Bingo Smith’s ‘saving grace’: Meet the Akron couple who connected with late Cavs legend

Bobby “Bingo” Smith and George McClain sat in the cab of a new Ford F-150, its passenger window rolled down so Cavaliers fans could touch one of their most adored legends.

There had been countless rides together since the two met on a basketball court 45 years earlier. But none like the glorious 2016 championship parade.

“There were no barricades, people were sticking their hands into the truck right off the street,” McClain said. “Bingo was shaking their hands. They were 10 to 12 deep.”

Their day had begun at 5 a.m. when McClain, his wife, Sandra, and a driver had picked up the wheelchair-bound Smith. They needed help to push and lift him through the crowd of at least a million people in downtown Cleveland to get in place for the start of the celebration.

Photos on the digital frame in the McClains’ Akron living room give visitors a sense of where that experience ranks in the ultimate buddy story of McClain and Smith, who passed away on Oct. 26 at age 77.

“There’s no doubt. Evidence is everywhere,” Smith’s former Cavs teammate Campy Russell, now the team’s director of alumni relations, said of the pair’s tight bond. “It’s a story of great determination.

“Not just on Bingo’s part, but the determination that George and his wife and our organization put forth. It was a great determination effort by all.”

That was most evident as Smith’s health failed. He suffered strokes in 2001, 2009 and 2017 and required a caregiver. As he battled a litany of health issues, the McClains took Smith to Cavs events and doctor's appointments, kept track of his schedule, and got him dressed and into the car.

When McClain suffered a stroke in 2010 and lost peripheral vision, he called on men from Second Baptist Church in Akron — first Bill McCloude, then Alan Thomas — to drive them.

The McClains became Smith’s medical and financial powers of attorney while Smith’s son, Andre Smith, served a 10-year prison sentence for voluntary manslaughter and tampering with evidence.

Sandra McClain, retired after 36½ years as an educator, paid Bingo’s bills online and took detailed notes for Andre on his dad’s condition. When Andre was released in 2014, they became a team.

“Bingo had, you hear nine lives, he had 40,” Andre said. “George and Sandy [McClain] kept him alive another 10 or 12 years because they got him out. They arranged for everything. Huge.”

Russell stayed in touch and offered the assistance of the Cavs organization, which still invites McClain to its Legends Lounge.

“There’s no question that their relationship helped keep Bingo here longer,” Russell said by phone. “Not too many people have friends like that, [who] would be available to him in any situation. That’s what I witnessed with Sandy and George. There was never any hesitation in what they were willing to do for Bingo. There came a time when he was not able to attend any events, but they were still there for him.

“When I look back at this, George was definitely a part of Bingo’s saving grace.”

Bonding over basketball

As Bingo Smith chose to live primarily in Akron, he became part of the McClain family. They took him with them on holidays, to picnics at their kids’ homes. Sandra McClain said their youngest granddaughter became fascinated by Smith’s size 15 feet, once putting her foot in his shoe.

“They loved being around him,” Sandra said of their grandchildren.

From day one of Smith’s and George McClain’s friendship, McClain felt the same.

A product of John Hay High School in Cleveland, George, 78, was playing for the University of Akron in the summer of 1971 when he began scrimmaging against the Cavs in area college gyms. The Cavs franchise was a year old, and George got to know its cornerstones like Austin Carr. But he was drawn to 1970 expansion draft pick Smith.

“We both were in our 20s. We just meshed. We’ve been together ever since,” George said. “Over the years, it was almost like he was my brother.”

Sandra, 74, understands why the two clicked immediately.

“They’re a lot alike. They act alike. They think alike,” she said.

During a nearly two-hour interview, they rarely spoke of Smith in the past tense.

After George's time at UA, which included a Division II runner-up season in 1972, he played semi-pro ball for Revco Drug and Novak Insurance and still scrimmaged against the Cavs.

Smith, a key member of the 1975-76 “Miracle of Richfield” team, stayed in the NBA through the 1979-80 season, playing 865 games, 720 for Cleveland over 10 seasons. His No. 7 jersey was retired before he finished his career with the San Diego Clippers.

George wasn’t through with basketball, turning to the NBA Legends circuit that traveled to Dayton, Columbus and all over the East Coast. He spent nine years on the Cleveland team and one with the Akron Old-Timers, which included Smith.

George’s career path also included a stint in the U.S. Army, selling insurance and jobs with the Urban League of Greater Cleveland and the Neighborhood Centers Association.

His oldest son, Kevin Edwards, played 12 years in the NBA, primarily with the Miami Heat and New Jersey Nets.

Smith's connection with people

After Bingo Smith’s health forced him to surrender his driving privileges, George McClain spent about four years taking Smith to Cavs public appearances and autograph signings. The McClains saw the magical way Smith related to people.

“One thing about my father, no matter how big his name was or what he did, he was just a normal person,” said Andre Smith, 48, who played basketball at Hudson and Firestone high schools and Xavier University. He now lives in Akron, working as a home health care aide and for the Akron-Urban Minority Alcoholism Drug Abuse Outreach Program.

“Some of these guys leave that behind when they get to a certain level," Andre continued. "He always had a lot of friends. He didn’t think he was better than anyone. He would go to Cavs, Indians, Browns games, he’d come to all my games. He volunteered for the teams I played for; he’d show up at practices. He worked for boys’ homes.”

McClain’s UA teammate Karl Schwarzinger played chauffeur a few times and was similarly struck by Smith’s personality.

“We’re driving up to Cleveland and he’s sitting in the front seat and we’re talking. You think, ‘I’ve known this guy for 20 years,' and I’ve met him four or five times,” Schwarzinger said. “He asks you questions about yourself. I had a 2006 Lexus. When we almost got there, he goes, ‘Are you going to sell this car? I want to buy it from you.’ I said, ‘But you can’t drive.’ He said, ‘But I still want it.’”

Rebuffed, McClain said Bingo Smith got a BMW.

Andre remembered a time growing up when kids would ask Bingo to come out and play. After his father passed, Andre said he received about 10 letters, some relaying stories from their childhood.

He recalled one from a man who lives in New Jersey, who said, “It was raining cats and dogs one day. I was 12 years old. Big silver Mercedes pulled over and Bingo said, ‘Do you need a ride?’"

"He would take him home and meet his parents when he let him out,” Andre said.

More than just basketball

Kids and adults marveled at Bingo Smith’s athletic prowess. He was drafted as a pitcher by the Pittsburgh Pirates out of Melrose High School in Memphis, Tennessee, where he was also a third-team All-American in football who drew scholarship offers.

“I was playing softball every Saturday and Sunday, and Bingo came down one time and played first base,” George McClain said. “He couldn’t hit it, but he sure could pick it up.”

Andre Smith said football was Bingo’s best sport, but the wide receiver broke his arm his senior year in high school.

“When he went to Tulsa, he went to two days of football and got hit and said, ‘Nope,’” Andre said. “Right before he had the first stroke, he was a zero handicap [golfer].”

McClain learned to play from Bingo and said Bingo trounced his Cavs teammates on the golf course − even Carr, who at 75 is still devoted to the sport. Bingo and McClain once teamed with two others to win a Kiwanis Club tournament in Lorain. They split the $1,000 prize, and Bingo gave Sandra McClain the set of golf clubs.

Bingo loved to bet while golfing, at least $5 at a time.

“He would come back and have me clean his golf balls, and there would be 40 $5 bills in his golf bag,” Andre said.

Reconnecting later in life

When Bingo Smith moved from Akron to Cleveland for a time, he and George McClain lost touch. McClain was attending a UA basketball game in the Mid-American Conference tournament when he learned from Russell that Smith was back in Akron.

“I said, ‘What do you mean back in Akron? I’m surprised he didn’t call me,’” McClain said. “He’d been back about a year or two, he was living with [his daughter] Monique. At that time, somebody told me they saw Bingo at a nursing home. He was in a wheelchair. I said, ‘Wheelchair? Nah.’ I had to look him up.”

The McClains were there for Smith the rest of the way. As Smith deteriorated physically, the McClains thought they were ready to let him go, but that was not the case.

“George, I could see the pain in his face,” Sandra McClain said. “It hurt him deeply and he was trying his best to be strong. And we were trying to be strong for Andre, too.”

The morning Smith died, Andre Smith couldn’t believe it when a 1978 light blue BMW 530 just like his father’s passed him while he was smoking a cigarette in the hospital parking lot.

Former Cavs stars Carr, Russell and Jim Cleamons, along with former Browns Ben Davis and Greg Pruitt, Bingo’s golfing buddy, attended the celebration of life service at Wilkinson Funeral Home, owned by the McClains’ daughter Brandee and husband DaMarcus Wilkinson.

George absorbed another heartbreaking blow when Alan Thomas, the church usher who drove Bingo for years, passed away three days after Bingo due to complications after a knee replacement. George and Thomas had talked that Thursday, the day Bingo died, laughing over their lengthy list of medications.

The funerals were held the same day, Nov. 4.

“It crushed me when they called me that Sunday: ‘You know Al died?’” George said. “I was getting ready to eat dinner. I had to go the room and lay down.”

When it was suggested that George had been rocked by both deaths, Sandra nodded.

The McClains now look fondly at the photos in the living room frame, including one with the late Browns legend Jim Brown at the parade. Downstairs, Sandra has the prized Kiwanis golf clubs. George opens the cover on an ottoman and reveals a stash of Cavs promotional gear from Bingo’s appearances and games they attended together.

“Do we miss him? Yeah. I can close my eyes and hear [him say], ‘Hey, hey, baby,’” Sandra said. “Sometimes you talk about things that made you laugh because he was hard-headed, like his friend.”

In the spring, Andre plans to scatter some of Bingo’s ashes at the site of the Richfield Coliseum, where his father’s rainbow jumper wowed Cavs fans. Andre said the now-demolished arena meant more to him than to his dad. He has gone back there before, saying it’s “weird” to him that the turn-in is still there.

“It’s like you can almost still see the silhouette,” he said.

What Bingo went through in his final days has not eased the grief or filled the void for his determined team — the McClain and Smith families.

“Like I said, the 40 different lives he had, you think you can prepare that this is going to happen. It didn’t turn out to be that way,” Andre said. “I found myself a couple weeks ago, during this ‘I’m wacko for Flacco,’ grabbing the phone to call him, like, ‘Are you watching this?’ He’d been gone two months.”

This article originally appeared on Akron Beacon Journal: Cavs great Bingo Smith leaned on this Akron couple in his final days