Emmitt Smith

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Emmitt Smith
Image:Emmitt Smith.jpg
Date of birth	May 15 1969
Place of birth	Pensacola, Florida
Position(s)	Running Back
College	Florida
NFL Draft	1990 / Round 1/ Pick 17
Career Highlights
Pro Bowls	8
Awards	1993 AP NFL MVP 1993 PFWA MVP 1993 Super Bowl MVP 1993 UPI NFC Offensive Player of the Year 1993 Bert Bell Award 1990 AP Offensive Rookie of the Year
Honors	NFL 1990s All-Decade Team Dallas Cowboys Ring of Honor Florida Football Ring of Honor
Records	NFL Career Rushing Yards NFL Career Rushing TDs Dallas Cowboys Career Rushing no Yards Dallas Cowboys Career Rushing TDs
Stats
Statistics	Pro Football Reference CBS.com DatabaseFootball
Team(s)
1990-2002 2003-2004	Dallas Cowboys Arizona Cardinals

Emmitt James Smith III (born May 15 1969 in Pensacola, Florida) is a retired American football player, who played for the Dallas Cowboys and Arizona Cardinals. Smith is the NFL's all time rushing leader, a record formerly held by his childhood hero Walter Payton. He passed Payton in a home game against Seattle on October 27, 2002.

1 High school years
2 College career
3 NFL records
4 Playing style
5 Personal life
6 In retirement
7 External links

[edit] High school years

Smith attended Escambia High School in Pensacola, Florida and finished his career with 8804 rushing yards and 106 touchdowns. He led them to State Championships his sophomore and junior years, 1984 and 1985.

[edit] College career

He started at the University of Florida, where he set 58 school records, including the single game rushing record in his very first start, en route to winning the SEC Freshman of the Year award and would finish 9th in the Heisman Trophy vote in 1987.

He left Florida after his junior year with 3,928 rushing yards and 36 touchdowns. In 1989, Smith was named a first-team All-American, SEC Player of the Year and finished 7th in the Heisman voting after an amazing 1,599 yards and 16 TDs.

[edit] NFL records

Smith was one of the most prolific running backs in NFL history. Smith is the first player in NFL history to have five straight seasons with over 1,400 rushing yards. Smith and Jim Brown are the only players with seven straight 10-touchdown seasons to start their career. With 1,021 yards rushing in 2001, Smith became the first player in NFL history to rush for 1,000 yards in 11 consecutive seasons and the first to post 11 1,000-yard rushing seasons in a career. He is also the NFL's all-time leader in rushing attempts with 4,409.

Smith currently holds the NFL record in career rushing yards with 18,355 and is the only player in NFL history to rush for over 18,000 yards, breaking the previous record held by Walter Payton, on October 27, 2002. He leads all running backs with 166 career touchdowns, and his 175 total touchdowns ranks him second only to Jerry Rice's 207 touchdowns. The sum of his rushing yards, receiving yards (3,224) and fumble return yards(-15), gave him a total of 21,564 yards from the line of scrimmage, making him one of only four players in NFL history to eclipse the 21,000-combined yards mark.

Smith also accumulated a number of NFL postseason records, including rushing touchdowns (19), consecutive games with a rushing touchdown (nine) and 100-yard rushing games (seven). His 1,586 yards rushing is also tops on the NFL postseason chart, and he shares the total playoff touchdown mark of 21 with Thurman Thomas. Smith is one of only five NFL players who have amassed over 10,000 career-rushing yards and 400 career receptions.

Emmitt Smith and Jerry Rice are the only two non-kickers to score 1000 points in a career. Coincidentally, they both have appeared on Dancing with the Stars.

[edit] Playing style

Beyond his statistical excellence, Smith is noted for being very durable with excellent vision, great balance, a competitive heart, and one of the most complete players to ever play the position of running back. Smith excelled at running between the tackles as a highly efficient downhill runner skilled at cutting through quickly changing gaps toward "daylight", but was also skilled in running to the outside, and catching the ball as a receiver. Although Smith was right handed, he mainly carried the ball in his left hand.

In the mold of Walter Payton, Smith was a great blocker in pass protection - the great blocking fullback Daryl "Moose" Johnston noted that Smith was better in pass protection than he was.

During his career, he was often compared to Detroit Lions Hall of Fame running back Barry Sanders as both men were extremely successful for their respective teams during the decade of the 1990's. While he was not known to be the human highlight reel Sanders was, some critics argued that Smith was more of a complete back who would get the hard yards.

In 1999, three years before becoming the game's all-time rushing yardage leader, he was ranked number 68 on The Sporting News' list of the 100 Greatest Football Players.

[edit] Personal life

Sometime in Emmit Smith's academic career, he received a paper with his name spelled "Emmitt" (notice the two T's). Emmit liked it, however, and decided to start spelling his name the same way. Thus was born the new Emmitt Smith. His father is Emmit Smith II and as a child, to avoid confusion, he was nicknamed "Scoey." He married Patricia Southall, on April 22, 2000. She is a former Miss Virginia, and the ex-wife of actor/comedian Martin Lawrence. Their son, Emmitt IV, was born on Smith's 33rd birthday, May 15. His entire family was on-hand and present on the sidelines that October day in 2002 when he surpassed Walter Payton for the NFL rushing title.

On August 14, 2006, his grandfather, Emmitt James Smith Sr., died in Pensacola; he was 82.

Emmitt Smith is a member of Phi Beta Sigma Fraternity, Incorporated.

[edit] In retirement

In September 2005, Smith signed on to serve as a studio analyst on the NFL Network show, NFL Total Access.

On September 19, 2005, at halftime of the Cowboys-Redskins game (broadcast on Monday Night Football), Smith was inducted into the Dallas Cowboys Ring of Honor with his longtime teammates Troy Aikman and Michael Irvin.

Smith becomes eligible for induction into the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 2010, and it is widely expected that he will be inducted on his first attempt. He will be enshrined in the College Football Hall of Fame on July 21, 2007 as a 2007 Division I-A inductee.

In the fall of 2006, Smith won the third season of Dancing with the Stars - Videos - [1] with professional dancer Cheryl Burke. Smith was praised for "making dancing look manly" and for his "natural charm", and Burke was given credit for coaching Smith while still allowing him to improvise some moves. Smith was also praised for giving viewers free access to his "gun show".

On September 30, 2006, he was one of the first four Gator legends inducted into the Florida Football Ring of Honor, alongside Steve Spurrier, Danny Wuerffel, and Jack Youngblood.

[edit] External links

Official website of Emmitt Smith

Preceded by: Troy Aikman	NFL Super Bowl MVPs Super Bowl XXVIII, 1994	Succeeded by: Steve Young
Preceded by: Steve Young	NFL Most Valuable Player 1993 season	Succeeded by: Steve Young
Preceded by: Walter Payton	NFL Career Rushing Yards Leader 2002 -	Succeeded by: Current
Preceded by: Drew Lachey & Cheryl Burke	Dancing with the Stars (US) winner Season 3 (Fall 2006 with Cheryl Burke)	Succeeded by: current