Hometown: Norfolk
Sport: Football
Rank: 2 (ahead of Pernell Whitaker and behind Ace Parker)
Born: 1963
Claim to fame: Claim to fame NFL's all-time sack leader, 11-time Pro Bowler, No. 1 NFL draft pick, Pro Football Hall of Fame nominee; Outland Trophy winner
Dennis Hopper wasn't the only one afraid of Smith. The actor made a series of commercials in the 1990s in which he crept around the Buffalo locker room, afraid he would be caught snooping near Smith's Nikes. The camera cut to shots of Smith scowling, a fearsome sight. If sack artists ultimately deal in disruption — affecting the game with the fear of what they'll do as much as the actual doing of it — no one manufactured more doom than Smith. Teams game-planned against him but rarely stopped him. He recorded 200 sacks in 18 seasons and had at least 10 in 14 seasons. But he was more than just a pass rusher. A Booker T. Washington graduate, Smith blossomed into a force at Virginia Tech, where he had 46 sacks — 22 in 1983 alone — and won the Outland Trophy in 1984. Together with Jim Kelly and Thurman Thomas, he was one of the faces of the Bills' Super Bowl teams. He finished his career with the Washington Redskins and is certain to be a first-ballot Hall of Fame selection when the class of 2009 is announced in a few weeks.
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