The military and football have always been linked to Matthew Smiley.
"My dad was in the Air Force active duty and then Air Force active reserves," Smiley said. "Retired as a Colonel. Flew jets his whole career. Not something that he pushed me into, but I was definitely aware that that was out there and that was a way to help pay for school. I was a walk-on at the University of Illinois. The football team wasn't giving me any money. One of the rules at my house growing up was you have to figure out how to pay for your own school. So I did ROTC at the University of Illinois to help pay for school and then with that scholarship had to do four years afterwards."
Smiley was an Air Force maintenance officer, beginning his post graduate duty just months before the terrorist attacks on September 11th, 2001.
He was deployed on four separate occasions, each lasting about six months long.
Inbetween those stints overseas, Smiley found time to keep football in the mix.
"As long as I wasn't deployed, the folks at Grand Forks were good about letting me help with the local college team which was the University of North Dakota was in that town," Smiley explained. "So they let me help and stay involved with football and then when it came time that my commitment was fulfilled, then it was just a matter of the decision of taking that leap of faith and separating because I think I would've liked a career in the Air Force and I liked my time that I served, but I knew I wanted to be a football coach."
That began as an assistant quarterbacks coach and specialist at Dartmouth College in 2005.
"When I first transitioned out of the Air Force and got into coaching, a lot of the coaches who had been in it a while talked to my wife Marissa and said are you going to be able to handle it?" Smiley remembers. "Coaching hours are so long and coaching is a tough business. My wife said 'Well I figure he's going to come home every night so that's an upgrade.'"
Smiley had other college stops at Eureka College, Eastern Illinois, and Charleston Southern before cracking into the NFL ranks as a special teams assistant with the Jacksonville Jaguars from 2013-16.
He joined the Bills staff in the same capacity from 2017-2021 before being promoted to special teams coordinator this past offseason.
A long road, but one Smiley kept his military background close the entire way.
"How I interacted with people as a 2nd Lieutenant coming out of college and within a year being put in charge of a squadron and headed over to a combat situation," Smiley said. "You have to learn quick how to manage people, how to get along with people, how to lead guys. So I learned so much on the job quickly, but that's carried over how I deal day to day and how I try and lead as a football coach."
"It's not what you're communicating, but it's the willingness to have difficult conversations because when you're overseas you can't let anything slip through the cracks. So there may be something that's uncomfortable that you got to either problem solve or get on a guy about and you can't ignore those difficult conversations even if it's tough to get in to. And I think that's the biggest thing of being a good, effective communicator is being willing to just engage in a difficult conversation."
There is separation, though, between the two, which Smiley admits isn't always the case.
"Often times a correlation between football and war and sometimes those axioms are used," Smiley said. "There is a level of grit that you have to have to be a successful player, to be a successful coach. But it is not the same commitment that our men and women in the service are giving to us. Are sacrificing on our behalf so we can cheer for a football game on Sunday. That's a big deal what they choose to do so that perspective is real."
Perspective is something Smiley particularly gains at least once a week right before his special teams unit takes the field for kick-off.
"My thoughts always go back to my time in the service during the national anthem," Smiley said. "I think about the men and women that I served with, some of who I still keep in touch with today even though it's coming up on nearly 20 years out now. But that's a great time on a Sunday, on a game day, when it's hectic, it's stressful, there's a lot of things up in the air, to really take a breath and sing along with whoever it singing the anthem and remind myself of some perspective."
The Bills will honor those in the military during Sunday's game as part of the NFL's 'Salute to Service' initiative.
