Ex-UNCW basketball player speaks out after drug arrest, reflects on ‘downward spiral’

WILMINGTON, NC (WWAY-TV) — Former UNCW women’s basketball player, Paige Smith, spoke out on Wednesday after her arrest on drug charges last month.

“You have to be like an artist to play basketball,” Smith said.

Since Smith was in the third grade, she said basketball has been engrained into her identity.

“I’m really good at basketball so I was like a creator and I’m really good at creating my own shots,” Smith said.

Despite a deep love for the sport, at 16 years old, she picked up a habit of smoking marijuana.

“I could take a 1,000 milligram edible and smoke probably two blunts and be high for three days and then still be high and be foggy, but I was so good at what I did,” Smith said.

The drug didn’t prevent her from thriving at basketball to the point where she received multiple scholarship offers including one from UNCW.

Though her Seahawk career proved successful, Wednesday was the first time the former college player had stepped onto a court in weeks.

“If I didn’t get caught three or four weeks ago, I would probably have five to ten pounds of weed on me right now,” Smith said.

Seahawk fans were stunned when the 20-year-old from Maryland was arrested in February after police said she was found with half a pound of marijuana and a gun in her vehicle at New Hanover High School.

Smith said the marijuana and the gun were not hers, but were owned by a friend of hers she had driven to the high school for the basketball game.

“Once they pull out pound bag, he was like ‘detain her’ and I was like ‘oh, there’s goes my whole life,'” Smith said.

One day before Smith’s arrest she was suspended from the university’s basketball program, but she said the reason was unrelated to her drug use. The arrest was the tip of the iceberg following a downward spiral that she attributes to stress from school, drug use and friction with a coach that Smith said put her over the edge.

Smith later pled guilty to reduced charges and was placed on a two year probation.

Now, the basketball player has left the ball on the court and while she hopes to return to the sport as a division one athlete, she picked up a pen in the meantime and began working on a new book about her life.

Smith said she is no longer a student at UNCW after breaking student conduct.