Sports revolve around statistics as generally the best way to gauge something, be it the greatest who ever played or as a measuring stick for everyone else. While stats are not always foolproof — the evolution of training, equipment and changes in playing rules, among other factors, make apples-to-apples comparisons between eras tricky — there are some accomplishments that transcend time.
Last year, Fox Sports listed the 10 most unbreakable records in sports, a list that included Cal Ripken’s 2,632 consecutive games played for MLB’s Baltimore Orioles; swimmer Michael Phelps’ 28 Olympic medals, 23 of them gold; NFL Hall of Famer Jerry Rice’s 22,895 receiving yards and NHL legend Wayne Gretzky’s 2,857 career points and 1,963 career assists.
Ranking fourth on that distinguished list: Emmitt Smith, holder of the most career rushing yards in NFL history. Smith’s 18,355 rushing yards, more than 10 miles in total, came over 226 games in 15 seasons, including a record 11 consecutive 1,000-yard campaigns for the Dallas Cowboys.
As the football gods had it, the season that ended the streak — 2002, his last in Dallas, by a mere 25 yards — was the one in which Smith passed Chicago Bears great Walter Payton, otherwise known as “Sweetness,” for his place in the record books. By the time he hung up his cleats, Smith held a dozen NFL records, including 164 rushing touchdowns and 5 rushing TDs in Super Bowl play, and owned three championship rings for Super Bowls XXVII, XXVIII and XXX.
In fact, the only time Smith appears to be second in his career comes in 2026, when he will be the Week 2 speaker on the Little Rock Touchdown Club’s roster. Smith will be on hand Aug. 31 at the Doubletree Hotel in downtown Little Rock. Doors open at 11 a.m.
“Every year, I say the lineup is the best we’ve ever had, and every year, we find a way to top ourselves,” said David Bazzel, former Razorback, current media personality and founder of the club. “We have a tradition of reserving the first week for the Hogs’ head coach, and after that, we get into our lineup, and boy, what a way to kick that off this year.
“Emmitt Smith has done just about everything a football player can do in a career, starting with the rushing record, which is something that may never be broken. During the Cowboys’ last heyday period in the 1990s, there was no bigger star in the NFL than he was. Knowing how many Cowboys fans there are here in Arkansas, this is going to get our speaker series off to a really fast start.”
(Photo courtesy of
Pro Football Hall of Fame)
A STAR IS BORN
Emmitt James Smith III was born and raised in Pensacola, Florida, on May 15, 1969. Following graduation from Escambia High School, he landed at the University of Florida, where, over three seasons, he amassed nearly 4,000 rushing yards over 31 games for a gaudy average of 127 yards per game. He also had nearly 60 receptions for another 463 yards, as reported by Sports Reference.
In 1990, a rebuilding Dallas Cowboys franchise drafted Smith 17th overall. He played in all 16 games, 15 as a starter, during a rookie season that would see him gain 937 yards on the ground, 228 yards receiving and a combined 11 TDs. He would ultimately be voted AP Offensive Rookie of the Year.
For four of the following five seasons, Smith outrushed the league, the high-water mark coming in 1995, when he racked up 1,773 rushing yards, 111 rushing yards per game, 25 rushing scores and 2,148 yards from scrimmage, personal single-season records that also led all running backs.
As much as all those numbers mean to Dallas Cowboys fans, they all pale next to the mark he set in a 17-14 home loss to the Seattle Seahawks on October 27, 2002.
Photo: Instagram emmittsmith22
A SWEET ACCOMPLISHMENT
By then, the team’s glamour days, gilded by himself and Hall of Fame teammates Troy Aikman, quarterback, and wideout Michael Irvin, both of whom had retired, were gone and the ‘Boys were rebuilding. The biggest record in football would happen during a decidedly mediocre stretch in team history.
Smith’s eclipsing Payton’s 25-year-old record of 16,726 yards that season was all but a certainty from the first game. He entered the year needing just 540 rushing yards to do it, roughly half of what he would produce year in and year out for 14 of his 15 seasons. Barring injury, it was a question of when, not if.
Therein lies the rub: As a 2024 retrospective by The Dallas Morning News noted, the Seattle game was the last home stand for the Cowboys before two road contests and a bye week. Coming into it with just 93 yards to go, the game would, for all intents and purposes, be Smith’s last chance to set the record before a home crowd.
“Let me just say that it was a big opportunity, and knowing that if I did not do it in Dallas that we were going to be on the road for the next couple of weeks, I would have to break it on the road, which is something that I didn’t really want to do,” he told the The Dallas Morning News. “I was committed, and I brought every bit of energy that I could possibly muster at the age of 33 into that game, trying to do whatever I could to make it happen in Texas Stadium.”
Photo: Instagram emmittsmith22
In anticipation of the event, whenever it came, Smith’s management team purchased extra helmets and jerseys and ordered more cleats so he could change during the game. Some of the items would go to the Pro Football Hall of Fame, the paper reported. A NFL Films camera crew was on hand as he neared the mark to capture, seemingly, his every step. Media coverage all started on the same note, his chase of Sweetness.
As the frustrating season wore on — the Cowboys were just 3-4 coming into that game and would finish the season 5-11 for the third straight year — the hoopla eventually started to get to everyone.
“I’ll just be honest with you, man, and, you know, hopefully Emmitt doesn’t get offended by this, but I could give a [expletive] about that record,” Darren Woodson, Cowboys safety and the team’s all-time leading tackler told The Dallas Morning News. “I mean, we sucked. We were a bad football team. We were demoralized. The culture within our organization was in a shamble. My thought process — it wasn’t on Emmitt breaking the record. Matter of fact, I thought it was a distraction to what we were trying to get accomplished as far as trying to get a win.”
“It was just so much focus and energy. I know that everybody was ready to get it over with,” said Pam Oliver, Fox Sports broadcaster who covered the game. “Everybody’s like ‘Get it over with. Get it over with.’ I think it’s one of those situations where the offensive line wanted it done, of course, Emmitt wanted it done, and then you can kind of focus on the task at hand.”
The Seattle matchup lined up well for the record run to conclude as the Seahawks fielded the worst run defense in the league that year. However, in the previous week’s loss to Arizona, Smith mustered only 82 yards on 22 carries, so nothing was assured.
As it happened, by the end of the first quarter, Smith had more than half of what he needed. The play everyone had paid to see came midway through the fourth quarter, when, on 2nd and 7 from the Dallas 30, Smith darted between the guard and tackle and ran 11 yards into immortality.
“It’s the most unreachable football record,” longtime Cowboys play-by-play announcer Brad Sham told ESPN in 2022. “I think the only thing that I could really correlate it to would be [Major League Baseball pitcher] Cy Young winning 511 games, and second on the list is Walter Johnson at 417. … No one’s going to pitch long enough or enough innings to get anywhere near Cy Young, and no one’s ever going to carry the ball enough to get anywhere near Emmitt.
Photo: Instagram emmittsmith22
A RUSHER’S RETIREMENT
After Smith’s history-making season, the running back landed in Arizona as a free agent, where he would spend two middling years toting the ball for the Cardinals. In 2005, he announced his retirement from the game.
He left having been named an All Pro four times and All NFC five times, both categories earned consecutively, and was named to eight Pro Bowls. He was named NFC and league Offensive Player of the Year, as well as the league’s Most Valuable Player in 1993 and MVP of Super Bowl XXVIII in 1994.
“I’ve given everything I can to the game on and off the field,” he said at the time, describing his career as “a tremendous ride.”
Life after football has been a mix of broadcast work and accolades. Smith was enshrined, along with Aikman and Irvin, into the Dallas Cowboys Ring of Honor in 2005 and was the last of the trio to enter the Pro Football Hall of Fame, inducted in 2010 in his first year of eligibility. Team owner and Arkansas native Jerry Jones presented him that day, calling him “Dallas Cowboys royalty. He’s NFL royalty.”
“Emmitt Smith evokes in my heart and in my mind God’s will of taking advantage of every gift that you’ve been given,” Jones said in his remarks. “He hasn’t left a yard on the table of his life.”
AY Media Group President and Publisher Heather Baker with Emmitt Smith (Photo by Ryan Parker)
Howdy, Arkansas
Smith never suited up against the Hogs, since Arkansas did not join the SEC until 1992. He has also never previously appeared at the LRTDC, although he did serve as grand marshal of the World’s Shortest St. Patrick’s Day Parade in Hot Springs two years ago.
As Bazzel noted, Smith’s rookie appearance joins a long line of Cowboys luminaries on the club dais, 16 in all, a roster that includes Irvin, Tony Dorsett, Cliff Harris, Randy White, Ed “Too Tall” Jones, Roger Staubach and Jimmy Johnson, among others. Smith, the greatest of them all, is sure to pack the house come end of August.
“I was counted out many times in my years here, and I’m probably still counted out,’’ Smith said in an interview after setting the record, “but I believe truly in my own ability. I believe my talent stacks up with the next man. I’m very confident I’m one of the best to ever play the game, but once you talk about the greatest, how can you define greatest?’’
Jones answered the question definitively during an on-field awards ceremony following Smith’s accomplishment.
“There’s only one NFL rushing champion,” Jones said then, presenting his star with a silver football, “and there’s only one Emmitt Smith.’’
For tickets or to become a member of Little Rock Touchdown Club, visit lrtouchdown.com. AY Media Group is proud to once again serve as media sponsor for LRDTC.
