SUPER BOWL XXVII : Excellence Without Ego : Emmitt Smith May Be a Celebrity, but Running Back Refuses to Play the Part

During an interview session with a media horde Tuesday at Dodger Stadium, Emmitt Smith III was comparing the Buffalo Bills’ run defense to other challenges he has faced--”Man, I’ve been going up against Philadelphia all season, three times, the guys from Seattle, the Redskins, the Giants”--when a football card of him carrying the football for the Dallas Cowboys was thrust under his nose by a man with a microphone.

Smith shook his head. “This is Media Day, not an autograph session,” he said as politely as he could while still maintaining his boundaries. The man left the card in front of Smith’s face for a moment to see whether he was joking, decided he was not and left to find another player.

“Now, he’s going to go off and say something bad about me,” Smith said. “But I think it’s more valuable not signed. You damage the card. I did him a favor by not signing it, whether he realizes it or not.”

Some men pride themselves on their knowledge of fine wines, cuisine or the scents of perfumes. Smith knows trading cards. He owns a store, “Emmitt’s 1st and 10 Trading Card Collectibles,” that is operated by his family and a couple of friends in his hometown of Pensacola, Fla.

Business has been brisk, said one of his friends, Marzette Porterfield, since Emmitt and his offensive line opened holes in the 49ers’ defense large enough for every Smith in the Dallas phone book to run through in the NFC championship game.

Not all of the customers these days are in the market for Smith’s card. (“We’ve even sold a couple of Jim Kellys this week,” said his father, Emmitt Jr. “Anything to make people happy.”) But most are.

Porterfield said they sell Smith’s rookie cards for $50 to $60, although they have others in stock for less. They also have one worth an estimated $2,000 that is not for sale.

“The most expensive one I’ve ever seen was at another dealer’s,” Porterfield said. “It was a misprinted hologram with Hank Aaron on the front and Emmitt’s statistics on the back. The price was $100,000. I don’t think the dealer’s sold it.”

Even in Pensacola, there is a limit to the love for Emmitt.

It does not stop far south of that, however, in the Florida Panhandle city where every April 23, the anniversary of the day after he was drafted by the Cowboys in 1990, has been proclaimed “Emmitt Smith Day.” As popular as ever there are T-shirts inscribed with “Run, Emmitt, Run.”

And run Emmitt has done, for 8,804 yards in four years at Pensacola’s Escambia High, the third-highest total ever for a prep running back; for 3,928 yards in three years at the University of Florida; and for 4,441 yards in three years with the Cowboys. He led the NFL in rushing in 1991 with 1,563 yards, then again this season with 1,713. On Sunday, against the Bills at the Rose Bowl, he will become the NFL’s first rushing leader to play in the Super Bowl.

But first things first, which for Smith and many of his Cowboy teammates this week has meant dealing with more media than even God could fit on the head of a pin.

As he was besieged by wave after wave of reporters, photographers and cameramen Tuesday at Dodger Stadium, he accurately predicted that he would be asked the same questions numerous times. When he kidded that some had become particularly tedious, reporters tried to be more creative.

MTV’s Downtown Julie Brown, complimenting him as one of best-dressed Cowboys, asked him about the clothes he would wear to the Rose Bowl on Sunday. Smith’s teammates would have loved to hear that one, considering they still razz him about the brown-with-yellow-polka-dots outfit he wore on his first day in Dallas three years ago. Now a candidate for the cover of GQ, he has gained considerably since then not only as a ballcarrier.

By the time the interview session was completed, Smith had politely declined to participate in a promotion for a San Antonio television station, playfully scolded a talking head for doing his voice overs so loud that Smith could not hear himself think, headed off a couple of near fights as newspaper reporters and cameramen grappled for positions near him and answered, it seemed like, as many questions as he has yards.

But Smith smiled all the way through the ordeal, acting as if it were as amusing to him as appearing on “Arsenio Hall,” which he would do that evening.

“Complete this sentence,” a reporter told him. “Media Day is as much fun as . . . “

” . . . .going to Disneyland,” Smith said, laughing.

Necessary for a running back on the field, equilibrium is perhaps even more valuable to a budding superstar off the field. It is evident where Smith, 23, got his because he still identifies himself, first, as a member of his family, and, then, as a member of the Cowboys.

“We tried to raise him to have respect for his fellow man, no matter who they are or how high you get,” said his father, who drives a bus when he is not tending the trading card store.

For that reason, Smith seldom, if ever, acts like a celebrity in Dallas, where he lives in an apartment and is seen so rarely off the field that most people are not aware he has a girlfriend from his college days. And he never acts like a celebrity in Pensacola, where he has the same friends, the same room in his parents’ house and the same nickname he has always had. He is called “Scoey” after his mother’s favorite comedian, Scoey Mitchell.

Smith not only spends summers at home but goes there every time the Cowboys have at least two days off in a row. His maroon Mercedes-Benz still has Florida license plates. His friend, Porterfield, said Smith spends quiet nights out on the town at restaurants, clubs or movies in Pensacola but spends as many nights at home playing dominoes.

If he has vices, no one talks about them. On Tuesday at Dodger Stadium, Smith naively asked reporters, “If we’re seven-point favorites, why does it say ‘minus-seven by the Dallas?’ ” Reporters explained to him that bettors who put their money on the Cowboys begin the game seven points behind. “Obviously, you know I’m not a betting man,” Smith said.

The Dallas Morning News recently sent a reporter to Pensacola, where he heard stories about Smith, as a high school hotshot sought by numerous college football programs, going next door in the middle of the night, night after night, to take care of his invalid grandmother while his grandfather worked a graveyard shift.

His high school coach, Dwight Thomas, told the reporter that the Smiths “should be the role model for all American families.”

Smith owns two lots on a golf course in Pensacola and plans to build a house large enough for his parents and grandparents and, if they ever need a roof over their heads, even his three brothers and two sisters and their families. But his parents made him promise that he will not build the house until he finishes his college education. He will return to the University of Florida next spring for the one semester he needs to earn a degree in therapeutic recreation.

When he went to see his son play as a freshman at Florida, Emmitt Jr. was appalled to see him perform an end-zone dance after a touchdown. “We’ll have no more of that,” his father told him.

So Smith began gently laying the ball on the ground after his scores until his father had a better idea. Smith now keeps the balls he crosses the goal line with, later sending them to the store in Pensacola. “We’ve got two bags on the floor now that we haven’t even opened,” said Porterfield, adding that the balls are not for sale.

That is not all the football Smith learned from his father, an exceptional fullback in high school whose hopes of accepting one of the several college scholarship offers he received were dashed by his low grade-point average and family responsibilities.

For the fun of it, Emmitt Jr. returned to the field during his son’s senior year in high school to play, at age 43, for the Pensacola Wings in the semipro Dixie League.

“I knew from the time he was 8 years old that he could turn pro someday,” Emmitt Jr. said of his son. “But for him to get to these heights, it’s a little bit surprising. All the scouts always said he was too slow or too short or too this and that. Maybe it’s in the genes.”

One of those scouts was Max Emfinger of Houston, who publishes an annual survey of the nation’s best high school players.

“Emmitt Smith isn’t big or fast and he can’t get around the corner,” Emfinger wrote in 1987. “I know all the folks in Pensacola will be screaming and all the Florida fans will be writing me nasty letters, but Emmitt Smith is not a franchise player. He’s a lugger, not a runner. The sportswriters blew him out of proportion. When he falls flat on his face at Florida, remember where you heard it first.”

Smith almost fell flat into the Heisman Trophy at Florida, finishing ninth in the voting as a freshman. He would have been a leading contender to win it if he had stayed in school for his senior year. But even then, he had doubters.

“It’s not that I didn’t like him,” Tampa Bay personnel director Jerry Angelo told the Dallas Morning News this season. “But he didn’t have stopwatch speed. He was 4.65 (seconds in the 40). He was undersized, had average hands and left school early. Our mistake was we based the decision too much on the numbers and not enough on performance.”

A lot of other teams made the same mistake in the 1990 draft. The Cowboys traded up from the 21st pick in the first round to the 17th in order to take Smith, a move that is now considered an example of their genius.

But they also were lucky. Figuring their running game was in good shape, they decided to focus on defense, attempting to use their 21st pick to trade up in order to draft Baylor linebacker James Francis. But when Cincinnati selected Francis with the 15th pick, the Cowboys realized Smith was still available.

Not that they were disappointed. Cowboy owner Jerry Jones said Smith was the best running back in the draft, and the fourth-best player overall, a claim for which Smith’s agent held him accountable.

Smith held out through training camp of his rookie year before signing a three-year contract. Jones still came out ahead. This season, the last on Smith’s contract, Jones paid him $465,000.

Since then, Smith’s only complaint came during his rookie year, when he felt he was not carrying the ball enough. The Cowboys have accommodated him to the extent that their running backs coach, Joe Brodsky, fears they rely too much on him for their rushing game.

Asked about the Cowboys’ offensive game plan for Sunday’s game, Pro Bowl guard Nate Newton said, “Emmitt left, Emmitt right, Emmitt up the middle.”

Considering that he is not so large at 5 feet 9 inches and 203 pounds and not so fast, why is Smith so good?

His power, for one reason. He has a low center of gravity on a foundation of extremely strong legs. Another reason is that he is “quick within a confined space,” Cowboy offensive coordinator Norv Turner says. Defensive players often are startled by how often they draw a bead on him and then miss getting a solid hit.

As a result, he is seldom hurt. He was not put on the injured list once this season, not even as a probable. He was always a definite. He also rarely fumbles and has so little ego that he does not mind sharing publicity with the Cowboys’ other offensive stars, quarterback Troy Aikman and wide receiver Michael Irvin.

As for his running style, it is, well, inEmmittable.

“Frantic hopscotching, barefoot, on a blistering sidewalk,” Dallas Morning News columnist Blackie Sherrod once wrote.

“I’m an enigma, an unknown,” Smith said Tuesday. “You can’t really figure out what I’m going to do next. I like it like that.”

Turner said: “He’s just Emmitt. He’s special.”

Turner and the other offensive coaches have to remind themselves of that when Smith misses the gaps his line opens for him. They also contend that Smith could be better if he studied and worked harder between games, although they can name no one who gives more of himself during games.

But despite those quibbles, the Cowboys would not trade him for any other running back. When it comes time to designate a franchise player according to new collective bargaining rules, they might choose Aikman. But they are aware that one of the reasons Aikman has had so much success is because he shares the backfield with Smith.