Tonight, though, the couple will be at the Nutter Center with a different set of vows.
They will be featured in a fund-raising meet and greet before Wright State’s game with Cleveland State. Their plan is both to make people aware of just what Huntington’s Disease is and to help raise money to fund research on the currently non-curable, congenital brain disorder that progressively erodes mental capacity and physical capability.
Joe’s grandmother died from complications of the disease in 2006.
His 56-year-old mother, Lee, is currently battling Huntington’s.
And as we sat and talked the other morning, he quietly admitted there’s a 50-50 chance he or his sister could one day inherit the disease.
“There’s not a lot of talk about Huntington’s Disease so people don’t really know about it,” he said.
He noted how some of the other “big diseases” are designated colors (e.g. pink for breast cancer) and have months dedicated to their awareness:
“Something like ALS got known this year with the ice bucket challenges. That reached so many people who probably had never heard of it before, but then went and looked it up.”
That he now has teamed with Wright State in this is only natural.
He joined the Raiders program as a walk-on from Amelia High, just east of Cincinnati. After a redshirt year to recover from labrum surgery, he pitched three seasons for the Raiders and in 2006 was chosen the Horizon Leagues Pitcher of the Year and the Most Valuable Male Athlete on the WSU campus.
He now works out at the campus during his offseason, and it was after a conversation with WSU coach Greg Lovelady — who suggested he pitch sidearm while in college and Saturday will be in the wedding party — that the idea for tonight’s 6 to 7 p.m. session for autographs and photos first took shape.
The Raiders basketball players and coaches will wear new, bright blue Nike shoes — the color Smith said signifies Huntington’s Disease — and blue, rubber bracelets will be handed out.
Wright State Athletics also will donate $1 to the Cleveland Clinic’s “Help Cure HD” Research Fund for every person attending the game.
Down the way, the school plans to help with other fund-raising promotions.
Allie did a TV commercial for Halleen Kia in the Cleveland suburb of North Olmsted and got the car dealership to donate a 2015 Kia for a fund-raising raffle that Joe said raised $150,000 for HD research.
Their goal is to raise $2 million and they are still formulating some future ideas, including something Joe called The California Experience:
“Four tickets to an Angels game, four to a Los Angeles Dodgers game, four tickets to Disneyland, VIP Tours of both teams that includes getting on the field for batting practice, as well as airfare and hotel stay.
“We’re trying to raise funds to support the study of DBS (Deep Brain Stimulation). It’s not a cure, but more of a way of extending the quality of life and we want the funding to keep going until a cure is found.”
And Allie acknowledged she and Joe are in a unique situation:
“We’re a couple who has two pretty high-profile platforms to work with and now we have something we are passionate about.”
Two-sided story
Allie was working at Fox 8 Sports in Cleveland when Joe, then a pitcher for the Indians, first laid eyes on her.
She rarely covered baseball then, but she said she did have a challenge on her Twitter account.
“I had said, ‘Can anyone beat me in basketball — one-on-one?’ and Joe tweeted at me, ‘I’m pretty sure I can.’
“Well, my station was like, ‘Oh you guys have to play for a story on TV … and we did.”
She looked at Joe and laughed: “There are two sides to the story, I guess”
He nodded: “Yeah, she got to edit her own tape.”
“We played FOX 8 instead of H-O-R-S-E and I beat him with an out-of-bounds, baseline shot,” Allie said. “I made it, he missed. Then I got the camera up in his face and said, ‘Say it. Say you lost to a girl!’ And he did.
“Then we played the best of three and he did win with a half-court shot. But when people ask who won I say, ‘Well, I did because we only aired the first FOX 8 challenge.’ ”
A while after that game, Joe asked her out on a date, but she turned him down.
“I was very anti-dating with athletes,” she said. “It’s just about perceptions in the business and my reputation as a journalist.
“It was four months ‘til he took me out on a date.”
Joe shook his head: “It wasn’t four.”
Allie: “Three months.”
Joe: “It was a couple of months.”
And what turned the tide for him?
“Her aunt,” Joe grinned. “She called Allie a b—ch.”
Allie laughed: “I kept saying, ‘This guy won’t stop trying and I was like, ‘What doesn’t he get?’ And my aunt just looked at me. She never curses, but then she said, “You know, you are a real b—ch!’
“She said, ‘He’s so nice, he follows your work, he’s polite. But you won’t even give him a chance because of his job.’ ”
“And I kept thinking, ‘Am I really that bad?’ ”
The two found they had plenty in common: Midwestern roots, the love of sports, both had been college walk-ons.
And both had ended up in the public eye.
After WSU, Joe was drafted in the third round by the New York Mets in 2006 and made his big-league debut April 1, 2007. He was traded to Cleveland in December 2008 and then became a free agent after the 2013 season and signed a three-year, $15 million deal with the Angels.
Allie, meanwhile, had become Miss Teen USA while attending Vermilion High School and during her reign was involved in several charity projects at home and around the country.
She became a magna cum laude graduate of the Ohio University’s journalism school and since joining CBS, she has been doing the SEC Football Game of the Week, NCAA college basketball among other sports, was a co-host with Doug Gottlieb on the late-night “Lead Off” talk show, as well as part of the weekly “We Need To Talk” all-female sports talk show on CBS Sports.
Recently the couple rented a place near Wright State for the offseason so Joe could work out on campus and be closer to his mom.
Getting the word out
Smith said the first signs of the disease he noticed with his mom involved involuntary muscle movements.
“There’d be little things,” he said. “She couldn’t take a coffee cup and set it gently on the table. It was more like slamming it down. Same with shutting a cabinet door. And the tipoff was the mood changes which were nothing like my mom. She’s the nicest, sweetest person you could ever meet.”
Lee had a good idea what she was facing. She had cared for her mother as she progressed in the disease. Even so, Joe said, he thinks the official diagnosis still jarred her, just as it did the rest of the family:
“Mom was there for all of it with my grandma, so she knows what comes with the disease. All of a sudden she isn’t living the typical life for a 56-year-old person who is looking toward retirement and having fun.”
The toughest thing, he said, was doctors getting his mother on the appropriate level of medication. Some of it made her so tired, he said, she was sleeping 14 or 15 hours and waking up at noon. He’d tease her: “Mom? You used to yell at me if I woke up at noon!”
Although he said his dad is still working during the day, he said his mother has friends who take her to daily activities and his sister, who lives in Denver, has two children and another on the way so she can focus on grand kids.
“And she’s really looking forward to the wedding,” Allie said. “She sent us pictures of her nails and her toes and the dress she bought.
“She’ll tell you she has whole Bucket List of things she wants to do.”
As she battles, Joe is doing what he can.
“Right now we’re doing the project with the Cleveland Clinic,” he said. “I want to raise the money and find a way to get the word out on Huntington’s Disease. I don’t know quite how I’ll do it, but I’ll just stay after it and find a way.”
And why not? That’s how it worked with Allie.
It only took four months, as she tells the story.
Two, when he tells it.
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