After 14 years of treating every day on the job with the Broncos as if it were his last, Rod Smith must do what he feared most.

Punch the clock and go home.

Quittin' time.

It's difficult to call the millions of dollars made by NFL players an honest day's labor, unless you're talking about Smith.

He was Denver's ultimate working-class football hero. Although Smith wore No. 80 for the Broncos, his uniform was a blue collar and an orange lunch bucket.

While he will be remembered for winning two league championships and catching 849 passes for 11,389 yards, the number that defined Smith was a wrinkled $1 food stamp he carried to remind himself what a long, tough route had been run to make it in the pros.

"We didn't have jack," Smith told me more than once, succinctly describing a childhood of poverty in which an oven sometimes served as the lone source of heat in his family's home.

As he today steps to a podium and announces his retirement, here's hoping Smith employs one of his pet, cheeky phrases uttered when I asked him for his thoughts through the years: "Not talking unless you give me $20."

Here was a man obsessed with money who played football with an intense, old-school passion. When Smith lowered his shoulder for a jarring block or stretched out for a pass without blinking, he appeared to every admiring eye in the stands as a guy who was doing it for the pure love of the game.

But what motivated Smith was more powerful. He never wanted to be poor again. Maybe his appetite for success was so insatiable because Smith understood what it was to be hungry on the most basic level.

Broncomaniacs adored Smith because he came into the league literally begging for a job, as an undrafted free agent in 1994. He started on Denver's practice squad and made his own breaks with a relentless work ethic, while the ego that causes spoiled athletes to be so unpopular was bringing down a teammate ahead of him on the depth chart.

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While it was easy to cheer Smith for the 68 touchdown receptions he caught for Denver, something more made the connection with his audience. Here was a job hunter from off the street determined to get ahead despite the personal limitations and flaws we all have.

Fully capable of being as cranky as an old car battery while other times he spilled more ideas than a Google search, Smith wore his contradictions on his sleeve. After a defeat, you could feel the angry heat radiating from him in the Broncos' locker room.

If quarterback John Elway was the legendary heart and soul of the team's Super Bowl years, then Smith was the hard-earned dirt under the fingernails.

There will be heartfelt filibusters on behalf of Smith to be rewarded with enshrinement in the Pro Football Hall of Fame, and a sincere case can be made. In an era when rules have been bent in favor of the passing game, however, it's hard to argue that Smith has been more productive than peers such as Keenan McCardell or Jimmy Smith.

From the distance of Canton, Ohio, it's impossible to see, much less appreciate, how Smith instilled the Broncos with his own determination and pride, which make him invaluable to Denver's sports history.

Outside the north entrance to the stadium where the Broncos play home games, there can be found funky, rugged statues that combine the ideals of sports with the feisty, pioneer spirit of Colorado. One statue features a fearless cowboy sitting atop a football as if it were a bucking horse. Another statue depicts a miner relentlessly pushing a huge pigskin and heavy rocks uphill in a cart.

The symbolism is nice. Oh-so-very arty.

But in Smith we had the real, nitty-gritty thing.

Somebody should erect a statue of Smith outside our football stadium to remind fans what rich rewards can be reaped from punching the clock every day and never wanting to quit.

Mark Kiszla: 303-954-1053 or