Punches don’t sneak up on Lance “Boogie” Smith the way that memories do.
Sometimes the memories are tucked inside a workout; sometimes they’re hidden in a decision that requires patience instead of emotion; and sometimes they arrive as a familiar phrase he heard so many times growing up that he stopped paying attention to it until life gave it meaning.
His father, Stephan Smith, had a way of doing that.
“I remember one time I had a conversation with my dad and I was like, ‘Man, Pops, you’re dropping a lot of gems on me. How am I gonna be able to remember all this?'” Boogie said. “[My dad] said, ‘When it’s time, it’ll come to you.'”
These days, it comes to him often.
Stephan Smith died on Sept. 1, 2022, before he could see his son, Lance “Boogie” Smith – one of the city’s most dominant up-and-coming boxers – fight professionally. He saw only about half of the more than 80 amateur bouts Boogie would eventually compile. He wasn’t there to watch him graduate from Wayne State University earlier this year in May, and he won’t be there for the world-title fights Lance believes are ahead.
But Father’s Day isn’t especially difficult for Smith because of what his father missed. It’s meaningful because of what his father left behind.
Long before Boogie became one of Detroit’s rising stars in the sport, he was a quiet kid who loved sports. He played football and basketball, and he loved competition. But as he prepared to enter Detroit Edison High School, Stephan Smith nudged Boogie toward something different.
Stephan Smith had experienced profound loss himself after the death of his own father, and he also battled serious heart issues that eventually limited what he could do physically. As Boogie’s athletic future began to take shape, Stephan Smith suggested boxing – a combat sport that would allow Boogie to push himself physically and be smart in and out of the ring.
“He was like, ‘Man, you know you’re going to high school, and you have to learn how to fight, especially around Detroit,'” Boogie said. “And then I just to build that confidence within myself.”
The confidence part mattered because Boogie had never considered himself timid, but he was reserved. Boxing offered something football and basketball never did, because there was nowhere to hide, no teammates, and no excuses. It was the ultimate combat sport that pitted man versus man.
From the beginning, he felt something special when he put on the gloves.
“Pretty much day one, I was like, this is what I’m doing,” he said. “I felt that love. I felt like I could do it.”
What started as his father’s suggestion became his own pursuit. And that’s important for Boogie. In the years since Stephan Smith’s death, plenty of people have encouraged him to keep fighting for his father. He understands the sentiment, but it no longer captures how he views their father-son relationship.
“My dad would be happy and proud of me being the best me that I can be,” Boogie said. “It wasn’t about making my dad proud. The more I tried to hold on to making my pops proud, the more I kind of felt chained to his death,” he said.
What finally brought peace was a different realization.
“Now I was just like, well, I’m just trying to do it for me,” Boogie said. “Because at the end of the day, when I become a father, I want my kid to be like, ‘My dad worked hard.’ If I fail and I try and I fail and I try and I fail and I try, the fact that I kept trying is what’s important. But if I fail and I just tuck my tail, I just couldn’t live with that.”
That doesn’t mean Stephan Smith is absent from Boogie’s journey. He’s always with him, Boogie said.
The last conversation that truly sticks with Smith happened only days before his father’s death. After a disappointing loss at the National Golden Gloves tournament to the eventual champion of the tournament, Smith was putting Boogie through a workout and Smith, like he often did, gave Boogie another one of his gems.
“I remember him saying, ‘Man, you’ve got everything you need. You just need to be more tenacious.'”
At the time, Boogie laughed it off.
“I was like, ‘What are you talking about? I’m just running sprints.'”
Looking back, he understands his father wasn’t talking about boxing. “He was talking about life. Like I said, I was never timid, but I was reserved. His words were like, that’s not who you truly are inside.”
A few days later, Stephan Smith was gone, but his last words to Boogie and his presence has never left. Boogie doesn’t hesitate to acknowledge that.
“That first fight after he died was crazy. It was in October, only a few weeks later, and when I was in the ring, I felt like he was right there in the back of my ear.”
Boogie often speaks about faith when discussing difficult moments in his life. He watched his mother and grandmother endure tragedy and continue moving forward. He saw how they leaned on their faith and their values when circumstances offered every reason to quit.
“You see them lean on their faith,” he said. “And then to see this supernatural power that the Lord was able to bring them through.”
When his father died, Boogie turned to those same foundations.
“Man, it was definitely something that the Lord had done through me,” he said. “I knew that He didn’t leave me. I knew that He didn’t forsake me.”
Boxing became many things at once – an outlet, a distraction, a source of structure during a period when life suddenly felt chaotic.
“It was an escape, a distractor, everything,” Boogie said. “The more I loved it, the more it loved me back.” Funny enough, another world-class fighter mentioned spoke on boxing the exact same way during a post-fight press conference earlier this year. It was the GWOAT Claressa Shields. Boogie was on the undercard of the February 2026 fight at Little Caesars Arena, too.
“It makes sense that that’s something she feels, too. Boxing is the kind of sport where you get out what you put into it. Like I said, there’s no teammates to rely on and nowhere to hide. It’s all you, and the harder you work, the better off you tend to be.”
For years, part of the joy of boxing for Boogie came from seeing how much the sport meant to his father. Stephan Smith had always wanted to fight himself. Watching his son succeed brought him happiness. But eventually the motivation evolved.
“My motivation to be great eventually went from making my dad happy to, man, I actually like this because of what it done for me,” Smith said.
That realization allowed him to separate grief from purpose.
“Yeah, my dad was smiling. My dad would be happy and proud of me being the best me that I can be,” Boogie said. “But at a point, it wasn’t about making my dad proud.”
What brought peace was understanding that Stephan Smith’s legacy wasn’t dependent on boxing results. It lived in character, habits, and the choices Boogie makes every day.
“’Lazy man works the hardest,’” Boogie said, quoting one of his father’s favorite motivational one-liners. “Whatever you have to do, go hard and do it right the first time. You’ll probably have to do it over four or five times if you don’t do it right the first time, and now you’ve worked harder than the man who put his all into it the first time.
The phrase still catches Boogie when he starts looking for shortcuts.
“All them sayings and stuff, they just come back to me,” he said.
Those lessons have followed him outside the ring as well. This spring, Smith graduated from Wayne State University with a degree in sports management, an accomplishment he approached with the same discipline he brings to boxing. He viewed education as another opportunity to maximize his potential and another way to avoid wasting the gifts and opportunities in front of him.
As his professional career continues, his ambitions remain high. He talks openly about winning world titles, becoming undisputed champion, and one day reaching the Hall of Fame. But even those goals are secondary to the larger mission.
“It’s about my last name,” he said. That understanding became especially clear at Stephan Smith’s funeral.
“When people spend their money or time or energy, that’s what matters the most,” Boogie said. “That tells you what they think about you.”
The people who showed up told him everything he needed to know about the life his father had lived. There was respect and admiration, evidence of a man who had impacted people.
Now Boogie wants to build something similar, not rooted in being perfect or without flaws. He wants respect and legacy.
“My goal is to be the best at what I can do as the Lord allows me to,” he said. That’s what Father’s Day has become for him. It’s a reminder of the lessons, the values, and the voice that still shows up at the right time.
“I’m making my dad happy by making his son be the best version of his son that he can be.”
