Circling the Wagons

He has been a Cowboy so long, he now feels like an Indian.

“The last of the Mohicans,” Emmitt Smith jokingly refers to himself.

He has been a Cowboy so long, billboards around Dallas beg fans to “See Emmitt Run” because “See Troy Pass” and “See Michael Catch” and “See the Cowboys Win” have all pretty much been retired.

America’s Team didn’t quite make it to the new millennium intact. A quarterback named Quincy? A preseason receiver list topped by Jason Tucker, Chris Brazzell and James Whalen? A 5-11 record in 2000 that looks like Kilimanjaro to the young nondescripts running through drills Thursday on a secluded patch of grass behind some tennis courts behind some hotel in Oxnard?

America’s Team has become America’s Junior Varsity. Michael Irvin is gone, Deion Sanders is gone, Troy Aikman is gone. Even Aikman’s replacement, Tony Banks, is gone, cut loose on Tuesday after passing for 54 total yards in two exhibition losses.

All that’s left is Smith. His No. 22 jersey is the one familiar sight around the Cowboys’ training facility, and it’s here, there and everywhere. Besides the original introducing himself to new teammates in the huddle, replica 22s are lined up along the wire fences, each with the block letters “E. SMITH” stitched across the shoulders.

As Smith walks past them after practice, the replicas chant his name. You really can’t blame them, not when the next best option is “Hey, John Avery, ex-Chicago Enforcer of the ex-XFL!”

Now 32, entering his 12th NFL season, Smith carries Cowboy history with every step he takes. At once, he represents all that was--the Super Bowls, the Vince Lombardi trophies--and all that’s left, which, at present, is not much more than Smith’s pursuit of the league’s all-time rushing record.

Walter Payton’s 16,726 yards are now in Smith’s sights. At 15,166 yards, Smith needs 104 to pass Barry Sanders for second place on the all-time list, 1,561 to eclipse Payton.

Knowing Smith, and these Cowboys, it probably won’t happen this season. Smith hasn’t rushed for more than 1,500 yards in a season since 1995, and he checked in with 1,203 in 2000. Throw a nervous rookie named Quincy Carter in at starting quarterback, watch the eight-man defensive walls creep up to the line of scrimmage, and Smith figures to be banging his head well into 2002 before he catches Payton.

But it’s the one positive story line in Cowboy camp, so Smith spends a lot of time being asked about it.

“It is important to me,” he says of the record. “But is it as important to me as winning? I think not. I think I would rather see this team go to the Super Bowl--today, with the team we have today. It would be much more gratifying and rewarding if we go to the Super Bowl, today, with the guys that we have, than for me to break the record this year.

“And the reason why I say that is because there are so many guys on this squad that have never experienced that. It would be a thrill just to see the joy, the excitement on those young guys’ faces if it happened for them. That is a moment I’ve never, ever forgotten.

“I have played on great teams, but there’s nothing like playing on a team that no one really expects will be successful--and you go on and be successful. To see these young cats wanting to be in the Super Bowl and play and hopefully win one--with me on the squad?”

Smith grins, looks at the floor and shakes his head.

“ Whew! That’d be something.”

You might say Smith’s a dreamer. Or just a deluded old Cowboy saying the right things for team motivational purposes. Whatever gets you through a no-hope training camp.

Smith is asked to consider the strange case of Barry Sanders, who in 1999 found himself in a place not much removed from Smith in 2001--so close to Payton’s record, yet so far from the Super Bowl--and decided to retire rather than plug along with a non-contender just to log a few more yards.

” I don’t think [the record] is an issue with Barry,” Smith says. “I think Barry has resolved that issue. I think he’s settled in his mind.

“He’s not concerning himself with whether he could have broken it. In his heart, I believe he knows he could have broken it. I know in my heart he could’ve broken it. Could’ve broken it two years ago. Honestly. That’s how he feels and that’s how I feel.

“But it’s deeper than just breaking the record for him. I’m one of the ones that’s fortunate enough to have three [championship rings]. He don’t have any. And they’ve been promising to have help around him and it hasn’t happened, it hasn’t been done that way. And it becomes frustrating. You lose a part of your excitement and joy for the game because you hear people say, ‘We’re going to do this, we’re going to do this, we’re going to do this’ and they actually show you something different.

“And you get so discouraged by it. You say, ‘I’m sick of this.’ And you’re done.”

Smith says he isn’t to that point yet. He still enjoys the game and the challenge enough to begin daily off-season workouts at 5:30 a.m.--and claims he hasn’t seen anything with these Cowboys that he hasn’t seen before.

“In three years at the University of Florida,” Smith says, “I had three different offensive coordinators. Three offensive coordinators in three years. I had a couple different running back coaches. Didn’t have a solid quarterback. Didn’t have solid receivers. All we had was a strong running game, and a good defense.

“Sound familiar? I’m facing some of that today.”

Unlike Sanders, Smith sees his run at the record as personal responsibility, upholding a tradition first handed down by the likes of Jim Brown and Marion Motley.

“The way I see the record--it’s not even mine, [to be held] by myself,” he says. “I’m carrying a torch that’s been carried by many, many running backs throughout the history of the National Football League. The torch has been passed on from one person to the next. I’m just happy to be the next batter up, to hold and carry this torch on though a line of guys who have come before me--great individuals--and I’m the next in line to perhaps carry the torch to wherever it goes.

“And I take pride in that. Because I don’t represent me, I represent the whole chain of running backs .... They have their place in history in me.”

The way Smith looks at it, he isn’t going it alone, appearances to the contrary. He still has old running mates, only these are named Brown and Dorsett and Dickerson, not Aikman and Irvin and Moose Johnston.

Although, he has to admit, he does miss the old gang.

“Those guys helped me get to where I am now,” Smith says. “They’ve been a big part of all the success--and even some of the failures--that I’ve been able to have. For them not to be here, it’s not the way I envisioned it.

“I envisioned all of us running off into the sunset together. But that’s not the way the league is. Different things happen for different reasons. Some people come, some people go. Changes come. You’ve just got to be able to adapt.”

So just keep giving me the ball, Smith says. Might as well. Got to do something with the other three downs before the punt.

Besides, he is one Cowboy going forward. If the young ones are smart, they’ll stay close to the old man. Drafting is permitted.