The fellas talk about Puddin' and his feats as if they happened yesterday.
Puddin' was really something running the football for Booker T. Washington High School, but you should have seen him in the pickup games at the dirt-and-rock field on Cervantes Street across from the junior high school, they say.
Puddin' was as tough as those rocks. He got stronger every time you knocked him down. The heat never bothered Puddin'.
And what about what he did when his oldest son was a senior in high school? Puddin' wanted to play again and signed up with a semipro team. They put him at safety, and he made every play. The man was in his 40s and could still play.
"Puddin' was smooth, smooth as pudding," said Walt Williams, a contemporary who went on to an illustrious basketball career at Southern University. "He was a hell of a player."
Puddin' went on to be an equally accomplished bus driver. Puddin' left it to his oldest son to, as he said on that momentous day in February, "live my dream."
Puddin' is Emmit Smith Jr., who never left his hometown of Pensacola in the Florida Panhandle. His son, Emmitt, goes into the Pro Football Hall of Fame on Saturday.
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