EMMITT’S BIG DAY

The NFL’s all-time leading rusher gets the call to the Hall

By Mickey Spagnola

Friday, September 3, 2010 - 4:23am

FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. — Looking back, when sitting on stage next to Michael Irvin and Jerry Rice, Emmitt Smith couldn’t help but remember what he thought was a “crazy” story from his past.

He was back home in Pensacola, Fla., in this very state where he was selected to enter the Pro Football Hall of Fame here on Saturday at Super Bowl XLIV, and he says a guy at the time asked him if he knew who the best running back to come out of his hometown city on the Gulf of Mexico.

Emmitt, the NFL’s all-time leading rusher, winner of three Super Bowl rings, an NFL MVP and Super Bowl MVP, was thinking the guy was playing games with him. Like, who else could it be?

“And he tells me, ‘Your father your father,’”… Emmitt recalled, the man referring to Emmitt James Smith II.

So when he was backstage, after hearing his name  included among the seven players selected on Saturday for induction — Smith, Rice, Rickey Jackson, Russ Grimm, John Randle, Floyd Little and Dick LeBeau — his father came up to congratulate him.

“And when I sit here and I talked to my father just a minute ago,” Emmitt began before hitting that inevitable emotional road block, tears beginning to smear his composure, probably knowing this was going to happen if he even came close to thinking about his family.So he took a few minutes to compose himself, and went on to recount what his father told him.

“He said something crazy to me and I never thought much about it,” Emmitt began the story. “Because my father was a great running back out of Pensacola… So we were sitting back stage, and my father says to me, he says ‘Son, I am proud of you’, he said. ‘I had the dreams of doing what you’re doing, but my mother got sick and I never did go to college’. He said ‘You’re living my dream, you’re living my dream.’

“And all I could think about at that time was I’m living your dream, I’m fulfilling my dream, and I am fulfilling God’s purpose for me.”

Welcome to the Pro Football Hall of Fame, Smith, in his first year of eligibility, completing those famed Dallas Cowboys Triplets, once inducted into the Ring of Honor together, in the Hall of Fame. He will become the 12th member of the Cowboys organization to be inducted into the Hall of Fame this August, with a good chance of the Cowboys actually being there as a team, possibly playing the San Francisco 49ers in the preseason Hall of Fame game.

Now it wasn’t all good news for the Cowboys on this day, or the North Texas Super Bowl XLV Host Committee, which Smith is a member of its Executive committee. Cowboys defensive end Charles Haley, whose five Super Bowl rings (three won with the Cowboys) represents the most won by any NFL player in the 44 years of Super Bowl play, did not even advance to the final 10 after making the final 15 for the first time since he’s been eligible for induction.

And neither did Dallas’ own Tim Brown, the long-time Oakland Raiders wide receiver who was eligible for the first time for Hall induction. Brown is quite involved in the Super Bowl XLV effort in Dallas, including the Century in The Making campaign leading up to the first Super Bowl to come to North Texas.

As Cowboys owner Jerry Jones said, “You can’t spell Super Bowl without Charles Haley,” saying how much he believes his former defensive end deserves to be recognized. “And it’s not just about holding his hand up with five Super Bowl rings. He was a unique player and allowed us to have that pressure to win the Super Bowl championships.”

As for Brown, of Dallas’ Woodrow Wilson High School, his selection was going to be tough since selecting him the same year as Rice, not only the greatest wide receiver in NFL history, but as was suggested during Saturday’s selection show on the NFL Network, possibly the greatest player in NFL history, would have put him on the same first-ballot pedestal. It was not going to happen.

Said Rod Woodson when Brown didn’t even advance to the final 10, “I’m very surprised he’s not on that list. But we know at the end of the day Tim Brown will be in the Hall of Fame.

So the wait continues for Haley and Brown. For Smith, who claimed he wasn’t nervous until he heard his name called, even though he was a shoo-in selection, he need only wait until August. He says he has a list of about three people he’s considering to present him, but likely that he won’t reveal the one until maybe April.

Here is one guy who just might be on that list: Daryl Johnston, his blocking-fullback teammate who paved the way for the majority of his NFL record-setting 18,355 rushing yards, along with a record 164 rushing touchdowns. Smith once again made sure to make special mention of Johnston, who he embraced on the sideline that record-setting day in 2002 when he finally broke Jim Brown’s career rushing record. Seems like a natural choice unless Smith goes back to his Pensacola roots.

But on this evening, for Smith it seemed to be all about family, with the majority present here at the Broward County Convention Center to see the kid raised in Florida, who went to college in Florida, who announced his retirement in Florida, now getting selected for Hall of Fame induction in Florida.

“We just talked briefly one on one,” his dad said of their conversation after Emmitt Smith’s name was called. “I conveyed to him a lot of the emotions between him and me. It was something I wanted him to know. We really never talked about football or the Hall of Fame but at that moment I thought it was appropriate for him to know.”

Father and son coming together during a huge moment.

“I just had a deeper appreciation and understanding of the choices and decision he made,” Smith said of what his father conveyed to him on Saturday. “He never had closure, but to embrace his son and have closure it was like he passed on the mantle.”

Now that Cowboys trophy mantle becomes a tad more crowded, with Smith heading into the Pro Football Hall of Fame, bringing all the memories of his 13 years with the Cowboys along with him.

And maybe there is no higher respect paid a player than Smith was on Saturday when Jones said of his former first-round pick in 1990, “Emmitt is as much a part of the Cowboys as the star.”

Heavy stuff indeed.