Former Dallas Cowboys football players Jim Ray Smith (left) and John Houser visit on the sideline before being introduced with other 1960’s players before the Cowboys game with the Los Angeles Rams at AT&T Stadium in Arlington, Texas, Sunday, October 1, 2017.
Tom Fox/Dallas Morning News
Jim Ray Smith, a Baylor All-American and All-Pro guard for the Cleveland Browns who led thundering sweeps for Jim Brown before finishing his nine-year NFL career with the Cowboys and embarking on a long, distinguished tenure in Dallas real estate and service to the Cotton Bowl Athletic Association, has died at 94.
He was one of the NFL’s oldest alumni before his passing.
Born on Feb. 27, 1932, in West Columbia, an hour southwest of Houston, Smith grew up in a family where no one had gone to school past the sixth grade.
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“My mother always wanted me to finish high school,” he once said. “Well, my brother and I and my sister all graduated from high school and got our degree.
“If it hadn’t been for football, I would have never gone to college without a scholarship.”
Before he was done, he’d earned a degree from Baylor, played for Paul Brown and Tom Landry and represented the Texas real estate interests of Ed Gaylord, the Oklahoma billionaire.
He filled a vacant Baylor seat on the Cotton Bowl board in the ’70s and spent decades as a prominent figure in the organization, once serving as its president.
“Jim Ray Smith was a tremendous leader, a legendary football player and, most importantly, a great man who gave so much to the Cotton Bowl Classic,” the association said in a statement to The Dallas Morning News. “His impact on our organization spanned over half a century, and his legacy will continue to be felt for generations.
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“Jim Ray will be greatly missed.”
College Football Hall of Famer and former pro football player Jim Ray Smith tours the Texas Sports Hall of Fame at his induction in 2008.
Jerry Larson/Associated Press
The Browns selected him in the sixth round of the 1954 draft after his sophomore season at Baylor, holding his rights through two years of military service. He joined the team in ’56 as an undersized defensive end at 6-3, 218 pounds. A year later, Brown moved him to guard, where his career quickly flourished.
His speed made him an ideal pulling guard in front of Jim Brown, maybe the best running back in NFL history. The Browns’ guards in the late ’50s included John Wooten, who went on to a long career in the Cowboys’ front office, and Gene Hickerson, a Pro Football Hall of Famer.
“All three of us could run,” Wooten said Monday, “but none of us could outrun Jim Ray. He could do it all. He could pass protect, short trap, lead the sweep. If he’d stayed in Cleveland, he’d be in the Hall of Fame with Hickerson.
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“He was one of the top five guards I ever saw.”
From 1958-62, Smith made five straight Pro Bowls and was named first-team All-Pro three times. He retired after the ’61 season to pursue his real estate interests in Dallas, only to be talked into another season with the Browns.
After he retired again in ’62, the Browns’ owner, Art Modell, begged him to unretire so he could trade him to the Cowboys. Smith resisted. Nothing against Landry, whom he considered a friend. He simply didn’t want to play football anymore. His health was good and his business was doing well, and he wanted to get out while he was still ahead.
Modell persisted until Smith relented, at least in part, agreeing only to talk to the Cowboys.
“Before I got back to my office,” he told clevelandbrowns.com in 2014, “they had called and we had lunch. I said, ‘No. No. No.’ We had lunch the next day and I said, ‘No. No. No.’
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“Finally, they put some pressure on and they thought I had to play. So I played.”
The Cowboys traded Monte Clark, a tackle, for Smith, who started a half-dozen games in ’63 before injuring his knee. He came back in ’64 but sustained multiple injuries before retiring for good.
Of a career playing for two coaching legends, Smith said they won because both were “hard-headed.” He didn’t mean it as a criticism. They simply knew what they were going to do and did it.
Former Cowboys players Jim Ray Smith (left) and Harvey Martin posed for this undated photo from The Dallas Morning News archives.
Randy Eli Grothe/The Dallas Morning News
In his career after football, Smith specialized in warehouse leasing and industrial space distribution. His big break came in a Dallas meeting with Gaylord. The owner of the Grand Ole Opry, Opryland USA theme park and Country Music Television channel once had designs on the Texas Rangers before baseball shut him out, fearing he’d create a superstation. The billionaire settled for the Gaylord Texan Resort in Grapevine.
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Smith handled Gaylord’s real estate interests in the Dallas area for 28 years, calling it a “good relationship” that helped him put three children through college. In a long last act of semi-retirement, he kept his hand in several interests, primarily golf and grandchildren, as well as his church and faith.
“He was just an outstanding player,” said Wooten, who talked to his old teammate by phone just last week, “and even more so just a tremendous, God-fearing, activist person.
“He lived the Ten Commandments.”
In 2008, the Professional Football Researchers Association’s “Hall of Very Good” inducted Smith, recognition that delighted him. He long ago had given up hope of making Canton.
In the interview with Clevelandbrowns.com, he said, “The good Lord said, ‘Boy, we are going to make a football player out of you until we figure out what to do with you.’
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“I guess he made a pretty good football player.”
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