INDIAN RIVER COUNTY, Fla. \u2014 Sitting between Fort Pierce and Vero Beach, Gifford is kind of a forgotten city.<\/p>\n
“Gifford is, I wouldn’t say, small, but it is. Everybody knows everybody,” said Indianapolis Colts Defensive Tackle, Tim Smith.<\/p>\n
WATCH BELOW: ‘It’s time to get to work,’ Tim Smith tells WPTV’s Kendall Hyde<\/p>\n
Gifford native Tim Smith preps for year one in the NFL<\/p>\n
Well, that small town birthed a gem.<\/p>\n
“With Tim, he’s always been a team guy,” said Tyrone Perry, the Sebastian River High School football coach, who coached Smith for four years.<\/p>\n
Smith learned his team values on the baseball diamond.<\/p>\n
“Gifford Park, where my little league team was, was right around the corner from my house,” said Smith. “So, some days I would just have my bat and glove in one hand, and I’m just going out there to go to practice.\u201d<\/p>\n
While baseball was his first love, things would change his first year at Sebastian River High School, coaches couldn’t help but notice his size.<\/p>\n
“He was big,” said Perry, who is correct, because as a freshman, Smith stood 6’3″ and weighed 300 pounds.<\/p>\n
His size led coaches to beg his mom to allow him on the football team. After his mom okayed his football journey, he was a player on the field and in the bleachers.<\/p>\n
“Yeah, I’m out there playing football and performing at halftime in my uniform,” Smith said.<\/p>\n
While playing time was minimal his freshman year, he was able to play in the school band. He was one of the band’s marimba players for a year. His sophomore year, he quit the band, and lets just say things on the football field picked up.<\/p>\n
“Shoot, sophomore year, I ended up getting offered by Alabama,” said Smith.<\/p>\n
Of course, when Nick Saban offers you, you accept, but year one for the Alabama Crimson Tide was anything but easy.<\/p>\n
“I was being immature and irresponsible. I jumped up from 315 to 352 pounds,” said Smith.<\/p>\n
He dedicated that offseason to weight loss and learning the playbook, and it paid off.<\/p>\n
“In the ‘Natty,’ we played Ohio State. I think my first play of the game; I double back up the middle and got a hit on Justin Fields,” said Smith.<\/p>\n
That lone play created a monster for the rest of his time playing college football at Alabama.<\/p>\n
At 6’4, and over 306 pounds, Smith played in 64 games, racked up 14 tackles for loss, and six and a half sacks. Those numbers were enough to have Smith selected in the sixth round of the 2025 draft by the Indianapolis Colts.<\/p>\n
“It was a lot of emotions running, but I knew wherever I ended up, it’s time to get to work,” said Smith.<\/p>\n
Just months into his NFL journey, Smith is already facing a harsh reality.<\/p>\n
“Those O-Linemen are strong as an ox, boy. Like they got two to three kids at home,\u201d said a laughing Smith.<\/p>\n
While he’s still getting acclimated to the league’s physicality, he’s happy to be representing Gifford as he finds his way.<\/p>\n
Tim, we look forward to watching you on Sundays.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"INDIAN RIVER COUNTY, Fla. \u2014 Sitting between Fort Pierce and Vero Beach, Gifford is kind of a forgotten…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":251438,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2059],"tags":[2005,7,8606,14097,2004,392,2381,6,49951,2916],"class_list":{"0":"post-251437","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-indianapolis-colts","8":"tag-colts","9":"tag-football","10":"tag-football-player","11":"tag-gifford","12":"tag-indianapolis","13":"tag-indianapolis-colts","14":"tag-indianapoliscolts","15":"tag-nfl","16":"tag-sebastian-river-high-school","17":"tag-tim-smith"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nfl\/114949545385103934","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/251437","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=251437"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/251437\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/251438"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=251437"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=251437"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=251437"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}