Friday, June 16, 2023
I'm so sorry I didn't see this sooner. When my brothers and I were growing up Billy played for my dad. We idolized him because he was so tough. He always had blood on his uniform.
We had a game we would play at home. We would take all the pillows off the couch and chairs and pile them on the floor. Two of us would take our defensive stance on one side of the pillows and the third would start at the far wall and run at full speed and dive over the top of the pillows as we would try to stop him from getting over. We banged heads and bloodied noses every time.
We called that game "Billy over the top" because we loved how Billy Smith would fly into the endzone as he jumped or ran over defenders. It only took 1 of us to whisper "Do you want to play Billy over top" to get the wheels in motion. It only ended with one of us crying or something getting broken.
My condolences to the family. Billy was the hero in our family and he probably never knew.
