Foul Territory

That's one of the first things I thought today after reading that Emmitt Smith has retired. You see, Emmitt Smith was probably the only real sports hero of my childhood. I had a few of his cards, and I read his book, The Emmitt Zone. I watched a lot of Cowboys football while he was in the midst of his prime playing for one of the greatest teams in the history of the league. I remember the separated shoulder game, where he dragged his broken body down the field to beat the Giants at the Meadowlands in the 1993 season. I remember where I was when the Cowboys won those three Super Bowls, twice over the Bills and once over the Steelers. No Super Bowl will every compare to those, at least in terms of my experience, now that Aikman, Irvin, Moose, Novacek, Deion, and, yes, Emmitt have all hung up their cleats for the last time.

I say I'm not a kid anymore because I was not yet in high school when Emmitt set the record for rushing touchdowns in a season, and here we are in 2005 on the day he announces his retirement from football, the day before my 24th birthday. When I watched Emmitt, I lived with my family, wore big glasses, and strolled the halls of CVCA with my collared shirt, dress shoes, and a belt. Now, as he announces his retirement, I live in my own apartment, drive a car I paid for, buy all my own groceries, and work a full time job as an engineer. I'm not as attached to the Cowboys as I was then, but I still check their score before any other. I haven't seen too many of their games, but I want to sit in the stands at Texas stadium some day before it's gone so I can know what it's like in that football crazy town, where the Cowboys are as important as anything that happens between Sundays.

I've really only had one real favorite team. Oh, I rooted hard for the Cavs to beat the Bulls when Mark Price, a six foot tall white guy from Oklahoma, was somehow among the game's best players. It wasn't the same, though, as watching the Cowboys take on the 49ers at Candlestick as I hoped Charles Haley, Darren Woodson, and Leon Lett would find a way to bottle up the elusive yet strong Steve Young and his target, Jerry Rice. I have two videos, one for each of the first two Super Bowl seasons won by that Cowboys team. I've seen them both numerous times. Even into college, I would come home during Thanksgiving or Christmas break, put my dad's bike up on the rollers (kind of a bicycle treadmill), pop in the tape, and get a workout in the basement while snow swirled outside. I could remember what it was like when the Cowboys were America's Team, and they won all the time. It's been rough the past few years watching them struggle while teams with dubious history (the Bucs) or none at all (Panthers) make it to the Super Bowl, but I'll hold on. They will win again, and I'll be there, just like I have been since I first heard of this Emmitt fellow.

He was supposed to be too slow or too small to be a success in the NFL. That's why the Cowboys got him. He wasn't picked first, he was picked 17th. What the scouts didn't know then that they surely leared to regret was that you can't measure elusiveness or toughness with a 40 yeard dash. He was at his best running between the tackles and making that first guy miss. He didn't break a lot of long runs, but he always did enough. He definitely could smell the end zone when he got close, and his 164 rushing touchdowns can attest to that. No one has rushed more times, for more yards, or found the end zone more times than Emmitt. He'll waltz into the Hall of Fame as soon as he's eligible in 2009. Maybe I'll go to Canton and see the Hall, if I haven't already by then.

You can argue that he wasn't the greatest running back of all time, and it doesn't bother me to say that you'd be right in saying it, but no one combined his ability with his longevity in quite the same way, and none of the running backs were ever my favorite player. So decide where he stands in the pantheon of backs, just don't try to tell me he wasn't my favorite.