Bubba Smith's Police Academy character, Officer Hightower, was strong but silent. Hightower's gags peddled on a depiction of Smith's stunning 6'7", 265 pound frame as inhumanely powerful but inherently meek. In the first movie of the franchise, Hightower's graduation speech was a simple, laconic, "thank you." In a later film, he slam dunked a basketball so hard that it broke the blacktop beneath the hoop. Hightower was cipher. Did he derive his strength from his silence? Or was his silence a manifestation of his strength?
Officer Hightower was fierce but docile, an effective and trustworthy policeman who didn't need to make any funny noises to prove himself (i'm talking about you Jonesy!)
In real life, Bubba Smith was far more relatable than his Police Academy incarnation would suggest, but he was just as impressive physically, if not more.
As the first pick in the 1967 NFL draft, the Baltimore Colts took a freak of nature , a massive-but-quick defensive lineman, an end who could push people around, slither to the quarterback and even run down a speedy back trying to go outside, despite having the disadvantage of a higher center of gravity.
He appeared in two Super Bowls with the Colts, winning Super Bowl V. Though his NFL career lasted just nine seasons, Smith cut a figure that was never really replicated in the league before or since. Sure there have been huge, quick tall guys -- Hall of Fame linebacker Ted Hendricks (6-7), John Matusak (6-8), Ed "Too Tall" Jones (6-9), Harold Carmichael (6-8) -- but none as immediately personable as Bubba Smith.
And he parlayed that talent to the big screen and small, starting with a series of Miller Lite commercials. Although the commercials were equally as facile in their comedy as the Police Academy approach, ("I love the easy open cans," as he rips the entire top off of a can), they showcased Smith's manner of belying scale on camera. He looked like a nice guy, not some Beaumont, Texas-raised monster burying you on the football field.
Bubba Smith might not have been a talent like Paul Robeson, but he was a Renaissance man for the integration of black athletes in mainstream consciousness. In the decades before Michael Jordan redefined sports and race in America, Bubba Smith was a strong, huge, dark black man that white audiences weren't scared by.
The racial aspects of Smith's life story are certainly downplayed in many of his obituaries, but the history of integration in the college game is intrinsic to his journey from a Gulf coast Texan to a Hollywood star. And it all started in at Michigan State.
In 1963, then Michigan State football coach Duffy Daugherty recruited a handful of players from the south. It wasn't unheard of, but uncommon for black athletes from the south to play for Big Ten schools. Charles "Bubba" Smith was Duffy's top recruit, and the University fell in love with their big man, devising the simple chant "Kill, Bubba, Kill." By his senior year, he was drawing triple blockers and entire offensive schemes designed to avoid him.
At a school that revered their football heroes as much as any, Bubba Smith connected with Michigan State fans like no other. That kind of magnetism might have derived from his physical size and athletic prowess, but it was cemented by a kindness to match. Teammates boasted of his support on field and off.
Michigan State Wide Receiver Gene Washington, also from east Texas and competed against Smith in high school: "I also remember how supportive he was of my track career. During both the indoor and outdoor track seasons, I could count on ‘Bubba’ being there in the stands, cheering me on.”
Watch those Police Academy clips, they are funny and sweet. But remember that Bubba Smith, as much any athlete of his generation, moved the barriers of racial integration in sports and society as consistently as he moved hopeless offensive lineman.
Officer Hightower was fierce but docile, an effective and trustworthy policeman who didn't need to make any funny noises to prove himself (i'm talking about you Jonesy!)In real life, Bubba Smith was far more relatable than his Police Academy incarnation would suggest, but he was just as impressive physically, if not more.
As the first pick in the 1967 NFL draft, the Baltimore Colts took a freak of nature , a massive-but-quick defensive lineman, an end who could push people around, slither to the quarterback and even run down a speedy back trying to go outside, despite having the disadvantage of a higher center of gravity.
He appeared in two Super Bowls with the Colts, winning Super Bowl V. Though his NFL career lasted just nine seasons, Smith cut a figure that was never really replicated in the league before or since. Sure there have been huge, quick tall guys -- Hall of Fame linebacker Ted Hendricks (6-7), John Matusak (6-8), Ed "Too Tall" Jones (6-9), Harold Carmichael (6-8) -- but none as immediately personable as Bubba Smith.
And he parlayed that talent to the big screen and small, starting with a series of Miller Lite commercials. Although the commercials were equally as facile in their comedy as the Police Academy approach, ("I love the easy open cans," as he rips the entire top off of a can), they showcased Smith's manner of belying scale on camera. He looked like a nice guy, not some Beaumont, Texas-raised monster burying you on the football field.
Bubba Smith might not have been a talent like Paul Robeson, but he was a Renaissance man for the integration of black athletes in mainstream consciousness. In the decades before Michael Jordan redefined sports and race in America, Bubba Smith was a strong, huge, dark black man that white audiences weren't scared by.
The racial aspects of Smith's life story are certainly downplayed in many of his obituaries, but the history of integration in the college game is intrinsic to his journey from a Gulf coast Texan to a Hollywood star. And it all started in at Michigan State.
In 1963, then Michigan State football coach Duffy Daugherty recruited a handful of players from the south. It wasn't unheard of, but uncommon for black athletes from the south to play for Big Ten schools. Charles "Bubba" Smith was Duffy's top recruit, and the University fell in love with their big man, devising the simple chant "Kill, Bubba, Kill." By his senior year, he was drawing triple blockers and entire offensive schemes designed to avoid him.At a school that revered their football heroes as much as any, Bubba Smith connected with Michigan State fans like no other. That kind of magnetism might have derived from his physical size and athletic prowess, but it was cemented by a kindness to match. Teammates boasted of his support on field and off.
Michigan State Wide Receiver Gene Washington, also from east Texas and competed against Smith in high school: "I also remember how supportive he was of my track career. During both the indoor and outdoor track seasons, I could count on ‘Bubba’ being there in the stands, cheering me on.”
Watch those Police Academy clips, they are funny and sweet. But remember that Bubba Smith, as much any athlete of his generation, moved the barriers of racial integration in sports and society as consistently as he moved hopeless offensive lineman.
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