Now Randy Is A Dandy

With his easygoing manner, accentuated by a breathy, soft, singsong voice, Randy Smith is the most fun of all the Braves. His byplay with teammate Bob McAdoo keeps the team loose and laughing. His penchant for dashing from hotel lobbies with an open suitcase, looking like a runaway clothesline, early earned him the nickname "Two-Till" as in "two minutes till we leave and Randy's just getting ready." Two seasons ago he contributed more than $600 in fines to the fund that pays for an end-of-the-season team party. At the $1,200 spread, Smith stood up and announced, "Half of this comes from my pocket. Now stand back while I gorge myself."

Now 26, Smith is becoming somewhat better organized, as befits a man with a two-year $200,000 contract. The only time he's been late this season was when he couldn't start the 1964 sand-and-green Rolls-Royce he bought in September. He also owns a '66 Corvette , which he drives in the winter because he doesn't want to subject the Rolls to Buffalo's snows. The chief signs of opulence in his modest two-bedroom townhouse apartment are a large color TV surrounded by $2,500 worth of stereo equipment, including a pair of refrigerator-sized speakers ("They could blow down the house") and 300 albums.

Smith is thinking of buying a home for his mother Jewel, who lives with four teen-aged daughters and a 3-month-old grandson in a small weathered house in a deteriorating subdivision of Medford , L.I. They exist on the $540 a month they receive from welfare. Smith talks about the situation uneasily. He says he helps them out whenever he feels he can. "I may be making my $100,000," he says, "but that isn't really enough to support all those dependents."

"I don't ask him for anything, and when he offers I accept," says Mrs. Smith , who proudly displays a shelf full of scrapbooks and a wall full of pictures of her son. She is also proud of the 1975 Mercury he provided so she can drive to New York whenever the Braves come to town.

In January, the Tampa Bay Rowdies of the North American Soccer League asked Smith to play with them during the off-season. His immediate reaction was to say yes ("Soccer was my first love"), but the Braves, with veto power, said no, the risks being too great for a man who could become one of basketball's alltime-best guards. Ramsay agrees that the potential is there. "Certain players never made the wrong play," he says. " Jerry West and Oscar Robertson were two of them. I don't know if Randy will reach that level, but it's possible. As far as pure physical ability, I haven't seen anyone in the league to match him."

"I've always been the best in everything," says Smith . "Small high school, small college, no publicity. Then nobody thought I could make pro ball. People have always come to me and said, 'Randy, I didn't think you could do it.' I always say, 'Well, I thought I could.'" And it will be no great surprise if he winds up driving a 1975 Rolls-Royce .