at the office of Bloomington Mayor Tomilea Allison, where he was paid $5 an hour. Smiley wrote letters to local residents, researched for Mayor Allison, and helped write position papers on local issues. In his autobiography, Smiley says that a deputy mayor caught him systematically adding extra hours to his time sheets, illegal behavior that could have seen him charged with a felony and expelled from college, but instead of pressing charges, Mayor Allison allowed him to work all of the hours for which he had already been paid, and did not tell other people what he had done. During the first semester of his junior year, Smiley was under academic probation; he blamed his extracurricular activities for interfering with his studies. When Smiley visited Los Angeles to attend a national student leaders' convention, the cousin of his roommate introduced Smiley to football star Jim Brown. Brown introduced Smiley to fellow football player George Hughley, who worked for Los Angeles mayor Tom Bradley and connected Smiley to Mayor Bradley's staff. Every week after meeting Bradley's staff, Smiley wrote a letter to the mayor's office asking for an internship, and once flew to Los Angeles to appeal. However, by summer he received a letter from the city stating that all internship positions were filled. Smiley then handwrote a letter to the mayor that he said represented his feeling "from the heart," and Bradley called Smiley to say that he had a position available for him. Although it counted for college credit, the internship was unpaid, so the Bloomington Community Progress Council funded Smiley with $5,000 for living expenses in Los Angeles, and Brown allowed Smiley to live as a houseguest in September 1985. Starting the following month, Smiley lived in the Kappa Alpha Psi fraternity house at the University of Southern California. At City Hall, Smiley worked at the Office of Youth Development on the 22nd floor. Smiley twice considered quitting college, first during his junior year, and then after finishing his internship with Mayor Bradley. Bradley persuaded Smiley to return to college. He took the LSAT twice because, he thought he "didn't do great the first time," and he "did a little better" the second time; he intended to apply to Harvard Law School. Instead, Smiley did not graduate from college at all, because he failed a required course in his senior year, and "did poorly in several other courses,"