I was doing some cleaning last week and came across an old report I did on Emmitt Smith in my 9th grade English class. Here it is in raw form, without any formal training in writing or the upgrades that I have made to my current writing style:
12/12/94
Emmitt Smith
Emmitt Smith is a superstar running back for the Super Bowl champion Dallas Cowboys football team. He is in his 5th year with the Cowboys. They drafted him in 1990 in the first round with the 17th pick overall out of the University Of Florida, where he set 58 school records. In his freshman year with Florida, Emmitt was only the second freshman to finish in the top 10 in the Heisman Trophy balloting. During his collegiate career, he only missed 2 games and ran for 100-plus yards in 25 of 34 games, and was the only Gator to earn first team All-SEC honors his first 3 seasons. In his junior year he had a college career-high 316 yards against New Mexico, had a 96-yard touchdown run against Mississippi State as a sophomore in 1988.
Emmitt is the Florida Gators' all-time leading rusher with 4,232 yards. In high school, Emmitt ran for 8,804 yards in 4 years at Escambia High in Pensacola, FL with a 7.8 yard average per carry and 106 touchdowns. He ran for 100-plus yards in 45 of the 49 games he played for Escambia, including the last 28, and he was never held to less than 71 yards, even as a freshman. The 8,804 yyards puts Emmitt 2nd on the all-time rushing list in the National High School Sports Record Book behind Ken Hall of Sugar Land, TX (11,232 yards from 1950 to 1953). In his first game in 1983, Emmitt ran for 115 yards against Pensacola Catholic High. By his sophomore year, he was already District 1's most feared back. Defensive units were taping his number 24 on their helmets. By his junior year, he had turned it up a notch with seven 200-yard games, and in a furious outburst against Milton High he had 28 carries for 301 yards. In 4 years Emmitt hit Milton for 855 yards.
The 1990 NFL Draft was the first in which juniors were allowed to pass up their final year of eligiblity and enter the draft pool. Emmitt and 37 other juniors came out early. He was an incredible yardage machine. But pro scouts are funny people. Size, vertical leap, speed -those are the things that get the exclamation points in their notebooks. In terms of speed -the burst and the breakaway ability, there was a question mark next to Emmitt's name. His time in the 40 while at Florida was 4.55, on synthetic turf. A New York Giants scout reportedly got him at 4.7. Too slow. The Cowboys weren't worried about the speed. They were coming off a 1-15 season and a last-place NFC ranking in team rushing.
Emmitt never misses a workout, not a nick or bump guy who'd miss a lot of practice time, and not a complainer. Emmitt held out in his rookie year for the whole training camp. Still, he was the Cowboys' starting running back by Game 2 of his rookie season. One big day, 121 yards against the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, was about it for his first 11 games, and then he did a strange thing. he complained. Dallas was coming off 2 losses to the N.Y. Jets and the san Francisco 49ers in which he didn't score a touchdown. Emmitt had carried a total of 21 times in those games. He spoke to the backfield coach and then went public on a radio show, saying: "The ball, please, I'd like the ball." In the next 4 games, Emmitt had 88 carries for 374 yards and 7 TDs, and the Cowboys had 4 wins. He ran for 100-plus yards in 2 of the games.
In 1991, Emmitt rushed for over 1,500 yards. In game 2 in a loss to Washington, Emmitt had 11 carries for 112 yards, including a 75-yard touchdown run. In Game 4, he had 23 carries for 182 yards, and a 60-yard touchdown run. The 75-yarder is still his longest run ever. That season, Emmitt had 6 other 100-yard games including 112, 122, 132, 109, 112, 160. That year, Emmitt edged out Detroit Lions star running back Barry Sanders to win his first rushing title with 1,563 yards to Barry Sanders' 1,548 yards. He finished with 12 rushing TDs, and 1 receiving TD.
In 1992, Emmitt won his 2nd straight rushing title with 1,713 yards, his best season. He also lead the league in scoring, 19 TDs, a Cowboys record- 18 rushing, 1 receiving. His longest run was 68 yards. His best day was 174 yards against the Atlanta Falcons on December 21. On that same night, Emmitt's most spectacular run of his career came. When he got the ball, he ran up the middle, about 5 or 6 Falcons piled up on him, he broke out of the pile and ran about 40 yards for a touchdown. That year, Emmitt led the Cowboys to their first Super Bowl since 1979. The Cowboys blew out the Buffalo Bills 52-17. Emmitt had 22 carries for 108 yards and 1 TD. Cowboys quarterback Troy Aikman was Super Bowl XXVII's MVP. Emmitt got his first ring.
In 1993, Emmitt held out the whole training camp and even missed 2 games. The Cowboys lost their first 2 games without him. Then he signed a contract worth $13.6 million over 4 years. When he came back, the Cowboys got a 12-2 record. The final record was 12-4. In Emmitt's first game back he had 8 carries for 45 yards against the Phoenix Cardinals. That season, Emmitt ran for a career-high 237 yards against the Philadelphia Eagles. In that game he got 1 TD when he broke his 62-yard touchdown run. In the other game the Cowboys played against the Eagles, Emmitt ran for 172 more yards. That year, Emmitt went on to win his 3rd straight rushing title with 1,486 yards, due to the knee injury of Barry Sanders of the Detroit Lions. Emmitt also won the league MVP. The Cowboys went back to the Super Bowl and beat Buffalo 30-13. Emmitt was the MVP of Super Bowl XXVIII. It was close between him and safety James Washington. Emmitt got his 2nd ring. Emmitt had 32 carries for 132 yards and 2 TDs. He is the only back in NFL history to win the rushing title and Super Bowl in the same season, and the trifecta (rushing title, NFL MVP, and Super Bowl MVP).
This year, he went over 7,000 career yards (7,109). Emmitt is in 2nd place as one of the Cowboys all-time leading rushers behind Tony Dorsett (12,036). Emmitt trails Tony Dorsett by 4,927 yards. He wants to break former Chicago Bear running back Walter Payton's all-time record of 16,726 yards. he trails Payton by 9,617 yards. The other record Emmitt wanted is held by former Cleveland Browns fullback Jim Brown, which is 5 rushing titles in a row. Emmitt has 3. It doesn't look like he will get his 4th. He is on the verge of being dethroned by Barry Sanders, unless a big miracle can happen. If he gets lucky, he will break Jim Brown's record in his 11th season if he is as good as he is now. If Emmitt was to get 300 yards in the last Cowboys' 2 games, the rushing title is his. He needs a BIG miracle. If it's 1 thing he wants for Christmas that would be it. Emmitt has 74 career touchdowns.
Clearly, Emmitt Smith is THE BEST running back in the NFL, and has the statistics to prove it. He has 3 straight rushing titles, 2 Super Bowl rings, an NFL MVP, a Super Bowl MVP, and 11 NFL records (7 or 8 of them are Cowboy records). Barry Sanders is the best pure runner in the NFL. Compared to Emmitt, he has 1 rushing title (on the verge of 2), the Detroit Lions' all-time leading rusher, and he won the Heisman Trophy in college. Barry Sanders is "poetry in motion". He makes more tacklers miss than any other back. He makes them look bad. He has speed, agility, and strength. He and Emmitt have it good because they are so small. Emmitt is 5-9, 209 lbs. and Barry is 5-8, 203 lbs. Emmitt has power, speed, and agility. He is a heads-up runner with outstanding vision. He has the ability to cut back and go all the way at any time.
I would like to know what exactly Emmitt is doing out there, a guy with a supposed lack of speed who gains all those yards. What is his style? Here are some descriptives: "Frantic hopscotching, barefoot, on a blistering sidewalk." One newspaper wrote "He darts, feints, shifts back and forth like a typewriter carriage." My descriptive is this: He stops in the hole - comes to a complete stop - looks unhurriedly for a seam and skates across the field like a hot dog wrapper. Emmitt has the same vision and awareness Tony Dorsett had. He'll thrill you with his strengths, not speed. He'll go into a pile and come out the other end. I've seen him leave the ground and have to do a hitch step, like a long jumper, and then burst through. He also has the ability to keep his legs clean - he very seldom gets hit with his feet on the ground. That's where you see people get hurt.The yards don't awe him, but he keeps track of them, as he has ever since high school. Every time he scores a touchdown, he keeps the ball.
In the off-season, Emmitt still lives at home in Pensacola with his parents, 3 brothers, and 1 of his 2 sisters. He has a store there called Emmitt, Inc that sells sports collectibles such as cards and jerseys. His parents and 1 of his sisters run the store. He also has a football camp in the off-season for boys ages 8-16. Emmitt, as an individual player, is a lot like the Cowboys as a team - inexorable, indomitable, bound for gretness. He'll take your breath away and you won't get it back until he scores. It is his total package. The thing that turns Emmitt on the most is his desire to be a tremendous player. That's refreshing. It's easy to look at his prolific performance so far and project him as one of the greats, taking into account that he has never had knee surgery and that Dallas has the perfect offense for a back to put up big numbers. Emmitt wants to make a mark on football that few players will ever equal.
Bibliography
The Emmitt Zone
by Emmitt Smith w/Steve Delsohn
Crown Publishing Group
September 6, 1994
25 Most Popular Players In 1994
by Harry Peterson
Collector's Sports Look
December 1994
A Man Of Vision
by Leigh Montville
Sports Illustrated
February 14, 1994
***I mentioned that the 1990 NFL draft was the first that allowed early entry for underclassmen, but it was actually the 1989 draft that was first. Barry Sanders left college after his junior year for the NFL.
***That spectacular touchdown run that Emmitt had against the Falcons in 1992 was actually 29 yards instead of 40 yards.
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