One Super Day And Little Else

Imagine this scenario: An unknown running back makes his first professional start on Sunday at Qualcomm Stadium and rips through the Denver Broncos’ defense for a Super Bowl record.

Sound farfetched?

Ten years ago, the last time the Super Bowl was played in San Diego, Timmy Smith did just that. Stepping in at the last minute for an ailing George Rogers, the rookie from Texas Tech ran for 204 yards to help the Washington Redskins thrash the Broncos, 42-10.

Then, as quickly as Smith popped into the national spotlight, he disappeared.

The next season he reported to training camp overweight and was quickly relegated to backup duty by coach Joe Gibbs, who cut him after the season. Smith landed in Dallas in 1990, where he had six carries before being cut by coach Jimmy Johnson. He worked at a Dallas health club, and then found employment with the New Mexico Rattlesnakes of the Professional Spring Football League in 1992 and the Canadian Football League’s Baltimore Colts franchise in 1994.

Today, Smith lives in the shadows, wanted in his home state of New Mexico by authorities for not paying child support.

His older brother, Mike, the basketball coach at Las Cruces High School in New Mexico, said last week that he believes that Smith is living in Denver with one of his five other brothers, but he’s not sure.

“I’ve been trying to get in touch with him, too,” Mike Smith said. “But if Tim doesn’t want to talk, you won’t find him.”

Smith’s plunge into anonymity is not the only story of a Super Bowl hero turning into a one-hit wonder. Former TCU and Cowboys cornerback Larry Brown has had a similar experience. In the 1996 Super Bowl, Brown made two drive-killing interceptions off Pittsburgh Steelers quarterback Neil O’Donnell and was selected the game’s most valuable player.

He parlayed that career highlight into signing a $5 million free-agent contract with the Oakland Raiders in the off-season. But he started just one game for Oakland during the 1996 season and spent this past season stuck on the bench and feuding with management.

Like Brown, Smith’s emergence as a Super Bowl hero was a shock. He got little attention in the enormous pregame buildup. Unlike Brown, however, he wasn’t even expecting to play. And he never came close to duplicating the performance again. He would later describe Jan. 31, 1988, as “the day of my life.”

There was little reason for Denver to build a game plan around stopping Smith. In the regular season, he gained only 122 total yards. In the Super Bowl, he totaled 122 net yards in the second quarter alone, a span during which the Redskins scored five touchdowns to obliterate Denver’s 10-0 first-quarter advantage.

Quarterback Doug Williams, recently hired to succeed Eddie Robinson as head coach at Grambling, threw for a record 340 yards and was voted MVP.

Smith was a 5-foot-11, 220-pounder with natural power and deceptive speed and quickness. He wasn’t poetry in motion, but he made quite a first impression.

“I didn’t know who Timmy Smith was,” confessed Fox TV analyst Howie Long, then a member of the Los Angeles Raiders. “Now, I don’t think I’ll ever forget him.”

Smith wasn’t really a college star, either. A highly recruited football and basketball player out of Hobbs, N.M., he chose to attend nearby Texas Tech, and seemed ready to blossom when he gained 711 yards as a sophomore. But he tore knee ligaments after the fifth game of his junior season, and broke his ankle in practice after the first game of his senior season.

As a result, Smith was clearly a high-risk proposition for NFL teams. Scouts were also advised that Smith might have difficulty mastering the complex offensive schemes of pro football. Another problem was his personal life, a frequent distraction in college. By the time he was playing in Lubbock, he had fathered two children with no financial means to support them.

Washington was one of the few NFL teams to call Smith for a tryout, on the recommendation of an assistant coach who had seen him play as a sophomore.

“He was everything we heard he was,” said Don Breaux, a Carolina Panthers assistant who was a Washington assistant coach from 1981 to 1993. “He was a big kid, but he had a lot of speed to go with it.”

Washington chose Smith in the fifth round of the 1987 draft. It looked like a wise choice in the preseason, when Smith earned a roster spot after gaining a team-leading 234 yards. Once the regular season started, he bided his time as a backup to Rogers, a Heisman Trophy winner.

When Rogers was hobbled by an injured foot in the playoffs, Smith got his chance. He gained 66 yards off the bench against the Chicago Bears followed by 72 yards on 13 carries against Minnesota in the NFC championship game.

Washington’s offensive line - the vaunted veterans known as the “Hogs” - were told early during Super Bowl week that Smith would start. But the coaches never publicly discussed it and didn’t tell Smith in order to lessen his anxiety.

As the team was preparing to run through the tunnel to the playing field, Breaux called Smith aside and told him he would start.

“It was a total shock to me,” Smith said in a 1992 interview with The Washington Post. “I guess they waited so they wouldn’t shell-shock me all week. I really thought I’d be spending most of that game standing on the sidelines and cheering.”

Smith broke a 58-yard scoring run, the third of Washington’s record five TDs in a second-quarter span of only 18 plays. For the game, the Redskins rolled up 602 yards of total offense, also a record.

Smith never came close to matching his Super Bowl performance. He gained just 470 yards the next season, averaging only 3 yards per carry. Gibbs released him after the season.

He hoped to get back into the NFL spotlight, but never did.

He did make it back into headlines, though, in 1994, when New Mexico’s Child Care Enforcement Bureau issued a list of 25 fathers it termed its “Most Wanted for Failure to Pay Child Support.” Timmy Smith was No. 1 on the list, with an indebtedness of more than $70,000.

After that, Smith disappeared from public view.

“No matter what Timmy does the rest of his life,” Breaux said, “they’ll never be able to take that day away from him.”