They say that hard work pays off, but Connor Smith, a 2010 Wenatchee High School alum, didn’t take anyone’s word for that; he proved it to be true himself. Smith, once a member of the varsity basketball squad at WHS and now a senior at the University of Washington, has made the UW team for the 2013-14 season as a walkon, a player who makes the team who was not recruited. Along with Smith, only one other player on the roster was a walkon.

After graduation, Smith had decided against playing collegiate basketball because of back problems, but attended UW to major in public health. He played intramural basketball in college just for fun, but had never really taken it that seriously.

“In May I was talking to people about having dreams and going after them,” Smith said. “Then I told them I’d thought about trying to walkon the team, and they told me to go for it.”

After that conversation, Smith stepped up his training, spending his free time in the weight room or gym. Ironically enough, Grady Gausman, an Eastmont High School graduate and former court rival of Smith’s, was the one who really encouraged him to make it all happen. Gausman and Smith are members of the same fraternity.

“I told him about what I was planning on doing,” Smith said. “I needed someone who could rebound me and make me run. Grady stepped up to be that guy. Once you get out of high school that whole Eastmont-Wenatchee thing dissipates.”

In September, he started working out with the UW basketball team and attending open gyms. On Oct. 4, when the teams were announced, it all paid off. Smith accepted a spot on the roster, along with 14 other men.

“It’s still sinking in,” Smith said. “One of the coolest things is just getting to be around the guys and Coach [Lorenzo] Romar and the other coaches.”

But the story gets even better. Smith’s father, Alan Smith, a graduate of Cashmere High School, also played basketball at UW for four years back in the 1970s, making Smith a second-generation Husky baller.

“It’s a great accomplishment. I mean he’s there doing it because he really wants to do it,” Alan Smith said. “I mean it’s a big sacrifice. Everyone else on the team except for one other [walkon] is there on a full scholarship. So doing it as a job, really. And that’s how it was for me too. But he’s out there just because he wants to be. They’ve had three games so far and Connor hasn’t gotten to play, and he doesn’t know if he will get to play, but that’s not what it’s about for him.”