Sunday, May 06, 2001
Bengals' pick just a hard-workin' boy from the heartland
By Mark Curnutte
The Cincinnati Enquirer
Smith
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COLUMBIA, Mo. — Two balloons, one black and the other orange — Bengals colors — were tied with string to the white mail box. They were the landmark for the 60 people who came to send off Justin Smith at a Sunday afternoon barbecue. The Bengals' first-round draft pick would leave in a few days for Cincinnati.
Guests parked at the end of a long gravel drive in a horse pasture. Smith used to mow it when he worked for Brian Neuner, the former TV sportscaster-turned banker who owns the 17-acre country homestead.
Four tables stood under or beside a white party tent out behind the 100-year-old farm house. The centerpiece on each table was another pair of orange and black ballons, which bobbed in the warm breeze.
Smith, a defensive end who's being counted on to bolster the Bengals' pass rush, wore alligator-skin cowboy boots, blue jeans, an untucked Tommy Hilfiger shirt and a backwards St. Louis Blues baseball cap.
There was no need for introductions. The group — family, friends, neighbors, coaches and Missouri Tigers boosters and one-time teammates — knew one another too well for formality. The guest of honor, sitting at a table, looked up when somebody walked up and said “hey,” often lifting his thick right arm to wave.
The Neuner property was just one place in and around Columbia and nearby Jefferson City — he played high school ball there — where Smith honed his 6-foot-4, 273-pound frame.
In a far corner of the yard was a hole about 3 feet in diameter. Smith dug out the stump with a pick ax. When he mowed the front pasture, Smith wouldn't use the riding lawnmower. He pushed a hand mower but wouldn't use the self-propelling gear. Anything for a workout.
“Everybody's always taken back by junk like that, but my body is my job,” Smith said. “I like doing it. It's all I think about.”
Getting physical
Dave Smith, Justin's 48-year-old dad, sat in a lawn chair. He wore an orange Bengals baseball cap and swapped stories about his son's physical prowess. Like how he entertained himself as a reserve youth league baseball player.
“I'd look in the dugout, and he'd be doing pullups on an iron bar,” Dave Smith said.
Justin's take? “I was bored.”
A cane rested on the grass beside Dave Smith's chair.
He used to be a cattle rancher with about 500 head. Fifteen years ago he was struck with Guillain-Barre syndrome, a rare muscle disorder that put him in the hospital for seven months and left him unable to stand for almost two years.
Dave loved the farm. So did Justin. Even as a preschooler, he liked to follow Dad around to help with chores.
The Smiths had to sell the farm near Fulton and move to Holts Summit, which is just outside Jefferson City.
Dave, who still walks with a noticable limp, found a new line of work in cattle breeding.
Looking back with the perspective of a 21-year-old, Justin admires how his father handled the adversity.
“You're a little kid, and your dad can't go play football with you,” Justin said. “I don't take for granted the stuff I can do. I kind of cherish it a little more. A lot of guys would be bitter, but he's not.”
Everybody at the party had a Justin workout story. That's one of the reasons Ginger Smith, Justin's mom and a sixth-grade teacher at Thomas Jefferson Middle School, surveyed the scene and said, “It really does take a village to raise a child.”
And a football player.
Sarah Smith, Justin's 23-year-old sister, remembered how her little brother had to do everything she did.
“If I carried a half bucket of feed, he had to carry a full bucket,” said Sarah, a former University of Missouri homecoming queen and now a math teacher at their high school, Jeff City.
Lenny Gilpen, a friend of the Smiths and father of Jared Gilpen, the Missouri punter who played high school ball with Justin, was the boys' seventh-grade youth football coach.
Sometimes, because of their jobs, coaches didn't make a 4:30 practice until 5. “The other kids would be playing grab butt, but Justin's doing sprints or running laps,” Lenny Gilpen said. “He always had more drive.”
Almost all of Justin's workouts are voluntary.
Others are mandatory.
When he came home from last month's NFL draft — his No.4 overall pick guaranteed he'd be a multimillionaire when he played his next snap — he was met at the door by his mother.
She said, “How are you?”
“I'm fine,” he said.
“Good. Go cut the grass.”
Justin said later, “That's why I don't go home too often.”
New Bengals fans
Thomas LePage, who is 6 and the son of one of Justin's former high school football coaches, wore a red Tampa Bay Buccaneers cap to the barbecue. They're his favorite team.
He walked across the lawn toward Justin with a folded piece of white construction paper in one hand and a miniature Bengals helmet in the other.
“The Bengals are my second favorite team now,” said Thomas, who showed his drawing of Bengals and Bucs helmets to Justin.
Thomas asked him to autograph the toy.
“Sure thing.”
Thomas' dad is Ted LePage, who was offensive coordinator Justin's senior year. The Jeff City Jays went 13-1 and won the big-school state championship.
The turning point in his football career came between Justin's junior and senior seasons. During offseason workouts, players lifted weights. Each week, the team voted on who was working the hardest — the overachiever — and the winner was given a T-shirt.
Justin was the biggest and strongest guy on the team, LePage said, but he didn't win the shirt. Three, four weeks went by.
“He asked us why he wasn't winning, and we said, "The kids don't lie,'” LePage said. “After that, nobody wanted to be around him in the weight room. It was amazing to watch his progress.”
The morning after the Jays won the championship, Justin was in the weight room. The title was just part of his career plan. He was headed for Missouri and didn't want to sit out a season. He would start 33 consecutive games for the Tigers and, this month, will become only the seventh Missouri player to have his number — 96 — retired.
“That's cool, but it will mean more when I'm done,” Justin said. “There's too much football left.”
That's Justin, say people who know him. He's more likely to be motivated by a T-shirt than the millions of dollars and fame awaiting him in the NFL.
Mike Farmer played quarterback at Missouri in the early 1970s. His son, Kirk Farmer, is the current Missouri QB and a former high school teammate of Justin's at Jeff City.
“He will be a star in the pros because of the work ethic,” Mike Farmer said while standing in line for dinner of ribs, turkey, baked beans, rolls and potato salad.
Justin, like this supper, Mike Farmer said, “Will not disappoint. Money means nothing to him. He wants to be great.”
The tributes continued at a table beneath the tent.
Jeff Marriott, a former Missouri teammate who plays offensive line for the Rams, doesn't doubt, either, that Smith will be an NFL success.
“As a true freshman, what I tried to show him was how to be patient,” Marriott said. “If he wasn't making the play, he wasn't happy.”
Kerry Hils, 20, a Missouri sophomore and a member of the Tigers' NCAA champion medley relay team, has dated Justin for more than a year.
His idea of a perfect date, she said, is dinner at a steak house and an action movie. Maybe some Comedy Central afterward to watch Saturday Night Live reruns featuring the late Chris Farley.
“Justin likes action movies, likes his truck, likes steak and potatoes, likes country music, likes Chris Farley,” Hils said. “I've just described a great football player, haven't I?”
But Justin is unique in at least one way, Dave Smith said. Justin's agent is St. Louis-based Jim Steiner, who's been representing pro football players for more than 20 years. He said Justin is the first one who didn't borrow money before the draft, Dave said.
Justin does drive a new white Chevy Silverado pickup, which retails for $32,000. But Justin didn't pay for it. After he declared for the draft, he got it in exchange for doing some TV commercials and promotional appearances for a Jefferson City car dealer.
Local hero
Brian Neuner stood on his deck and raised a toast to Justin.
“We're all central Missourians here,” he said. “We're all proud of you, Justin. We all know you're going to have a dynamite career. Here's to good health.”
A bus already has been rented for the trip to Chicago to see Justin's first Bengals preseason game in August. Dave and Ginger Smith, heck, everybody at the party, has no doubt the bus will be full.
“There are a lot of new Cincinnati Bengals fans out here,” Neuner said.
Dave and Ginger haven't missed one of Justin's football games since he was in seventh grade. They're about to see a lot more of the country.
They plan on continuing their tailgating tradition in Ohio, before and after Bengals games.
“We'd have 70 to 120 people or so at it,” Dave said. “And Justin would always come out after the game and get something to eat and talk to people.”
Justin didn't want to come out all the time, but he did.
“We told him he doesn't have any choice,” Dave said.
Said Justin, “I call it work. They call it fun.”
Table talk
Out in the yard, not far from the white barn, guests' children took turns riding an old horse.
The shadows grew long across the rolling Missouri countryside.
Slowly, many guests walked past Justin on the way to their cars, shook his hand and wished him good luck in Cincinnati. He plans to make his home in Northern Kentucky, where he wants to buy a small house and some land.
He'll stay in the Tristate in the offseason, working out and “trying to get better every year.”
But his focus, coming into his rookie season, is on the playoffs.
“I want to earn my spot, contribute. From there, become a dominating pass rusher in the league. That's my goal,” Justin said. “I've made every goal I've had so far, so I just hope to keep on doing it.”
The circle was down to close friends and family sitting at one table.
Jared Gilpin told about the time Justin tried to replace a dead battery in an ex-girlfriend's car. He crossed some wires. The posts didn't match. Justin started hitting it with his fist. Sparks flew.
“He just thinks he got her a good, live battery,” Jared said. “Then all the wires start melting and the engine starts on fire.”
Everybody at the table laughed. Jared Gilpin's face turned serious.
“I'm going to miss hanging out with a really good friend who's not going to be around any more,” he said. “He's never been arrogant. Just one of my friends who's never wavered in being my friend.”
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Bengals' pick just a hard-workin' boy from the heartland