Notes

Rankin Smith prepared his son Taylor to take over the Atlanta Falcons by exposing him to every facet of the club. Taylor was a ballboy, an equipment manager, a ticket salesman, worked in marketing and public relations.

Someday arrived unexpectedly for Taylor on Oct. 26, 1997, when the senior Smith, an insurance executive who had paid $8.5 million for the expansion Falcons in 1965, died.

“There’s not a day that goes by that I don’t walk off the field thinking about how much my dad would have enjoyed seeing us go to the Super Bowl,” Smith said. “I shed a lot of tears for him. One of the things he was proudest of was bringing pro football to Atlanta. This is the culmination of everything he wanted. Maybe he’s up there helping us.”

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The Falcons already have sold 3,825 season tickets for the 1999 season. They sold 2,000 new season tickets all of last year.