sure that’s Antonio Smith.”

Smith is one of my favorite players from this year’s team, and easily the best story. I’ve written here before about Maurice Clarett, and to many outside Columbus, he remains the poster boy for Ohio State football. They should know about Antonio Smith as well.

Smith was an All-City League and All-District player at Beechcroft. I assume he got offers from smaller schools, but he wanted to walk on at Ohio State instead. He put in his time on scout teams, and played in just three games in his redshirt freshman season. While he was toiling as an unknown Buckeye player, he was also starting work on his major — mechanical engineering.

Smith, still a non-scholarship player, kept working, earning a letter during his second season as a special teams player. That continued to be his role until this summer’s training camp, when Jim Tressel rewarded his work with a scholarship. And a starting slot at cornerback.

He earned both honors, and lived up to those responsibilities this season, logging 66 tackles — second on team — 10 tackles for a loss and two interceptions, one returned for a touchdown against Penn State. He also earned recognition as a member of the academic All-Big Ten team.

We guessed that he is something of a regular at Nancy’s; no one was staring — except for us, a little — and no one felt they had to bug him while he and his girlfriend finished their breakfast. When he got up to leave, though, that changed. Most of the people who worked at Nancy’s wished him good luck, and an older gentleman sitting next to us at the counter stuck his hand out and said, “You have a good trip out there, now.”

Smith smiled and shook the man’s hand. “Thank you, sir. We sure will.”

By this time, the customers waiting for a table were lined up out the door, so Smith had to walk a gauntlet of sorts, and he handled it perfectly, thanking everyone for their wishes, saying he was leaving for Phoenix the next day, we’ll do our best, etc. He made it through the line and he and his girlfriend walked out onto High Street.

We may have had Maurice Clarett on our team; college football is loaded with them, and they’re the ones we hear the most about. But to know we have guy like Antonio Smith — smart, hardworking, polite at the same time as being a talented athlete — makes it easy for me — and the rest of us — to be proud to be a Buckeye.