By an amazing coincidence, Charles E. Smith was one of two Charles Smiths on the 1988 US Olympic basketball team, along with Charles Daniel Smith. CE Smith played his college basketball at Georgetown University, and was named Big East player of the year in 1988-89. Smith was not chosen in the NBA draft, but did play in the NBA for the Boston Celtics (1989-91) and the Minnesota Timberwolves (1995). He played professional basketball through 2001, however, in the CBA and Europe. In all he played, at various times, for the following teams: Florida Beach Dogs, Florida Sharks, Hartford Hellcats, Iraklis, La Crosse Bobcats, Liège Basket, Media Broker Messina, Obras Sanitarias, Omaha Racers, Ourense, Rapid City Thrillers, Record Napoli, Red Star Belgrade, Rockford Lightning, Serapide Pozzuoli, and Vaqueros de Bayamón.
During and after his basketball career, Smith had several problems with the law. In 1992 he was convicted of vehicular homicide and leaving the scene of a crime, in the hit-and-run deaths of two Boston University students in March 1991. In 2010, Smith was shot twice in the chest at his home in Bowie, Maryland. Although he underwent surgery and survived, police discovered “large amounts of cocaine and evidence of a gambling operation” in a search of his home the next day.
United States