Blue collar, blue Star.(Emmitt Says Goodbye)(Emmitt Smith)

Let Emmitt Smith tell us how we should remember him. "I see myself as a blue-collar worker, a guy who comes to work every day and works hard," he once said. "A guy who works when he is sick, when he is hurt, who is always there for the team, and a guy you can count on. A guy who is as consistent as they come when it comes down to playing the game. And a guy who really loves the sport.

"I know people think it is about dollars, and that is part of it. But I have played for so long because I love the game. And I love the guys in the locker room. I've gotten a lot of honors, done a lot of things, but when I walk away, I want to know I gave this sport all that I could give it. I could never walk away saying I have shortchanged myself, that I cheated this sport, that I disappointed my teammates. I want to look them in the eye and know that they know I gave everything I had. That is how I want it to be."

Smith finally walked away last week, ending a career unlike any other in NFL history. He walked away a couple of years later than he should have, but he still left with his reputation and his body whole. He walked away as the league's all-time leading rusher, with three Super Bowl rings, never ashamed of any effort he ever gave his teammates or his bosses.

He certainly did not shortchange us. This guy was strong and gritty and relentless, earning most of those 18,355 yards the hard way, between the tackles, in the engine room of football where nothing is very pretty and everything is determined by guts, strength and determination.

This is where Smith thrived. He now is a symbol of athletic wealth. Yet he never was a glamorous player blessed with open-field elegance or dazzling hips. His was the labor of a grinder, carry after carry, game alter game, season after season, always punching in that timecard, obsessed with proving not only his talent but his dependability.

His was a game of will, an unexpected starting point for a running back. You might have expected him to depend more on finesse than macho, but that wasn't Smith. This was a man's game, and his success would be determined not by avoiding toughness but by cultivating it. Yet amid all the contact and clutter, he practiced deception to the max.

He would feast on the heart of the defense by frustrating his foes. He spent his career setting up tacklers, making them think he would be running through one hole when, all the while, he really planned a quick cut and a dart through an opening a few yards away. To appreciate his craft, you need to watch him in super slomo; so subtle and quick are his illusionary tricks within this tight space. A little flick of the hips, the flinch of his head, the twitch of a foot ... masterful deception in a violent world, finished off by blowing through an arm tackle or bouncing off an overmatched defender.