Smalls made quick impact at WCU

MOUNT PLEASANT — About 45 Western Carolina University football players were among the almost 1,000 mourners who said goodbye to Ja'Quayvin Smalls on Monday afternoon.

The Catamount players and head coach Dennis Wagner lined the walkway outside East Cooper Baptist Church as the casket bearing Smalls, a former standout at Wando High School who had just started his career at Western Carolina, was carried out of the church. Defensive coordinator Matt Pawlowski, who recruited Smalls to WCU, spoke movingly during the service of his year-long relationship with Smalls and his family.

Clearly, Ja'Quayvin Smalls, who died last Wednesday before ever playing a game for Western Carolina, had already made an impact on his new teammates and coaches.

"In the short time we knew him, Ja'Quayvin touched the heart of a lot of our players," Wagner said after the service for Smalls, who graduated from Wando in 2007 and had transferred to WCU from Georgia Military College this summer. "It's a great loss for our athletic program, and an even bigger loss for his family. We just wish the best for them."

Smalls, 20 years old and a junior defensive back, had just reported to Western Carolina in Cullowhee, N.C., last week for summer school and was taking part in his first workout with the team last Wednesday when he began complaining of cramps after a series of wind sprints. He stopped breathing and later died at about 7:30 p.m. at Harris Regional Hospital in Sylva, N.C.

Wagner said Catamounts players will wear a "JS" sticker on the backs of their helmets this season, and that Smalls' locker — containing the jersey No. 3 he never got to wear — has been encased as a shrine.

"Hopefully, at the end of the season we can dedicate our season to Ja'Quayvin and his family," Wagner said. "Four or five of our guys had already become very close to Ja'Quayvin, and another three or four were there and helped him off the field to the sideline that night. So there are a lot of heavy hearts right now that we are trying to overcome."

Smalls, whose family lives in the Snowden community of Mount Pleasant, will also be remembered by his former teammates and coaches at Wando and at Georgia Military. Smalls was a member of the youth usher board and the youth choir at Long Point Missionary Baptist Church.

"It was an honor and pleasure to coach Ja'Quayvin," Wando athletic director Bob Hayes, who coached Smalls in high school, told the audience. "He brought out the best in others, he brought out the best in me and in his teammates, and that's a blessing from God ... Ja'Quayvin will never be forgotten in the Wando High School football program."

GMC coach Bert Williams told mourners about a game in which Smalls had to play an unfamiliar position.

"It was a position he had not played before," Williams said. "And we asked him, 'Are you up to the challenge?' He didn't hesitate and said, 'Yes, sir, I will get it done.' And he did."

WCU assistant Pawlowski recruited Smalls to Western Carolina from Georgia Military.

"He caught my eye from the start," Pawlowski said. "I told him, 'You're my guy.'

"That passion, that fight he had, will be embraced by our team in every practice, every game. We will always remember No. 3."