“But then I thought, I guess I have to take this seriously,” he said.

He’s happy the speculation has mostly stayed online. Smoot isn’t on Facebook or Twitter, which has made him harder to track down.

He couldn’t recall the color of the pants, but Smoot is sure he wouldn’t have been able to squeeze into their 28- or 29-inch waist seven years removed from high school. His mother bought them, he said, “at Sears most likely — we ordered most of our clothes through the Sears Roebuck catalogue.”

Smoot and Northam grew up on Virginia’s Eastern Shore. The small town of Onancock is in Accomack County, which integrated its schools when the two were in the sixth grade, Smoot said. Yearbook photos of their graduating class, of which Northam was voted “most dignified,” show that it was nearly half black.

They’re featured together in a “Hi-Y” club photo in their senior yearbook. Hi-Y is a YMCA club. Northam is listed as the president; Smoot was the secretary.

Smoot said he and Northam were friends in high school but went their separate ways after graduation. Northam went to Virginia Military Institute — where a yearbook caption calling him “Coonman” has sparked controversy — then on to Eastern Virginia Medical School. Smoot attended Virginia Tech.