"I get paid to practice; I play the games for free."It means preparation is a bitch, but gameday is glorious. I've quoted it often, including Wednesday night, to a fellow actor who was growing weary of the daily grind.
The next morning, at LAX airport, I saw the man responsible for it: Bubba Smith.
I covertly took this pic of him before summoning up the guts to approach him, and when I did the man was outstanding. He talked to me for half an hour about his family, his football career, the Police Academy movies and the Miller Lite "tastes great, less filling" commercials. Here are some things I learned:
- Even though his mom named him Charles, she never once called him that
- He has a 15-year-old nephew who is 6' 9 1/2", 325 lbs., and USC is already recruiting him for football
- He never lifted weights until nine years after his playing career
- He doesn't own a cell phone. He believes women invented them to keep track of their men
- Super Bowl III, a game in which his Colts lost to the Jets in the biggest upset in NFL history, was fixed
- There are more Police Academy movies on the way, now featuring Bubba in charge of new recruits
