Smith's heart is as great as the pain in his shoulder

Should somebody ever ask what it means to play hurt, tell them about Emmitt Smith. He played in a world of hurt Sunday. He played more than half a game with a seperated shoulder. He ran with the football, and he caught the football, and those are not the easiest things to do when your collarbone pulls away from your shoulder blade. You ever try doing anything with a shoulder that's just been seperated? There is limited range of motion and pain, a lot of pain.
Smith had pain, a lot of pain.
Yet he played on.
"Several people tried convicing him to come out" siad Norv Turner, the Dallas Cowboys' offensive coordinator. "But he wouldn't."
He wouldn't because it was a big game, and Emmitt Smith could stand pain a whole lot better than he could stand not playing in a big game.
So, he played hurt. And he played hellacious.
"My heart is as big as the world," Smith said, and he wasn't far from the truth.
He got hurt late in the first half against the New York Giants in the game that would determine who would win the NFC East title and home-field advantage through the playoffs, and also decide who has to play the Vikings in a wild-card game. He had just run 46 yards to the Giants' 36-yard line when a defensive back name of Greg Jackson climbed on his back and drove his right shoulder into artificial turf that is only slightly softer than asphalt. He suffered a Grade I seperation. There are worse grades of separation, but it still hurt, and it hurt bad.
At halftime, a harness was put under his shoulder pad, and a kneepad was taped to his shoulder for extra padding, and there was even an Ace bandage up under there to keep everything from unraveling, including his shoulder.
"I wanted to win that game very badly", Smith said
His arm was in sling. His shoulder was throbbing.
"The pain I have in my shoulder now," he said, "I can't describe it. It's unbelievable.
"When I hurt my shoulder, they asked me if I wanted to come out. I said, 'I don't want to come out for nothing.' You hear about guys playing hurt. I wanted to be a guy who played hurt and was effective."
Once Smith said he wasn't leaving the game, nobody babied him. The Cowboys kept feeding him the ball, and he kept coming up with big plays. He rushed for 168 yards in the game, 59 of them after he got hurt. Four of his 10 receptions came after the seperation. In the final drive in overtime, he handled the ball nine times and almost single-handedly - or it is single-shoulderedly? - set up the game-winning field goal in the Cowboys' 16-13 victory.
The Cowboys had 339 total yards. Smith got 229 of them.
"Every time I carried the ball, every time I came off the field, I was really hurting," Smith said.
He came off the field several times, his right arm dangling agaisnt his body. A play later, he'd be back.
"Not a whole lot he does surprises me anymore," Troy Aikman said. "A while back. he'd do things that would blow your mind. Now you take it in stride.
That is what Smith did with his injury. He took it in stride. His right arm is important to him in games. He uses it a lot to push tacklers away. But he couldn't raise it after the injury, not without a considerable amount of pain. Alot of the time, he kept his arm in close to his body and hugged the ball with his left arm. But when he had to catch the ball, he raised his right arm, and when he had to elude a tackler just before the game winning kick, he straight-armed the guy.
"That last carry when I used a stiff arm, I didn't think. I just reacted," Smith said, "I knew what it would take for us to win. That last drive, I knew we had to get it done."
So he lifted his arm and raised the level of pain in his shoulder, and he striaght-armed a defensive player. And when someone asks what it means to play hurt, you tell them about Emmitt Smith.



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