As long as Andrea Smith can remember, she\u2019s always wanted to be a police officer.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cThat was a dream of mine I had when I was younger,\u201d said Smith, who has been on the force for almost three years. \u201cI just always wanted to do something where I was protecting or serving or I was helping.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
She gets to protect and serve the very streets she grew up on, in Lakeland. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Officer Andrea Smith works for Lakeland Police<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cIt\u2019s neat. It\u2019s a neat, neat feeling I get being home,\u201d said Smith, who regularly sees family while driving the streets of Lakeland. \u201cWorking where you grew up, it just comes full circle for me because what better way to serve than where you\u2019re from.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<\/video><\/figure>\n\n\n\nOne of the things Andrea loves to do is interact with the young people of Lakeland.<\/p>\n\n\n\nOn a recent call she was talking to a group of teens playing basketball. One of the kids challenged her to a game of 1-on-1. And that is when a different side of Officer Smith came out. The video went viral. <\/p>\n\n\n\nThe boys, and social media, found out Smith is one of the best basketball players Lakeland has produced. Smith got her start on the basketball court at the Lakeland Police Athletic League.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\u201cWe were seven or eight, my dad kind of put us in the PAL program just so we could be active,\u201d said Smith.<\/p>\n\n\n\nIt didn\u2019t take long to see that Andrea was a natural.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\u201cAs I got to high school I realized that I had some type of talent,\u201d said Smith. \u201cSomething that was good enough to play.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\nAndrea played at Lake Gibson. To this day she still holds a program record 43 points in a single game. After high school, she and her twin sister Andrell played at Gulf Coast Community College in Panama City.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\u201cBasketball was the way to get us in school and we just succeeded from there,\u201d said Smith.<\/p>\n\n\n\nThe twins led Gulf Coast to a national championship. Andrea was named Junior College Player of the Year; she and her sister were recruited to play their final two seasons at USF by Jose Fernandez.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\u201cSome guys just have that \u2018it\u2019 factor and she had it,\u201d said Fernandez. \u201cThere was a reason why she was so good. She always worked on her craft.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\nIt\u2019s no surprise to Fernandez to see Andrea take that work ethic and apply it to a career like law enforcement.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\u201cIt\u2019s great to see her continue to give back and to protect and serving these communities,\u201d said Fernandez.<\/p>\n\n\n\nAndrea Smith has gotten to do everything she\u2019s wanted, without ever really having to leave home. Her goal now is to serve the Lakeland community that gave her so much. And hopefully, inspire the next group of kids to follow their dreams.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\u201cit\u2019s show them that this is where you start and where you can be,\u201d said Smith. \u201cIt shows them that we\u2019re people, we\u2019re human, and we can have these interactions with you guys.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\nAnd what better way to connect than a simple game of basketball.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"As long as Andrea Smith can remember, she\u2019s always wanted to be a police officer. \u201cThat was a dream of mine I had when I was younger,\u201d said Smith, who… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":22619,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_seopress_robots_follow":"","_seopress_robots_imageindex":"","_seopress_robots_snippet":"","_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"0","_seopress_robots_breadcrumbs":"","_seopress_robots_freeze_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_custom_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_canonical":"","_seopress_social_fb_title":"","_seopress_social_fb_desc":"","_seopress_social_fb_img":"","_seopress_social_fb_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_height":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_title":"","_seopress_social_twitter_desc":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_height":0,"_seopress_redirections_value":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled_regex":"","_seopress_redirections_logged_status":"","_seopress_redirections_param":"","_seopress_redirections_type":0,"_seopress_analysis_target_kw":"","inline_featured_image":false,"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"wpai_generated_summary":"","footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"dois","default_image_id":71799,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"_wpas_customize_per_network":false},"categories":[6],"tags":[2874],"class_list":["post-22618","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-community","tag-lakeland-officer-goes-viral"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22618","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=22618"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22618\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/22619"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=22618"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=22618"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=22618"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
One of the things Andrea loves to do is interact with the young people of Lakeland.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
On a recent call she was talking to a group of teens playing basketball. One of the kids challenged her to a game of 1-on-1. And that is when a different side of Officer Smith came out. The video went viral. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
The boys, and social media, found out Smith is one of the best basketball players Lakeland has produced. Smith got her start on the basketball court at the Lakeland Police Athletic League.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cWe were seven or eight, my dad kind of put us in the PAL program just so we could be active,\u201d said Smith.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
It didn\u2019t take long to see that Andrea was a natural.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cAs I got to high school I realized that I had some type of talent,\u201d said Smith. \u201cSomething that was good enough to play.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Andrea played at Lake Gibson. To this day she still holds a program record 43 points in a single game. After high school, she and her twin sister Andrell played at Gulf Coast Community College in Panama City.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cBasketball was the way to get us in school and we just succeeded from there,\u201d said Smith.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The twins led Gulf Coast to a national championship. Andrea was named Junior College Player of the Year; she and her sister were recruited to play their final two seasons at USF by Jose Fernandez.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cSome guys just have that \u2018it\u2019 factor and she had it,\u201d said Fernandez. \u201cThere was a reason why she was so good. She always worked on her craft.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
It\u2019s no surprise to Fernandez to see Andrea take that work ethic and apply it to a career like law enforcement.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cIt\u2019s great to see her continue to give back and to protect and serving these communities,\u201d said Fernandez.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Andrea Smith has gotten to do everything she\u2019s wanted, without ever really having to leave home. Her goal now is to serve the Lakeland community that gave her so much. And hopefully, inspire the next group of kids to follow their dreams.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cit\u2019s show them that this is where you start and where you can be,\u201d said Smith. \u201cIt shows them that we\u2019re people, we\u2019re human, and we can have these interactions with you guys.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
And what better way to connect than a simple game of basketball.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
As long as Andrea Smith can remember, she\u2019s always wanted to be a police officer. \u201cThat was a dream of mine I had when I was younger,\u201d said Smith, who… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":22619,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_seopress_robots_follow":"","_seopress_robots_imageindex":"","_seopress_robots_snippet":"","_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"0","_seopress_robots_breadcrumbs":"","_seopress_robots_freeze_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_custom_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_canonical":"","_seopress_social_fb_title":"","_seopress_social_fb_desc":"","_seopress_social_fb_img":"","_seopress_social_fb_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_height":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_title":"","_seopress_social_twitter_desc":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_height":0,"_seopress_redirections_value":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled_regex":"","_seopress_redirections_logged_status":"","_seopress_redirections_param":"","_seopress_redirections_type":0,"_seopress_analysis_target_kw":"","inline_featured_image":false,"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"wpai_generated_summary":"","footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"dois","default_image_id":71799,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"_wpas_customize_per_network":false},"categories":[6],"tags":[2874],"class_list":["post-22618","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-community","tag-lakeland-officer-goes-viral"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22618","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=22618"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22618\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/22619"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=22618"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=22618"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=22618"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/05\/safe_image.jpg?resize=500%2C261&ssl=1\")
<\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n