Super Friends Now Super Rivals

Their relationship began in 1977 on a hot summer afternoon in Los Angeles, in the weight room at Southern Cal. They were both freshmen, both defensive backs, both Californians, both aware that the other carried a reputation for playing good football.

Ronnie Lott offered Dennis Smith a ride home that day. “I lived two hours away,” Smith said, “and Ronnie still took me home. We said maybe two words the whole time. I said, ‘Thanks,’ and he said, ‘Bye.’ We were sizing each other up, I do believe.”

Thirteen years later, they’re still competing. They’re best friends now, have been almost from the day they met. “Someone once told me that you only have two true friends in your life, and if that’s so, Dennis is one of mine,” Lott said. But the cornerstone of their relationship is still competition. Football. Games.

“When we were teammates in college, we competed to outdo the other, make the bigger hit, the bigger play,” Smith said, “and it made us better players. Now we still call each other once a week. We talk about how we played, critique each other.”

It’s never been a close rivalry, honestly. Smith, a safety for the Denver Broncos, has had a career that would satisfy almost any defensive back. All-American as a senior. First-round draft pick. Three Super Bowl appearances. Three Pro Bowl appearances. But no matter how good he’s been, and he’s good, he pales in comparison with Lott.

“I’m just the poor man’s Ronnie Lott,” Smith said. “He’s the Michael Jordan of defensive backs. I’m not in his league.”

It is true. Although Lott, linchpin of the San Francisco 49ers’ defense, said he’d “rather be known as the Charles Barkley of defensive backs,” the point is made: If he is not the best of his generation at his position, he is close. All-American as a junior and senior. High first-round pick. Eight Pro Bowl appearances. Three Super Bowl rings. Forty-eight interceptions.

Smith can’t possibly compare, and doesn’t try. (“What’s nice is Ronnie doesn’t rub it in my face,” he said.) But this week, as their teams prepare to meet in the Super Bowl, Smith has a personal agenda. He wants one win in their game. Just once out of a lifetime, he says, let me have something Ronnie wants. Let me beat him. Please. One time.

“He already has three Super Bowl rings, for crying out loud,” Smith said, smiling, not a hint of rancor in his voice. “The least he can do is let me have one. Sheesh.”

Lott said, “It has to gnaw at him. I know he wants a ring. And I want him to experience that. But not this year. And I can’t feel bad for him if we win. We’re playing to win the game.”

Smith has reached the Super Bowl twice before, but his Broncos were hammered by the New York Giants and Washington Redskins. He finally got to sample the winning feeling last year, when Lott bought him a ticket to the 49ers-Bengals game in Miami. He sat in the stands cheering for Lott, and when the 49ers won, he drove through a traffic jam to join in the celebration at the team hotel. It’s what best friends do.

“I was excited we could share that,” Smith said.

Naturally, because college ends and life continues, they aren’t quite as close as they were at Southern Cal, where they were inseparable roommates. Smith was from Santa Monica, a relatively eclectic corner of Los Angeles; he was an introvert, interested in different kinds of books and music. Lott was raised in a military family and had moved often; he was outgoing, with mainstream tastes.

Lott: “I guess we kind of complemented each other. He turned me on to a lot of different things, particularly music. We just meshed. I know that, coming from a military family, I had never been in one place long enough to develop a true friendship with someone. Dennis was the first person I could turn to and trust.”

Smith: “He was the one who got things going. He had a car. I didn’t. I just tagged along with him wherever he went.”