Change of pace

Naval captain and former Boyd track star returns to North Texas

Published Sunday, April 27, 2008

By Chris Butler

The new commander of the Fort Worth Naval Station grew up in Wise County.

Naval Captain T.D. Smyers traveled the world and accomplished a lot in his career before assuming command of the station earlier this month, and he is eager to readjust to life as a North Texan. He's also glad he's near many of his old friends again.

The 1980 Boyd High School graduate started out "as an awkward teenage knucklehead who couldn't find his feet or legs" when he tried out for sports but discovered a gift for running while competing on the school's track team. Students at the school have since been unable to break some of his old track records.

The experience in Boyd gave him a sense of confidence he had never known, he said. That confidence propelled him toward the U.S. Naval Academy and a career tracking Soviet submarines at sea and later working in Washington, D.C.

Smyers' resume includes assignments in Brazil and Japan and along the Mediterranean Sea.

Navy officials were impressed with Smyers' credentials and offered him his choice of commands in Atlanta and New Orleans, among many other places, but he preferred the Fort Worth Naval Air Station. He accepted the command and is home again for the first time in almost 30 years.

Smyers is still learning about life as commander of a major Naval air station. Boxes clutter his large office, and there are new people to meet under his command. Despite all the new challenges and despite the fact that his family left Wise County years ago, he said he was eager to return home.

"The pace of life here is pleasant. The people are friendly and conversant and open. It's very different from the cosmopolitan Washington, D.C., area. Coming back was like getting hit with a fresh breeze from a fan," Smyers said, adding he lost his Southern accent while he was away, although people hear traces of it now that he's back.

Smyers was a sixth-grader when he and his family moved from Euless to Boyd, where he was later elected student body president and "lived for Friday night football."

"We started out in Boyd on a little homestead, hacked out of the wilderness about two miles from the city limits," Smyers said.

In high school, he tried out for football and basketball and failed. Smyers didn't think he'd make the track team either after then-Coach Homer Horton lined him up to do a 200-meter trial run against a "a bigger, stronger kid."

"People thought it was funny because I was gangly and skinny. When the gun went off, I didn't think - I don't remember much else, but I was exhausted when I got to the end.

"As I was leaning over trying to catch my breath I stood up and put my arms behind my head to catch my breath. As I turned around the guy they lined me up against was still coming down the straight-away. Homer Horton came over and put his hand over my shoulder and said 'Son, I think we've found your sport,'" Smyers said.

"It was a huge boost of confidence, and I became better at all sports because of it. That one experience, and having a coach who believed in me, taught me that I could succeed," he added.

Smyers developed an interest in the military and enlisted in the U.S. Naval Academy where his belief in himself helped him live up to that school's high expectations, he said.

Smyers recently returned to Boyd and found his old track records still on display at the high school.

He hopes he's around to see someone at Boyd High School break them very soon, he said.