By Mike Pound
Globe columnist
mpound@joplinglobe.com
If Rod Smith is upset that his long professional football career may be coming to an end, he’s doing a good job of hiding his emotions.
“The last thing I am is upset,” he said. “From where I started from, I’ve already won. I started with nothing. Period.”
Not only did Rod come from a decidedly humble economic background — “My mom raised five kids on $6,000 a year,” he said — but he also entered the NFL in 1994 as free-agent wide receiver from a relatively unknown Division II football program. His chances of making it through his first professional training camp, let alone becoming a legitimate candidate for the NFL Hall of Fame, were longer than the odds that Big Brown would finish last in the Belmont Stakes.
“It (his first professional training camp with the Denver Broncos) was a little intimidating,” Rod said. “Here I was from Missouri Southern, and there were all these guys from schools like USC, Notre Dame and Stanford. They look at you different. It was tough.”
I asked Rod how intimidating it was to try to catch a John Elway pass during that first training camp, and he laughed.
“When you start out like I did, you don’t get to catch passes from John,” he said. “You have to get them from whoever you can.”
Rod, after undergoing two hip surgeries in the past year and a half, is on the Broncos’ reserve/retired list but has yet to officially announce his retirement. There is an outside chance, he said, that he might play again this year, but he doesn’t seem hung up on the idea.
“After 14 years of football, I’m tired,” he acknowledged.
I spoke with Rod last Friday at his annual golf tournament to benefit Missouri Southern State University. As we stood on the fairway at Briarbrook Country Club in Carl Junction, talking about how far he has come, I asked Rod if, as a kid, he ever envisioned a life that would allow him to play golf at private clubs around the country.
He laughed.
“Man, the closest I came to golf was when we would play baseball with a golf ball and a broken table leg,” Rod said. “You would throw the golf ball to whoever was swinging the table leg and get out of the way.”
It is, I think, those memories of his humble background that keep Rod connected with Missouri Southern. Over the years, he has consistently credited the university for much of his success. It was his MSSU football coach, the late Jon Lantz, who convinced the shy, skinny kid from the projects of Texarkana, Ark., that he could become a standout player. Jon, Rod said, also taught him about life off the football field.
“I think about Coach Lantz every day,” Rod said.
As good as Rod was on the football field at MSSU, he was no slouch in the classroom either. Rod has three undergraduate degrees from Southern.
“I’ve had great people help me along the way,” he said. “I’ve been lucky to have a great support system.”
Without that support system, Rod doubts that he would be standing on a country club golf course talking about his professional football career. He remembers the people who believed in him. The people who told him he had value. The people who told him to never doubt himself.
The lessons those people taught Rod are lessons he tries to pass on to others. He likes to talk to folks. He likes to talk about hard work and discipline. And he likes to talk about treating everyone, no matter who they are, with respect and dignity.
“One of the things I tell my kids is what matters is how you treat people who can’t do anything for you,” he said.
I didn’t get the impression, talking to Rod, that he has many regrets. He’s had you basic great NFL career. He’s played longer and made more money than he ever could have imagined. He sounds like a guy who is eager to open a new chapter in his life.
He sounds like a guy who beat the odds.
Like a guy who won.
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Mike Pound: Humble background keeps NFL star connected to MSSU
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