When Eric Smoot was 15, he literally found his stride.
But when Eric Smoot was a homeless 10 year old, he did not know what the stride was supposed to do for him, though it had to be better than the life that seemed to be his dubious partner. The streets surely would swallow him up. He would be lost as thousands of other kids on the fringe are lost.
His mom was a drug addict who hid out nights with Eric in an Evanston beauty salon where she worked. She would pretend to close up shop and then sneak back with Eric to hide from the cold.
But she was caught by child protection watchdogs. Before they arrived to take Eric, mom sent him to Gary, Ind., for a “better life” with an older sister. But he soon would have to leave there, too. More drugs.
That’s where Judy Jemison found him. She and her husband already had three kids and little left over for basic necessities. But Eric was her son’s best friend at Horace Mann High in Gary, and she made the roast beef stretch enough to feed everyone. She would be his permanent lifetime godmother. They squeezed everyone tighter into the little house. At last he was home.
Deep enough love can conquer even privation.
But then …
Yes, his story always turns. This is not a tale of relentless urban perdition and a lost kid with nothing but faith in God and a bright mind. There was more.
If you know Wilmette businessman and fitness guru Eric Smoot now, even his friends will say there stands a man who knows where he’s going, a man with joy in his soul.
He was a runner who found the right path and took it, literally one, long perfect stride at a time, to a better life.
By the time he stopped running for mentor Roosevelt Pulliam at Mann High, he had won the Indiana State high school mile championship three straight years. He ran into the state’s prep athlete Hall of Fame. Purdue snapped him up with a scholarship and he ran to be an All-America. He ran a 4:01 mile once, and there aren’t many people on the entire planet who can do that. “Mr. Pulliam taught me how to be a man. What it means to act like a man,” he says.
He ran to a degree, and then to a business career.
So he ran from a life that might have trapped him. He’s not running away from anything now. He reached out for the life he wanted, and grabbed it.
Once his business partnership, Redefined Fitness, had taken hold, he figured it was time to return an act of faith. He went back to Gary 10 years ago, back to Judy Jemison, who had worked at the Ark shelter for homeless, battered women and their children.
As she often did, Jemison showed him how to share.
He would give children at the Ark and Rainbow transition shelters the Christmas they would never have without him. So he asked customers and friends in Wilmette if they’d like to help. The Christmas week haul requires a multi-vehicle caravan and helper elves of all sizes to deliver $25,000 worth of presents. He fulfills every last item on dozens of kids’ wish lists. There was cash to help moms get back on their feet.
Every year since, the caravan has hit the Santa road. “That’s about $250,000 worth of presents in 10 years,” he says. “Not bad.” Every year he expands how many shelters he adopts.
His arrival signals nearly hysterical joy for those who don’t know he is coming. There are tears, sobs of joy really. There are deep, loving hugs and children happier than anyone ever remembers them being.
“This is for mom,” he’ll say to siblings as he sneaks money to their mom. “You kids got to take care of her because you only have one mom.”
That particularly rings true now. Smoot’s mom has been free of drugs for 15 years and he dotes on her. He is a man of open, unambiguous affections.
Smoot’s devotion to paying forward makes him sheepish sometimes because he knows it is he who gets the richest payback from those trips to Gary. He is giving himself the best Christmas present of all. “People in those shelters can lose everything, including their sense of dignity,” he says. “As for me, I’ve been blessed. Everything I went though made me who I am. I would not give up any of that.”
“People who know me will know how it makes me happy, joyful really, to see people being happy. It fulfills my soul. That’s what I do with the shelters. It’s how I work every day. Just make people happy every day. There aren’t many people who get to say that.”
His skill as a high-tech cross trainer and physical therapist has launched him to the top of the North Shore fitness pyramid. He’s trained many of the New Trier High girls who won the state cross country title. But he fixes bad backs for middle-age sedentaries with equal enthusiasm.
But he’s all but given up the running that took him to a new life. “I have two great kids with my partner Jennifer Miller. Eric is 2 and Maya who is a baby. Most of my running is chasing them around. But they are why I work so hard.”
Still, when you’ve been as gifted a runner as Smoot was, yielding to age and physics is a grudge match. “Trying to run a 4:00 mile would be too hard now,” he says with a laugh. “But I sort of like the idea of turning 40 which I will this year and maybe running a sub five-minute mile.”
Yes, it appeals to him. Smoot has decided to live a large, joyful life with large, joyful goals. That’s hardly a surprise. And even Smoot admits he has barely hit his stride.
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