SUPER BOWL XXVIII / BUFFALO BILLS vs. DALLAS COWBOYS : Timely Tackle : The Last Time Emmitt Smith Was Stopped When It Counted Was 1986, and It Cost High School Championship

Somewhere in America sits Ray Smith, the last man to bring Emmitt Smith down when it counted.

He might be watching TV today, recounting to those nearby the open-field tackle that secured victory and proved Emmitt Smith mortal.

“Sure, Ray,” folks will say. “Whatever you say, Ray.”

Oh, but it must be something today to be Ray Smith and know that there is a moment to last for a lifetime because you were the one to best greatness.

There are seven Ray or Raymond Smiths in the Pensacola, Fla., telephone directory, but five said they were not the “real” Ray Smith. The telephones of two others rang repeatedly without answer.

“Good God, you know Emmitt hasn’t really been stopped since then, now has he?” said Leo Carvalis, principal at Pensacola High School and former football coach. “Ray Smith? Went to North Dakota State for a while, called once, but he kind of dropped out of sight. You say he made that tackle? I forgot.”

Newspaper accounts indicate that a little more than seven years ago, the Smiths came together as opponents on a football field. Like Emmitt’s present-day Cowboys, his Escambia High Gators were the team to beat.

Like the Cowboys, who won last year’s NFL title, the previous year the Gators had claimed the Class 4-A Florida state title.

Escambia had not lost a football game in two years, was ranked No. 1 nationally and was a sure bet to win the national title once it got past the Pensacola High Tigers.

Take heart, Buffalo, because with a little more than two minutes to play, the underdogs were not only still in the game, but ahead by seven points.

“But we had to punt and Emmitt took the ball,” Carvalis said. “He was on his way for a touchdown with only one man to beat.”

One on one in the open field with Emmitt Smith, and Ray Smith, according to newspaper accounts, “dropped him in a rolling, tumbling heap at the EHS 25.”

“That was it,” Carvalis said.

Pensacola won, 17-10, and Emmitt Smith lost his bid for a national championship.

“We’ve got people from PHS who come into the store all the time,” said Marzette Porterfield, an employee at Emmitt, Inc., and Smith’s former Escambia teammate. “They say, ‘Emmitt’s got this and Emmitt’s got that, but we kicked his butt.’ ”

Emmitt Smith started as a freshman at Escambia and averaged 2,201 yards rushing a season before moving on to the University of Florida.

During his four years at Escambia, the team lost a total of four games, three to Carvalis’ Tigers.

Leo Carvalis figured out how to stop Emmitt Smith.

“We took our offensive tackles and big guys on offense and put them on defense,” Carvalis said. “We told them, ‘Don’t give him a running lane. Just don’t move. If necessary just fall down and let the linebackers clean up.’

“We had great speed on the outside, and Emmitt isn’t known for his outside speed, so he wasn’t going to beat us there. He does his damage from tackle to tackle, so we weren’t going to give him a seam.

“You watch him today, and it’s still the same thing. When teams do a good job of plugging the running lanes inside, he’s not quite as effective. But let me say this, I was very happy when he graduated.”

Smith, who had scored 101 touchdowns in his prep career, failed to score against Pensacola in his final high school game--the first time all season he had been kept out of the end zone. He rushed for 117 yards in 22 carries, but it was the first time in four games against Pensacola that he had topped the 100-yard mark.

“Scott Hunter, former Alabama quarterback who does broadcasting down here in Mobile, was on TV the other day saying, ‘Emmitt Smith can’t be stopped,’ ” Carvalis said. “Our teachers wanted me to call him and set him straight.”

*

Buffalo has Bruce Smith and Thomas Smith, but no Ray Smith.

A year ago, they were unable to fill the running lanes, and Smith rushed for 108 yards, helping the Cowboys run over the Bills in Super Bowl XXVII, 52-17.

Buffalo got some revenge with a 13-10 regular-season victory over Dallas earlier this season, but the Cowboys at the time were without Smith.

Team owner Jerry Jones tried to hold the line on contract negotiations with Smith, and Dallas opened the season with losses to Washington and Buffalo.

“I wasn’t jeopardizing anything,” Smith said. “I wasn’t on the football field. I couldn’t go anywhere. I didn’t have a contract. If anybody was jeopardizing something, you’d have to talk to the boss.”

Jones relented after the Cowboys’ 0-2 start, opened his checkbook and gave Smith a four-year, $13.6-million contract.

Troy Aikman is one of the finest quarterbacks in the game. Michael Irvin has the ability to destroy the secondary. But ask the players who will deliver a Super Bowl ring, and the response is almost unanimous.

“Emmitt Smith, Emmitt Smith, Emmitt Smith,” safety James Washington said. “Just in case you didn’t hear me: Emmitt Smith, Emmitt Smith, Emmitt Smith.”

A nationwide media panel voted him the league’s most valuable player this season--the first Cowboy to ever receive such an honor.

“I’m the first Cowboy?” he said after being notified. “Damn. History again. Now I want to win the Super Bowl MVP.”

Smith, who rushed for 1,486 yards in the regular season, became the third player in NFL history to win three consecutive rushing titles, joining Hall of Famers Earl Campbell, Jim Brown and Steve Van Buren.

“If the MVP is determined by the importance of the player to his team, then there is no doubt Emmitt is as important to us as any player in the league to his team,” Irvin said.

“If he didn’t win, then we’d have thought the voting was a joke.”

He’s not all that fast, and stands 5 feet 9, 209 pounds. Defenders can’t explain his effectiveness, although they suggest he must have unusual vision and a knack for knowing what hole is going to open before it does.

“He’s better at cutting, he’s quick, he’s strong and probably the unique thing is he sees the holes,” said Phil Hansen, Buffalo defensive end. “I mean he sees them before they develop. Marcus Allen does that very well, too. He makes you commit, and then he goes the other way.”

Nose tackle Jeff Wright, who will be at the point of attack when Smith goes looking for unoccupied space, said the Bills must not only hit the running back, but punish him.

“You have to make your hits count on him,” Wright said. “You’re not going to get a lot of hits, but you have to constantly pound him. You can’t let him get that extra five yards after the first hit because they will start gaining momentum as a team.”

Smith rushed for 115 yards in his first high school game. He gained 224 yards in his first start for Florida. Four times this season he has gained more than 150 yards.

Despite such success, Smith appears unaffected. He has embraced the tedious task of answering the Super Bowl media’s repetitive questions. He will not allow any plaques, awards or trophies to be displayed in his parents’ home until he has received his college degree. This week he was voted NFL man of the year in recognition of his community service.

“Yards never meant anything in the house,” said Marsha Smith, Emmitt’s sister. “Respect for each other meant everything.”

Emmitt Smith III, named for his father and grandfather, was nicknamed “Scoey,” by his mother, Mary, after her favorite comedian, Scoey Mitchell, to help distinguish him from his elders.

Smith’s father, who had played fullback and linebacker for Pensacola Washington High, was still playing when he was 49 for the Pensacola Wings, a semipro team, and told the Dallas Morning News in an interview, “I don’t like to say this, but I was pretty good. With my son, it was in the genes.”

The Smith family now runs Emmitt, Inc., a sports store in Pensacola that sells trading cards, T-shirts and about anything they can slap a No. 22 on.

“A No. 22 jersey is selling for $80 to $100,” said Bobby Washington, a former teammate of Smith who works in the store. “A No. 22 jersey with Emmitt’s autograph goes for $189.

“Emmitt’s here a lot, and when people hear about it, the store is mobbed. Emmitt loves it. He wants to meet the people. He told me one day, ‘I got a 9-to-5 job just like everybody else, only on a bigger scale.’ ”

Today’s task is to lead the Cowboys to their second consecutive Super Bowl victory. With only one good arm, he has already given them an NFC East Division title and an NFC championship.

He required an overnight stay in a hospital after suffering a separated shoulder and rushing for 168 yards in a regular season-ending victory over the New York Giants to clinch the division title. The performance was reminiscent of Charger Kellen Winslow’s playoff effort against Miami while contending with dehydration, and Ram Jack Youngblood’s courageous play despite a broken leg.

“I’ve heard of guys playing hurt,” Smith said. “I wanted to be a guy who could play hurt and be effective.”

He rushed for 60 yards in 13 carries in a playoff victory over Green Bay and aggravated his sore shoulder. He returned a week later and ran 23 times for 88 yards and caught seven passes for 85 yards, scored two touchdowns and sent the 49ers packing.

“With him, we always have the opportunity to do something we wouldn’t have without him,” said Joe Brodsky, who coaches the Cowboy running backs. “Every time the ball touches his hands, there’s a very good opportunity for something to happen, and in some cases, miracles happen.

“Nobody in the league, nobody in football, has ever been an Emmitt Smith. He has a little piece of Tony Dorsett, a piece of Billy Sims, and some Walter Payton. . . . Someday, he’ll have Payton’s work ethic, and then it will be over in this league for a long time.”

*

Ray Smith?

“I remember Ray Smith,” said Ed Ilano, a fledgling pharmaceutical technician at City Drugs in Pensacola. “Ray Smith wasn’t even on the field at the time.

“I punted the ball and I was the one who tackled Emmitt Smith. I’ve watched that game on tape over and over.”

The Pensacola New Journal, however, reported on the morning of Nov. 15, 1986, that Ray Smith had been the hero.

“Oh, gosh,” Ilano said. “He didn’t tackle anybody--that was me. I’ve got the tape of the game to prove it. I do.”

*

Somewhere in America sits Ray Smith, the last man to bring Emmitt Smith down when it counted, and he undoubtedly has the newspaper clipping to prove it.

And Ed Ilano has his game film.

And the Bills have neither because they haven’t stopped Smith yet.