They last met in August at the Green Iguana in Brandon for an early dinner.

The four men had bonded as members of Bloomingdale’s basketball team — coaches Josh Chapin and

Steve Moran, players Callum Townsend and Theo Smalling.

They ordered appetizers and talked about how quickly their time at Bloomingdale had gone by. Practices that seemed liked they would never end were long over. They talked about more wins than losses, the good times, their futures.

“For some reason we were closer with them (Chapin and Moran) than a lot of other players,” said Townsend, now a freshman basketball player at the University of Tampa. “I know Theo and Chapin were very close. Chapin was like a second father. He did a lot for Theo, giving him guidance.”

Smalling was headed back to Hampton for his senior season. After graduation, he had aspirations of playing basketball overseas. When his career ended, he thought about a possible career in sports management.

Townsend will forever carry good memories of Smalling, who died Monday evening from an accidental gunshot wound sustained over the weekend.

Townsend and Smalling first played together in sixth or seventh grade, and when Townsend arrived at Bloomingdale as a freshman, Smalling, a senior, made Townsend his pet project.

“I didn’t know anyone at the school,” Townsend said. “He took me under his wing. He made me known at Bloomingdale. He did a lot for me. He was my mentor through high school.”
Townsend said Smalling was a great high school basketball player, but that “he never really hustled (until he got to Hampton)."

Smalling averaged 18 points and 10 rebounds his senior season at Bloomingdale, and finished with 1,239 career rebounds.

“Somehow in college he got the memo,” Townsend said. “He was the leading rebounder and got player of the week a number of times.”

The conversation between the four continued and inevitably turned to Hampton’s game Dec. 2 at USF. Chapin, Moran and Townsend all planned to go with other former Bloomingdale players.

It would have been one more chance to see Smalling, the guy they had grinded alongside for years, the guy almost everyone at Bloomingdale embraced.

The guy that was their former teammate and friend, now gone.

“He was real outgoing, that guy that knew everybody,” Townsend said. “…It’s really hard to take my mind off of it (his death). It’s more of a thing I can’t believe it. I don’t think it’s quite hit me yet he’s not with us anymore.”
Izzy Gould can be reached at igould@sptimes.com or (813) 421-3886.