The comeback king: no obstacle��not even a career-threatening stomach ailment in the offseason��has been big enough to stop the indomitable Jimmy Smith

JIMMY SMITH MAKES IT LOOK SO EASY and effortless. Watch the Jacksonville Jaguars wideout, and you'll think he was born to play football.

From 1996 through 2000, he had 450 receptions, more than any other wideout in the league. The only player ever to catch more passes in a five-season span is the great Jerry Rice, who had 524 receptions from 1992 through '96.

Smith is so dependable and reliable that it's easy to take him for granted. And because his only Super Bowl appearance came as a special teams player on the Dallas Cowboys in his rookie season of 1992, he hasn't received a lot of attention on the national stage.

Maybe that's fitting, though. Smith may look like a natural, but his journey through the NFL has been anything but easy and effortless. In fact, he's had to overcome obstacles that would have derailed most players.

This past offseason, Smith was hospitalized three different times for a total of 35 days and underwent surgery three times, twice for scar tissue in his abdomen and once to clear up an infection. Now fully recovered and back to his old pass-catching self, Smith downplays the whole ordeal.

But Smith's coach on the Jaguars, Tom Coughlin, knows better. Says Coughlin, "I was concerned about his life." With good reason. Smith lost about 25 to 30 pounds, creating speculation that he may never return to the field.

He did, of course--and with a bang. Smith had 30 receptions in Jacksonville's first four games and has a chance to catch 100 balls for the second time in his career.

Perhaps Smith was able to take this latest challenge in stride because he has faced so many of them in his career. From day one, he has had to fight an uphill baffle.

The Cowboys drafted Smith in the second round in '92, just when they were starting a run of three Super Bowl titles in a four-year span. He seemed destined to join Michael Irvin as a key to the receiving corps.

But a broken leg he suffered at the start of that season made his rookie year a washout. Then, before the final exhibition game in 1993, he had what was supposed to be a routine appendectomy.

As it turned out, the procedure was anything but routine. After he had his appendix removed, he went home, but the abdominal pain that sent him to the hospital in the first place returned. He also developed a fever. Doctors discovered that his appendix may have leaked, resulting in abscesses.

Smith was treated with antibiotics and underwent surgery to repair a tear in his intestines. Then he underwent a second surgery, spent more than three weeks in the hospital, and returned home wearing a colostomy bag. One doctor told him he might have to wear it for the rest of his life.

As if that weren't bad enough, Cowboys owner Jerry Jones put Smith on the reserve/nonfootball-injury list, meaning the team didn't have to pay him his $350,000 salary. Smith filed a grievance stating that a football hit had contributed to the appendicitis and that he hadn't received adequate treatment when the first symptoms appeared. Smith won the grievance, getting his salary.

Still, Smith couldn't figure out why Jones had fought the case, because his salary probably wasn't much more than the legal fees the Cowboys owner incurred. Jones never really explained his position, and in 1994 he told Smith he'd be waived if he didn't take a pay cut. Smith figured Jones didn't want him anyway, so the wideout declined the pay cut and left Dallas with two Super Bowl rings, even though he had never caught a pass for the team.

The Philadelphia Eagles signed Smith eight days after his release from Dallas, but then they, too, waived him before the 1994 season started. With no other takers, Smith was forced to sit out the '94 season. Smith moved into a place in Dallas with his girlfriend, Sandra Coverson, who's now his wife. He watched a lot of television and did chores around the house while she worked at a bank.

That very well could have been the end of the line for Smith, but then the star-crossed wideout finally caught a break. In 1995 the expansion Jaguars and Carolina Panthers entered the league, and both teams needed players.

Ron Hill, who at the time was Jacksonville's director of pro personnel, remembered Smith. Hill kept calling him, suggesting he work out for the team. Smith wound up making the Jaguars that year, mainly as a backup to Andre Rison, but started only four games.

In 1996, however, Smith's career started to take off. Prior to the 12th game of the season, Rison was released, and Smith moved into the starting lineup. All told, he caught 83 passes that year.

Keenan McCardell also signed with the Jaguars in '96, and he and Smith have gone on to become one of the best pass-catching duos in NFL history. They're only the sixth tandem to each have 1,000 receiving yards in three different seasons (1996, '97, and '00): Cris Carter and Jake Reed did it four times with the Minnesota Vikings to set the record. Last year, Smith and McCardell set an NFL record when they each had 100 yards receiving in the same game for the eighth time, a mark that later was equaled by Carter and Randy Moss.

After last season, Smith seemed to be at the peak of his powers. He had just caught 91 passes and been named to his fourth consecutive Pro Bowl His eyesight even had improved after he underwent cataract surgery in the spring of 2000.

Then last March, Smith started to feel stomach pains. "The light went on, and I started thinking, `What did I eat today?'" Smith recalls. "So I started going back through my head: `Why is my stomach feeling like this? Did I eat anything unusual? Did I eat something that was uncooked and too spicy.'"

He tried over-the-counter remedies like laxatives, but the pain kept getting worse. By 4 a.m. that night, he knew it was time to take a trip to the emergency room. The pain was traced back to his ordeal in Dallas. Sometimes patients who undergo stomach surgery scar heavily, and they need more surgery after a period of years to clear up the affected area.

But when Smith undergoes surgery, bad things tend to happen. True to form, complications arose in the wake of this latest procedure. On top of that, while Smith was in the hospital, his wife gave birth to twins at a different hospital. It pained him that he couldn't be there when his twins were born.

"I wasn't just worried about my wife--I was worried about my whole family," Smith says. "I'm lying there, knowing my family's going through an emotional roller coaster."

As far as football is concerned, Smith says he never doubted that he'd play again. The Jaguars, however, weren't as sure. They even signed Sean Dawkins as an insurance policy.

During his convalescence, Smith felt helpless, passing the time by watching TV and movies, reading books, and working on his laptop computer. He couldn't even eat because he was being fed intravenously. Smith says he never realized how many food commercials there are on TV. He says even dog-food commercials started to look savory. The meal he craved most was pancakes with butter and syrup, and that was the first thing he ate after being released from the hospital.

Then there was that little matter of trying to get back onto the football field. When Smith had a press conference in June, a protective Coughlin, who had visited his wideout frequently in the hospital, said: "You ask the questions. I'll decide whether he answers them."

Coughlin tends to be secretive about injuries, so it was difficult to ascertain whether the coach simply was trying to take charge or genuinely feared that his star player might not be able to make it back from this stomach ailment. Smith, on the other hand, was easy to read: He was resolute. "I'm a professional athlete," he said. "I can recover a lot quicker than the average human being. I work hard. I'm not concerned about it."

When training camp opened in July, Smith wasn't able to practice on a full-time basis. But the Jaguars simply were relieved to have him there. "I told him how happy I was to be able to look across at him eating," McCardell says. "To see him back healthy again means a lot to us as a team and as a friend."

Eventually, Smith gained back the 25 pounds or so he had lost. And by the third exhibition game, against the Kansas City Chiefs, he was in the lineup. Still, the Jaguars were cautious. Quarterback Mark Brunell even joked that Smith could run over the middle all he wanted, but that he wasn't going to throw it to him there and risk an injury.

As it turns out, the Jaguars had no reason to be worried: Smith's first reception was a 27-yarder for a touchdown. And when he went over the middle in the second half, Brunell did throw to him. Cornerback Eric Warfield hit Smith so hard that his helmet popped off, but the wide receiver bounced up with no problem.

Now, at age 32, he is right back where he was when the 2000 season ended: at the top of his game. Just another comeback for Jimmy Smith.

COPYRIGHT 2002 Century Publishing
COPYRIGHT 2001 Gale Group