After just a year with the Tanner Rattlers, Dalton Smithson is graduating, but he doesn’t hesitate to mention how the team welcomed him to the community in his senior year.

“They just made me feel like family as soon as I got here. The chemistry was kind of off right in the beginning, but we got rolling pretty good and, you know, we made it to the elite eight this year, so I’d say it was pretty good,” he said.

Smithson signed his letter of intent to play basketball for Tennessee Valley Prep Sports Academy after graduation. Their website says “TVPSA provides individuals with the opportunity to excel academically, athletically, and socially at the next level of collegiate sports without losing any years of college eligibility.”

“There was a point where I didn’t even think I was going to get a senior year of basketball. Then we moved down here, and I’ve just been working and hoping to get this right here. Hoping to get a day where I could sign,” Smithson said. “I’m thankful to have somewhere to go right after high school to just keep playing and doing what I love.”

He said he wants to use this time as an opportunity to get to a college. He said he’s played just about every position in basketball, and he thinks having this experience will only help him get better as he moves to the next level.

”I kind of had to change my whole game this year because I was in a whole new position being on this new team — I had a whole different role,” he said. “Over the summer before I moved here I was just working on everything, just making sure that whatever they wanted from me I could do it,” he said.

When he was a kid he didn’t have much of an interest in sports, but one day, he decided on basketball.

“It turned into the only thing I wanted to do,” Smithson said. “I was always kind of tall compared to everybody else, but I didn’t think I’d get this tall. I’m not complaining; it’s a blessing,” he said.