Dash in the Pan : Former Redskin Back Tim Smith Still Trying to Prove That ‘the Game’--Super Bowl XXII--Wasn’t a Fluke

Even now, four teams, three leagues, a thousand innuendoes and five seasons later, Tim Smith still sees only open field before him, and hears only the thunder of his own feet.

That is all Jan. 31, 1988, comes down to for him, the day a star was born, and the day he has been trying, unsuccessfully, to duplicate ever since.

But when you’ve dazzled the world in your first NFL start, which happened to be the Super Bowl, what else is there but one long, frustrating epilogue?

“I can remember that ‘counter-gap’ play,� Smith says of his 58-yard touchdown run in the game. “I think every team in the NFL and at the college level is running that play now.

“I close my eyes and the only thing I can see is Joe Jacoby and Raleigh McKenzie pulling in front of me and nothing left ahead of me but hole.�

Some walls have sprung up in front of him since that day, and a career that began with a bang has turned into a five-year odyssey.

In the 22nd edition of the game, Smith, a practically unknown rookie running back, got a surprise start and rushed for a Super Bowl-record 204 yards in the Washington Redskins’ 42-10 victory over the Denver Broncos.

Quarterback Doug Williams was voted the most valuable player that day, but Smith was clearly the most surprising.

A year later, he was cast out of the Redskins’ plans. And two years later, he was out of the league.

Now, Smith is planning an NFL comeback via the infant Professional Spring Football League’s New Mexico Rattlesnakes, whose training camp opens Jan. 27.

That is one day after the Redskins will play the Buffalo Bills in Super Bowl XXVI, Washington’s first Super Bowl appearance since Smith was blowing through Denver’s defense.

“I’m anxious to get out there and give it all I’ve got and try to make myself feel better about myself,� Smith says. “Is it my last chance? I don’t put it that way. I just hope it’s the last one I need.�

Smith came into the NFLwith a high degree of physical potential after sitting out his final two seasons at Texas Tech because of injuries. He was 5 feet 11 and slightly overweight.

He left the NFL in 1990 with most of the league’s general managers believing that he had been a one-game wonder, an immature, lazy kid who associated with suspected drug dealers.

In 1988, the season after his dramatic coming-out party, the Redskins planned to use him as their No. 1 tailback, easing out veteran George Rogers. But after gaining at least 100 yards in each of his first three games, Smith fell back into long-held antipathy toward hard work and practice, removing himself

quickly from Coach Joe Gibbs’ good graces.

There were rumors about Smith’s long nights and drinking, and even darker rumors about cocaine use.

“Naturally, we all were feeling very excited about his possibilities,� says Steve Endicott, who was Smith’s agent then. “But the whole time, the Redskins always had concerns about his work habits, the way he practiced, everything.

“The whole time, they liked his talent, but there always was a concern that the Super Bowl was an aberration, one game, a one-time thing. And that’s, of course, what it turned out to be.

“Bobby (Beathard, the former Redskin general manager) told me about some concerns they had that he was partying too much and thought he was probably using the white stuff. But when it came down to it, he always had a good excuse--’I’m not partying as much as they say, it’s all OK, there’s no problems.’

“I don’t know if he had a drug problem--I’m not saying he was an addict--but I do know he spent a lot of money.�

Smith has never tested positive in the many drug tests teams have administered to him.

When the Redskins left him unprotected in the 1989 Plan B free-agent period--exactly one season after his Super Bowl heroics--no team was willing to give him a signing bonus, and only the San Diego Chargers offered him a solid contract.

He signed with them, but after having been seen with a known drug dealer after a preseason practice, Smith was gone.

“It’s amazing, you know,� says Smith, who chalks up Endicott’s comments as bitterness over being fired by Smith in 1989.

“You look at it, and the guys who are doing drugs, they don’t catch them. . . . I don’t do it. I don’t even know what the stuff looks like. Yet once some rumor starts, everybody’s sure I do. It sticks with you, like a hole in your back, and I couldn’t get it off of me.�

Smith, acting as his own agent, tried out for and won a job with the Dallas Cowboys during the 1990 exhibition season as a fullback, but was moved to tailback for the regular-season opener, then was released as soon as No. 1 pick Emmitt Smith signed.

He talked about joining the Orlando Thunder of the new World League of American Football last spring but lost interest when he learned that he would be paid only $20,000, and worked briefly as a health club greeter in the Dallas area.

Then in July, he hooked up with agent Eric Metz. They decided to get him into the spring league this year to prove to wary NFL general managers that, at 27, he is mature enough, sound enough and determined enough to make it all the way back.

Smith has been assigned to New Mexico because his permanent home is in Hobbs, N.M., where he is still remembered as one of the two best high school football players, along with Jim Everett, in the state’s history.

Smith soon will have his chance to show some vaguely interested NFL teams that he has not quit.

“You know, Timmy’s wanting to play some ball still,� says Jim Popp, the spring league’s director of player personnel. “He wants a second chance to prove he can play. We want to give him that opportunity.

“He performed one of the most spectacular rushing performances ever in a Super Bowl, and his name stands out from that. He kind of fell to the wayside, but we feel bringing him back home to Albuquerque will do him good and will do the league good.�

But even the optimistic Popp has to deal with reality.

“Timmy, I hope he’s been working hard,� Popp says. “He wasn’t in the best shape in October during our combine workouts in Atlanta. But he’s had a good hard three months to train, and if he comes to camp in decent shape . . . “

Smith acknowledged that he was 15 pounds overweight in October, up to 230 pounds. He says he is at about 220 now and has been working out with former teammates Eric Yarber and Reggie Branch in the Washington area and will be ready to go Jan. 27.

“He had some answers he had to face about being out of shape, about his work ethic,� says Metz, who said he had heard all the rumors about Smith before signing him on. “And I think he’s done that, just looking at it as a chance, one more time, with his back to wall.

“You know, Timmy never had involvement in those kinds of things, wasn’t involved with drugs. That’s an easy way for people to make excuses for not taking him--’Oh, he’s a druggie.’ But you have to separate myth from reality.

“He did not have a quality work ethic. He was lazy. And that’s it. Timmy faced it up front--it was immaturity and a poor work ethic two years ago. And the problem’s solved, let’s move ahead with his life. But NFL teams need to see it. He needs to prove it to them because he’s been out too long.�

Metz simply wants to see Smith play hard during the league’s 16-game schedule. Then, he is sure, he can land Smith in an NFL training camp next summer. And from there, who knows?

Smith says he feels better now than he has in a while, and suggests that being out of the game for two years makes him a better, not worse, prospect for the pros.

“That’s what I think about, by me sitting out might’ve helped my career out,� he says. “That’s two years of not getting hit. But the way the NFL is, every team seems to be trying to find a younger guy, 23, 24, but that’s not what it’s all about.

“Look at this year’s Redskins. That’s why they’re going to the Super Bowl again. They’ve got a very experienced team. It doesn’t matter how old those guys are, they’re still producing.�

Smith says he is not bitter toward the Redskins, although he does hint that Beathard and Endicott have instigated a league-wide boycott. Beathard denied the charge to Sports Illustrated last year.

“Players blackball themselves,� Beathard told the magazine. “It’s easy to use somebody else as an excuse. . . . If he’s a good player and can help a team, nobody is going to listen to me. The Cowboys didn’t ask me once about Timmy Smith. Timmy is his own worst enemy.

“I didn’t blackball Timmy. Timmy blackballed himself.�

Says Smith: “I didn’t do anything wrong. The only thing I did was . . . hung out with the fellas. If I had it to do over, I think I would just be more subtle to myself, not go out and show your face as much. That way people think you’re a night owl or something.�

Endicott says Smith’s actions, not anyone else’s words, have kept him out of the league.

“The only thing that made him different is what happened in that Super Bowl,� Endicott says. “That just made everybody focus on Timmy Smith. Otherwise, he’s just another guy who didn’t make it, another OK player who didn’t last very long, who had a few good games, who is gone now.

“He was nothing special, I’d say. He had a great game--and you do know he had some holes to run through--but he was just always more interested in partying.

“What was he thinking about after that game? He might’ve been just looking forward to his next party.�

Timmy Smith, New Mexico Rattlesnake, says he will watch the Redskins in the Super Bowl, and that he will have warm memories when he sees Jacoby and Art Monk and all the other long-time Redskins return to the big game.

Smith quickly and sharply denies that his Super Bowl ring from that game has been hocked, as goes yet another rumor. Smith says that the ring that was returned to the Redskins after being sold was receiver Charlie Brown’s, and that his is still in a safe-deposit box in a bank in Hobbs.

“Man, that’s something that’s yours all your life,� Smith says. “No matter what you do, whatever you do, you can’t lose that. I didn’t sell that ring.

“It’s a thing that I will cherish all of my life. I played in a Super Bowl, and we won it, and I came out and did the best I could possibly do to help the team win the game.

“A lot of people ask me what happened after that, and I guess it was a couple of things. I can’t really pinpoint what it was. . . . A lot had to do with the front office and all that. But I’m not going to talk about all that. I’m just going to go out, like a newborn baby, go out there and can’t afford to let anyone stop me.�

Says Metz: “Even if he doesn’t make it back, he’s shown me a hell of a lot as a person. He could have easily copped out, given up, said, ‘Everybody’s given up on me, I’ve been blackballed, I quit.’

“He didn’t do that. He’s stood up and fought like a man. He will be in an NFL training camp in July. This is a question of a kid who doesn’t feel like going through the rest of his life going, ‘Could have, should have, would have.’

“If Buster Douglas had his heart, he’d come back and fight Evander Holyfield again and prove he wasn’t a fluke. But Buster, he’ll fade into obscurity. Timmy’s not that kind of guy. He wants to come back and fight his own Holyfield again.�

It will begin in the Professional Spring Football League, and Smith, four years after his greatest moment, can’t help but joke about that.

“Coach Gibbs, after the Super Bowl, he was always telling me I’d get another chance,� Smith says, laughing. “I don’t think I ever got one, unless he meant the next chance was going to be the PSFL. Hey, if he did, he’s smarter than I thought.�