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During Emmitt Smith's contract holdout with the Dallas Cowboys at the start of the 1993 season,
the team's owner, Jerry Jones, said, "Emmitt Smith is a luxury, not a necessity for the Dallas
Cowboys."
After the Cowboys lost their first two games that season, Jones made sure Smith's name was on the
dotted line. It seems that winning was a luxury Dallas couldn't afford to do without. Even after
signing Smith, there was still the fact that no team had ever won the Super Bowl after starting
out 0-2, another record Smith helped break.
He has broken records wherever he's been and done it fast. Smith shattered virtually every record
at Escambia High School in Pensacola, Flordia. He did the same at the University of Flordia,
breaking the single game rushing record in his first start as a freshman in an upset of Alabama in
1987. He broke the 1,000-yard barrier in seven games. By the end of his junior year, it was off
to the NFL. Dallas traded up in the draft for a shot at Smith, and selected him with the
seventeenth overall pick.
After his rookie year, he began a remarkable streak of 1,000-yard seasons, punctuated with double-digit
touchdown totals. Smith led the league in rushing four times and was the top scorer in the NFL
in 1992, 1994, and 1995. He's played in four NFC Championship Games and three Super Bowls, and
he was named the MVP following the Cowboys' 30-13 victory over Buffalo in Super Bowl XXVIII.
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