Lessons learned as a child in small town still serving Bears' coach Smith

BIG SANDY, Texas -- Damontray Darty is bouncing on a trampoline outside his trailer, parked amid the run-down houses in this one-stoplight town.\nThe 9-year-old is wearing a blue football jersey, clutching a big white teddy bear, and even bigger dreams.\n"I want to play football," he said, "then be a coach in the NFL."\nWhy not? A guy who grew up 100 yards away did exactly that.\nLovie Smith is living proof that a little boy's dream can come true in small-town America.\n"Everyone talks about him, looks up to him, wants to be like him," said 17-year-old Vanity Darty, Damontray's sister. "If he can do it, I can, too."\nNext Sunday, Smith will be calling the shots for the Chicago Bears in the Super Bowl, across the field at Dolphin Stadium in Miami from Tony Dungy, who will be doing the same for the Indianapolis Colts. Together they will make history as the first black head coaches on the sidelines of the NFL's title game.\nLest anyone think the folks in his hometown regard him differently now, perhaps as someone unapproachable, forget it.\n"Around here, he's just Lovie," former high school classmate Marie Rogers Dotson said.\n"About the only thing that's changed in Lovie is his Afro," said Big Sandy Elementary School teacher Lynda Childress, who befriended the now-close-cropped Smith during his year working there.\nFor a while last week, only one sign along the highway noted the local hero but by the weekend, things picked up. Messages like "Lovie -- You Rock!" and "Next Superbowl Champs, the Bears" were painted on the windows at city hall. Then Mayor Sonny Parsons climbed into the basket of a cherry picker and personally changed the letters on the official marquee to "Big Sandy Loves Lovie Smith Go Bears."\nAbout 20 of Smith's relatives are planning to travel to Miami for the Super Bowl. His four siblings will meet at mom's house in Tyler, Texas, then caravan over Friday morning. Mae doesn't fly, so they always drive to games.\nThe last one she went to was against the Dolphins in early November; Chicago lost for the first time all season. Before that, she attended the playoff game the Bears lost last year.\nSee a pattern? She did, so she asked her son, "Are you sure you want us to be at the Super Bowl?"\n"He said, 'Yeah, Momma, there wasn't nothing to that,'" she said. "He's not superstitious."\nThe folks in Big Sandy are having a pep rally downtown on Super Bowl Sunday. \nA game-watching party will follow at Church of God, which has a big projector screen and room for up to 1,000 people. \nWin or lose, some key figures already are thinking about ways to harness the momentum.\nParsons, the mayor, hopes to build a youth center, something the town has never had.\nChildress, the elementary school teacher, wants to put Smith's picture on a sign, with "plenty of room for his future accomplishments -- because there will be more."\nAnd Susan Hubbard, the pep rally organizer and a chamber of commerce member, is aiming for a permanent reminder on the city-limits sign, proclaiming this the hometown of Super Bowl coach Lovie Smith.\n"Hopefully," she said, "Super Bowl CHAMPION coach"