BRUNSWICK, Maine - The Bowdoin College community is mourning the loss of former student and Associate Dean Wil Smith. He was 46.
Smith achieved national recognition for the way he juggled the twin demands of being a single parent with those of a student athlete.
One word above all seems to best describe Wil Smith: inspirational. "I feel blessed to have been a small part of his life, as I think anyone that met him would feel," says Bowdoin basketball coach Tim Gilbride.
Gilbride recalls how Smith, a two-time team captain, would often bring his infant daughter to practice.
Olivia was just a year a old when Smith - a Navy veteran - enrolled at Bowdoin in 1996 at age 27. He raised her more or less single-handedly, sometimes having to go without food himself in order to feed her.
Smith and his daughter were featured on NPR's Story Corps in 2012 - just after he was diagnosed with colon cancer. Executives at Sony Pictures are reportedly planning a movie inspired by Smith's life.
Wil Smith died on Sunday at a hospital in Philadelphia.
Learn more about Wil Smith in this Yankee Magazine profile published in December of 2000.