When he was 9 years old, Rahshaun "Shaq" Smith told his mother, Shenika Brown, he wanted to be a football player. But not just any football player -- the No. 1 player in Maryland.
As a fourth-grader, Smith towered over the rest of his classmates and was even taller than the principal, Brown said. There was only one problem. Though Smith (now 6-foot-2 and 251 pounds) was by far the largest player on the football field, he was hesitant to tackle other kids. His mother had always taught him to never hit another person.
Brown, a single mother who had moved her two sons from High Point, N.C., to Baltimore, knew little about the game of football. She came up with a simple solution: tackle the family's green Baltimore City-issued trash can.
