By Miyelani Mathebula
Former Homewood High School students Charlie Herring and Hardy Smith are no strangers to soccer success. During their decorated tenures on the HHS boys soccer team, both acted as team captains and brought 6A state championship trophies home for the school: Smith in 2021 and Herring in 2024. Both players also sported number ten jerseys on the pitch while playing under head soccer coach Julian Kersh.
In 2021, Smith led his team as senior soccer captain to a scintillating 2-1 victory over McGill-Toolen for the state title. Many memories were forged on the journey to the championship, including a fresh take on the notoriously difficult “sombrero flick” that Smith performed in the semifinals. “I’ll never forget celebrating with all my best friends on that field in Huntsville,” Smith says. “There’s nothing like it.”
Herring, a freshman at the time, observed his future college teammate closely from the sidelines. “I’ve never seen anyone do anything like that in a high school game,” Herring says. “There’s no real words to describe it…I don’t know how he thought to do that, but it worked out.”
Three years later Herring—after working up to the position of soccer captain as a senior—helped bring home another state championship trophy by defeating Spanish Fort 3-1 in the spring of 2024. “I don’t think I’ve ever been more excited for a game than I was for [the championships],” he says. “It was something we’d been chasing for three years and, to be there against a team I knew we could beat? I was pumped.”
Herring and Smith now both attend Rhodes College, a Division III liberal arts school in Memphis, Tennessee, where they play on the Rhodes Lynx men’s soccer team together. Herring is pursuing a degree in business with a concentration in finance, while Smith is finishing his final year as a math major.
The move from high school to collegiate sports was not an easy transition for the former varsity players. An increased time commitment coupled with grueling practices and upper-level coursework, marks a period of change that many high school athletes are not fully prepared for. “It’s not all sunshine and rainbows as a college athlete,” Smith admits. “You don’t necessarily realize it when you’re a high schooler who wants to play at the next level. You kind of just think, ‘I’m good’ or ‘It’ll be easy’.”
Another challenge that former high school players face is going from a comfortable senior playmaking position to learning the ropes of the collegiate team experience. Figuring out the dynamics of a newer, older team while working under a different coach presents a unique test. “It took a second to get into the flow of things,” Herring says. “Everyone’s better here, everyone’s good here, so the skill level definitely increased [which] took a second to adjust to.”
Smith recalls being excited about Herring committing to Rhodes. “Our coach recruits from all over the U.S.,” Smith says. “We have kids from California, Connecticut, New York, [so] having someone from your specific high school is not something that happens very often.”
Although they never played together in high school, the “Homewood Duo” has enjoyed a stronger connection since their time playing together in college. Matt Lamb, the Lynx head soccer coach, sees their collaboration as an asset to the team. “Hardy and Charlie were both critical pieces to our success this year,” Lamb says. “As a senior, Hardy provided consistency and maturity from the start of the season, playing the best soccer of his career. Charlie worked hard and got better every week, playing an important role in some of our biggest games at the end of the year. We were lucky to have both of them at Rhodes.”
The Lynx finished the season as the Southern Athletic Association’s (SAA) regular season champions and the number one seed and host of the postseason tournament. Seven teams from across the Southeast faced off in a single elimination bracket for the opportunity to compete in the NCAA Division III championship tournament in Las Vegas.
After receiving a bye in the first round of play, the Lynx beat the Centre College Colonels in a suspenseful matchup that went into double overtime. Max Sosa, a sophomore defender for the Lynx, scored the game-winning goal—with an assist on a corner kick from Smith. “Charlie actually takes all the corners when he’s in, but he had just taken one, so he waved me over to take the next one, so he didn’t have to run across the field—we’d been playing for almost 110 minutes,” Smith says. “I just served it in, nothing special. Sosa jumped up and nodded it in. There were a lot of “Let’s Go’s” and a dogpile after that.”
On November 11, Rhodes played Oglethorpe University for the SAA trophy. After a hard-fought battle that also stretched into a second overtime, the Lynx fell to the Stormy Petrels 1-0.
Although the loss brought Smith’s collegiate soccer career to an end, he has learned to value self-discovery outside of his sport. “I’m moving on to different things,” he says. “But understanding yourself, having some idea of who you are, what you like to do, who you want to be is the most important part.”
