Daniel Karell

Louisville Courier Journal

Louisville City FC right back Kyle Smith spends some days relaxing his sore muscles after a hard day of practice.

But on other days, Smith heads to his second job.

In addition to having started and played the full 90 minutes in every match for Louisville City this season, Smith works an average of 15 hours a week working as an accountant for Neace Ventures' properties, the company run by Louisville City owner John Neace.

During a conversation between Neace and Smith in April at Louisville City's outing at Keeneland, Neace offered Smith the opportunity to work for him part time, and Smith quickly accepted.

"(Neace) just told me to reach out to him if I wanted to start doing some side work or maybe if I wanted to work in the offseason, which I plan on doing," said Smith, who was recently voted by USL fans as the midseason USL Defender of the Year. "I’m just helping out as much as I can, they’ve been great to me. Obviously, they know what I’m doing here and they know I can’t work much during the season but I try to get in a few days a week."

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Smith is no stranger to accounting. The 25-year-old converted midfielder graduated from Transylvania University in 2014 with a degree in accounting and worked for a year and a half for the University of Cincinnati's College of Medicine as an accountant before taking part in Louisville City's open tryouts in December 2015.

After getting a callback from the open tryouts, Smith said the University of Cincinnati let him take two weeks of vacation in February as Smith joined the club for preseason training, which led to the Cincinnati-native earning a contract offer from the team.

But even though he became a full-time soccer player, Smith paid back UC's loyalty this past offseason, returning to the university's college of medicine and working 40 hours a week.

“I want to keep building my resume in accounting," Smith said. "I know eventually I want to do something in sports and accounting because I got my degree and I paid for it, so I want to continue developing."

No other Louisville City players are currently working a second job outside of soccer, media relations director Jonathan Lintner said, but working other jobs part-time is something that Louisville City's ownership is receptive to.

"As long as they’re qualified at what they’d like to do and have the ability to work in the U.S., then, yeah," Neace said. "I want to help these young men any way I can. I just think they’re awesome people, I love their work ethic and dedication to soccer, and it’s a two-way street."

On top of his accounting work, Smith is getting ready to take on another challenge: the Certified Professional Accountant exam. The test, which consists of four four-hour long sections, is one of the most daunting tests in the professional world of licenses and certificates.

According to Accounting Coach, nearly 50 percent of the CPA candidates will fail any given section. Candidates in most states must complete the exam within 18 months.

Studying for it can be an arduous task, as Smith is finding out.

“I’ve talked to people and they said if you study for 40 hours a week you can pass each part in about a month or two," Smith said. "But I’m not studying 40 hours a week. My goal is to pass it in a year and a half."

But if Smith is going to make a second career as an accountant, being a CPA has its benefits, namely in salary and better positions in accounting firms and other companies.

“I just started studying, I see how much work it is and I don’t know how it’s going to go," Smith said. "Hopefully I have enough time for it in the offseason with everything I’m doing to really buckle down and pass a couple of parts.

"It’s a lot of work but I’m going to see what I can do with it and see if it’s what I want and if I decide that that’s going to be my goal to pass the CPA, hopefully, I accomplish it."

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