FRISCO, Texas -- Emmitt Smith had a way of speaking things into existence.
Before he even played a game for the Dallas Cowboys, he told Michael Irvin he would become the NFL's all-time leading rusher by the time his career was finished.
Irvin was entering his third season with the Cowboys, who had mustered a mere four wins in his first two years. He couldn't believe what Smith was saying. Irvin said he wanted the running back to just worry about winning one game.
"He said he wanted to win rushing titles, and he did that. He said he wanted to win MVPs, and he did that. His last goal, which I thought was a fantasy, was to become the all-time leading rusher in the NFL. And today he did that," Irvin said the day Smith broke Walter Payton's record for rushing yards (16,726) in 2002.
Sitting in the Rose Bowl on Jan. 25, 1987, to watch Super Bowl XXI between the New York Giants and Denver Broncos as a result of being named the Gatorade National Player of the Year in his senior season at Pensacola's Escambia High School, Smith looked at his high school quarterback, Johnny Nichols, whom he took with him on the trip.
"I had this sense of visualizing myself on the football field doing exactly what the teams were doing: playing in the Super Bowl, the daddy of all bowls," Smith told ESPN recently in an interview. "And I turned to my best friend, Johnny Nichols, and I say, 'Man, one of these days, I want to play in the Super Bowl. And I want to play in this stadium.'
"Little would I know that fate would have it, six years later, I play with the Dallas Cowboys, and we're playing in our very first Super Bowl [of the era], 1993, in Pasadena, California."
The Cowboys started their three-championship dynasty with a 52-17 win against the Buffalo Bills in Super Bowl XXVII. The first Super Bowl touchdown of Smith's career was just a small piece of the Cowboys' annihilation of the Bills on a picture-perfect day at the Rose Bowl.
His 10-yard run was typical Smith, shrugging off a couple of defenders before going through one more at the goal line to give the Cowboys a 45-17 lead.
"Because remember, I'm a goal setter. I've got to score a touchdown in the Super Bowl. Why not? Everybody else is scoring one -- let me be a part of this party," Smith said.
Smith would total four more TDs in the Cowboys' wins in Super Bowls XXVIII and XXX. He was named the MVP of Super Bowl XXVIII against the Bills, finishing with 132 yards and two touchdowns on 30 carries.
Smith's five rushing touchdowns are the most by a player in Super Bowl history. Only receiver Jerry Rice, who played in Super Bowls with the 49ers and Raiders, has more total touchdowns (eight). Smith is also the only player who scored two touchdowns in two Super Bowls (XXVIII, XXX).
After becoming the NFL's all-time leading rusher in 2002, he finished his career two seasons later with 18,355 yards, a record that might never be broken considering how the game is played today. Among active players, Baltimore's Derrick Henry, 32, is closest (13,018), while Philadelphia's Saquon Barkley, 29, is next (8,356), nearly 10,000 yards behind Smith.
Javonte Williams, the Cowboys' current lead running back, met Smith for the first time at June's mandatory minicamp. Every day as Williams sits in the running back room at The Star, Smith is peering over his shoulder -- or at least a picture of the Hall of Famer on the wall is.
Williams is awed by what Smith did.
"They were trying to explain it and I said, 'No, you don't have to explain anything,'" Williams said. "I know who he is. It speaks for itself."
