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Average guy? Yeah, right

Emmitt Smith would have you believe he's just like you.

By DARRELL FRY, Times Staff Writer
© St. Petersburg Times
published October 25, 2002

If he could have it his way, folks would not care about having his autograph or posing for a picture with him. He would be your average Joe; the nondescript guy in the checkout line behind you at the supermarket; the guy in the car waiting impatiently next to you at the red light.

For years, since becoming one of the NFL's best running backs, he has insisted he is just an ordinary guy, no different really than you -- except for those things he does on the football field for the Dallas Cowboys. "I'm just a man who happens to play pro football," he once said in a book.

Emmitt Smith, just a regular guy? Who is he kidding?

It is perhaps the only thing Smith has failed at miserably in 13 seasons in the league. He has long been an enormous NFL figure. And now, with 16,634 career rushing yards, he's on the verge of reaching football immortality, just 93 yards shy of becoming the game's all-time leading rusher, surpassing late Bears legend Walter Payton (16,726).

There is great anticipation Smith will do it Sunday in front of the home fans at Texas Stadium. With 447 yards on 107 carries this season, he is averaging only about 64 yards, but the Cowboys opponent Sunday, Seattle, is allowing a league-worst 189.5.

"In the ideal situation, in the ideal world, you want everything to happen in front of your home crowd and fans so they can all enjoy the exciting moment ... just like I can," Smith told reporters in Dallas on Wednesday.

Whenever Smith does it (Nov. 3 the Cowboys play at Detroit), he likely will handle it with graciousness and humility found in few celebrities of his stature. As he has inched closer to the record the past couple of seasons, he has only reluctantly talked about it, always careful to appear respectful of a man he has long revered and knew personally.

"It couldn't happen to a better guy, a guy who has all the qualities Walter represents," former running back Marcus Allen said. "It's a difficult thing to do. ... I think a lot of people who haven't been there really don't understand what's required -- the intestinal fortitude, the determination, all those things, and you get beat up day in and day out.

"To continue to persevere through that and ... to have a dream as a teenage kid and then to realize that is an emotional thing for him. It's a dream coming true."

It is ironic in some ways that Smith, of all people, is about to ascend to the league's highest perch. There were, after all, quite a few analysts who never thought Smith, listed at 5 feet 9 and 212 pounds, would make it to this level, let alone transcend it. Figuring he was too slow, too small or too something, 16 teams, including the Bucs, passed on him in the draft before the Cowboys plucked him in the first round in 1990.

"Our mistake," said former Bucs player personnel director Jerry Angelo, now with the Bears, "was we based the decision too much on the numbers and not enough on the performance."

If Smith has done anything since he first learned to play the game as a 7-year-old, it's perform -- something that can't be said for those 16 draft picks taken ahead of him. None is still in the league.

Because of youth league regulations that distinguished players by weight instead of age, Smith grew up playing year after year against children two or three years his senior. He made them all look silly, darting and dodging them play after play, game after game, frustrating opposing coaches who always demanded to see his birth certificate.

"We knew to bring it," said Delores Morris, who was dean of students at Escambia, where Smith's age also was questioned.

At Escambia, Smith hit the 100-yard mark in 45 of his 49 games, finishing with the nation's third-best prep career rushing total (8,804 yards) at the time. He surpassed 100 yards in 25 of his 34 games at Florida, where he played three seasons before turning pro. (He later returned to get his degree.) Still, he set school records for career yards (3,928) and touchdowns (38).

With the Cowboys, his only pro team, Smith has established countless team and league records, including consecutive 1,000-yard seasons (11) and career rushing touchdowns (149). Joining a Dallas squad that went 1-15 the season before he arrived, Smith has won four league rushing crowns, three Super Bowls, and MVP awards for the league and the Super Bowl.

Smith's status mushroomed with each Super Bowl appearance, but those close to the game point to the Cowboys-Giants game in 1994 as Smith's defining moment. Smith ran for 168 yards on 32 carries and caught 10 passes for 61 yards.

With a separated shoulder.

He hurt it in the second quarter but refused to come out of the game. From then he touched the ball 17 times in leading Dallas to a 16-13 overtime win, ignoring the cracking sounds he heard on almost every tackle. The injury landed him in the hospital overnight after the game and led to offseason surgery.

"There's only been one time I've ever gone into a locker room after a game to see and congratulate a player after a game," long-time commentator John Madden told the Washington Post. "That was the game, and that was the player."

Like Tiger Woods and Michael Jordan and all the other great ones, Smith has an extraordinary thirst to be the best -- at football and everything else he does. Even a game of dominoes.

"If he wins, wins, wins and then you win one, he's not getting up (from the table)," said his sister, Marsha Hill, who lives in Orlando. "He's going to play until he wins again."

On the field, he has phenomenal vision and instincts. He has tremendous balance helped by lower body strength, giving him the ability to break tackles and change direction without losing speed.

Those traits have grown out of his insatiable commitment to taking care of his body. His 5 a.m. workouts are well-known around Dallas, a routine that has no doubt contributed to his longevity despite averaging an exhausting 316.5 carries per season.

Even at this stage of his career, he refuses to throttle back on the accelerator. "My mind still is in the "prove' mode," said Smith, who has missed just four starts in 13 seasons. "Keep doing it, keep doing it, keep doing it."

In some ways, Smith is the ideal player to break Payton's record. He is the consummate professional, a megastar who has remained relatively grounded. He never has been arrested or involved in anything remotely scandalous. He never showboats or celebrates after touchdowns. He's charitable yet frugal (he rented a Dallas apartment for years before building a house). He's a media darling and a marketing commodity (Reebok, Starter, Coca-Cola, Scoreboard, etc.) and always gives credit for his success to others.

Perhaps the worst thing he has done was get suspended for two weeks during spring practice at Florida for his involvement in a scuffle at a party between players and some fraternity members. And even then, witnesses said Smith was merely trying to play peacemaker but was suspended nonetheless.

What you're more likely to hear about Smith is his big heart and his generous nature. He gives back through his foundation and community service projects, but his friends and family say it goes well beyond that. They tell story after story about Smith giving money and time to strangers in need.

For instance, just before flying to Pensacola, Smith withdrew money from an ATM. When a man asked him for some spare change, Smith gave him every dollar he withdrew.

Another time, team officials told him about a boy, perhaps age 8 or 9, whose mother was beaten and raped by an intruder. The boy desperately wanted to meet him, so Smith took the boy's phone number and called him. He still keeps in touch with the boy, who is now in college.

And this weekend, Smith's roommate at Florida, Johnny Nichols, and his entire family will be able to fly to Dallas, stay at a swank hotel and attend Sunday's potentially historic game because Smith is picking up the tab.

"He called and said he wanted us to be there," Nichols said. "The next thing I knew, he had taken care of everything."

In fact, many of Smith's friends and family (five brothers and sisters) will be in attendance. If Smith breaks the record Sunday, the game will be stopped and Smith will be recognized on the field.

And at that moment, the guy known by family and friends as "Scoey" (after comic Scoey Mitchell) will instantly become one of the game's true icons -- even if he refuses to believe it himself.

"In my eyes, I'll always see myself as a normal person," Smith once said. "I can't control how other people view me. I can't understand how they view me in any other light because I'm a normal person."

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