Nigel James Smart (born 21 May 1969) is a former

Australian rules football Australian football, also called Australian rules football or Aussie rules, or more simply football or footy, is a contact sport played between two teams of 18 players on an oval field, often a modified cricket ground. Points are scored by k ...

er who played for the

Adelaide Football Club The Adelaide Crows (officially the Adelaide Football Club) are a professional Australian rules football team based in Adelaide, South Australia. Founded in 1990. The Crows has fielded a men's team in the Australian Football League (AFL) since ...

in the

Australian Football League The Australian Football League (AFL) is the only fully professional competition of Australian rules football. Through the AFL Commission, the AFL also serves as the sport's governing body and is responsible for controlling the laws of the gam ...

(AFL). Smart played most of his career in defence and became a crowd favourite, easily identifiable with his bald head and goatee.

Career

Smart made his senior debut in 1988 in the SANFL with

South Adelaide Football Club The South Adelaide Football Club is an Australian rules football club that competes in the South Australian National Football League (SANFL). Known as the ''Panthers'', their home ground is Flinders University Stadium Flinders University Flinders University is a public research university based in Adelaide, South Australia, with a footprint extending across 11 locations in South Australia and the Northern Territory. Founded in 1966, it was named in honour of British navigator ...

. He was also a member of the Adelaide Crows squad for their inaugural season in

1991 File:1991 Events Collage.png, From left, clockwise: Boris Yeltsin, elected as Russia's first president, waves the new flag of Russia after the 1991 Soviet coup d'état attempt, orchestrated by Soviet hardliners; Mount Pinatubo erupts in the Phil ...

. Smart was named at full-back for Adelaide's Round One match against , going up against superstar full-forward

Jason Dunstall Jason Hadfield Dunstall (born 14 August 1964) is a former Australian rules footballer who played for the Hawthorn Football Club in the Australian Football League (AFL). Dunstall is arguably the greatest Australian rules footballer to come from ...

. On his AFL debut, Smart collected six kicks, nine handballs and grabbed six marks. At the end of the 1991 season, Smart would become Adelaide's first ever

All-Australian The All-Australian team is an all-star team of Australian rules football in Australia, Australian rules footballers, selected by a panel at the end of each season. It represents a complete team, including an interchange bench, of the best-perf ...

, selected in the

Back pocket In the sport of Australian rules football, each of the eighteen players in a team is assigned to a particular named position on the field of play. These positions describe both the player's main role and by implication their location on the gro ...

. One of the most famous incidents attributed to Smart's career was during the 1992 pre-season, when the Crows organised a session to walk on hot coals. Smart suffered severe burns to his feet but returned to play football soon after. Smart was one of the key players in Adelaide's resurgence under

Malcolm Blight Malcolm Jack Blight AM (born 16 February 1950) is a former Australian rules footballer who played for and coached the North Melbourne Football Club in the Victorian Football League (VFL) and Woodville Football Club in the South Australian Nati ...

, and in the

1997 AFL Grand Final The 1997 AFL Grand Final was an Australian rules football game contested between the Adelaide Football Club and the St Kilda Football Club, held at the Melbourne Cricket Ground in Melbourne on 27 September 1997. It was the 101st annual gran ...

against St Kilda, he had the honour of kicking the final goal of the match as Adelaide won their first AFL premiership. He was also a member of the Crows team which won the 1998 AFL Grand Final; the Crows becoming the first team since Hawthorn in

1988 File:1988 Events Collage.png, From left, clockwise: The oil platform Piper Alpha explodes and collapses in the North Sea, killing 165 workers; The USS Vincennes (CG-49) mistakenly shoots down Iran Air Flight 655; Australia celebrates its Australian ...

and

1989 File:1989 Events Collage.png, From left, clockwise: The Cypress Street Viaduct, Cypress structure collapses as a result of the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake, killing motorists below; The proposal document for the World Wide Web is submitted; The Exxo ...

to win back-to-back premierships.

Statistics

: , - style="background-color: #EAEAEA" ! scope="row" style="text-align:center" ,

, style="text-align:center;", , 7 , , 20 , , 2 , , 1 , , 139 , , 123 , , 262 , , 47 , , 28 , , 0.1 , , 0.1 , , 7.0 , , 6.2 , , 13.1 , , 2.4 , , 1.4 , - ! scope="row" style="text-align:center" ,

1992 File:1992 Events Collage V1.png, From left, clockwise: 1992 Los Angeles riots, Riots break out across Los Angeles, California after the Police brutality, police beating of Rodney King; El Al Flight 1862 crashes into a residential apartment buildi ...

, style="text-align:center;", , 7 , , 17 , , 0 , , 2 , , 131 , , 109 , , 240 , , 35 , , 31 , , 0.0 , , 0.1 , , 7.7 , , 6.4 , , 14.1 , , 2.1 , , 1.8 , - style="background-color: #EAEAEA" ! scope="row" style="text-align:center" ,

1993 File:1993 Events Collage.png, From left, clockwise: The Oslo I Accord is signed in an attempt to resolve the Israeli–Palestinian conflict; The Russian White House is shelled during the 1993 Russian constitutional crisis; Czechoslovakia is peace ...

, style="text-align:center;", , 7 , , 22 , , 23 , , 17 , , 220 , , 136 , , 356 , , 81 , , 38 , , 1.0 , , 0.8 , , 10.0 , , 6.2 , , 16.2 , , 3.7 , , 1.7 , - ! scope="row" style="text-align:center" ,

1994 File:1994 Events Collage.png, From left, clockwise: The 1994 Winter Olympics are held in Lillehammer, Norway; The Kaiser Permanente building after the 1994 Northridge earthquake; A model of the MS Estonia, which Sinking of the MS Estonia, sank in ...

, style="text-align:center;", , 7 , , 17 , , 13 , , 19 , , 123 , , 87 , , 210 , , 56 , , 22 , , 0.8 , , 1.1 , , 7.2 , , 5.1 , , 12.4 , , 3.3 , , 1.3 , - style="background-color: #EAEAEA" ! scope="row" style="text-align:center" ,

1995 File:1995 Events Collage V2.png, From left, clockwise: O.J. Simpson is O. J. Simpson murder case, acquitted of the murders of Nicole Brown Simpson and Ronald Goldman from the 1994, year prior in "The Trial of the Century" in the United States; The ...

, style="text-align:center;", , 7 , , 22 , , 14 , , 6 , , 189 , , 152 , , 341 , , 59 , , 49 , , 0.6 , , 0.3 , , 8.6 , , 6.9 , , 15.5 , , 2.7 , , 2.2 , - ! scope="row" style="text-align:center" ,

1996 File:1996 Events Collage.png, From left, clockwise: A Centennial Olympic Park bombing, bomb explodes at Centennial Olympic Park in Atlanta, set off by a radical Anti-abortion violence, anti-abortionist; The center fuel tank explodes on TWA Flight 8 ...

, style="text-align:center;", , 7 , , 22 , , 7 , , 8 , , 208 , , 116 , , 324 , , 55 , , 57 , , 0.3 , , 0.4 , , 9.5 , , 5.3 , , 14.7 , , 2.5 , , 2.6 , - style="background-color: #EAEAEA" ! scope="row" style="text-align:center;" ,

1997 File:1997 Events Collage.png, From left, clockwise: The movie set of ''Titanic'', the highest-grossing movie in history at the time; ''Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone'', is published; Comet Hale-Bopp passes by Earth and becomes one of t ...

, style="text-align:center;", , 7 , , 22 , , 13 , , 8 , , 253 , , 88 , , 341 , , 84 , , 47 , , 0.6 , , 0.4 , , 11.5 , , 4.0 , , 15.5 , , 3.8 , , 2.1 , - ! scope="row" style="text-align:center;" ,

1998 1998 was designated as the ''International Year of the Ocean''. Events January * January 6 – The '' Lunar Prospector'' spacecraft is launched into orbit around the Moon, and later finds evidence for frozen water, in soil in permanently ...

, style="text-align:center;", , 7 , , 24 , , 13 , , 12 , , 304 , , 122 , , 426 , , 88 , , 80 , , 0.5 , , 0.5 , , 12.7 , , 5.1 , , 17.8 , , 3.7 , , 3.3 , - style="background-color: #EAEAEA" ! scope="row" style="text-align:center" ,

1999 File:1999 Events Collage.png, From left, clockwise: The funeral procession of King Hussein of Jordan in Amman; the 1999 İzmit earthquake kills over 17,000 people in Turkey; the Columbine High School massacre, one of the first major school shootin ...

, style="text-align:center;", , 7 , , 21 , , 12 , , 10 , , 217 , , 117 , , 334 , , 69 , , 30 , , 0.6 , , 0.5 , , 10.3 , , 5.6 , , 15.9 , , 3.3 , , 1.4 , - ! scope="row" style="text-align:center" ,

2000 File:2000 Events Collage.png, From left, clockwise: Protests against Bush v. Gore after the 2000 United States presidential election; Heads of state meet for the Millennium Summit; The International Space Station in its infant form as seen from ...

, style="text-align:center;", , 7 , , 18 , , 3 , , 1 , , 178 , , 115 , , 293 , , 58 , , 28 , , 0.2 , , 0.1 , , 9.9 , , 6.4 , , 16.3 , , 3.2 , , 1.6 , - style="background-color: #EAEAEA" ! scope="row" style="text-align:center" ,

2001 The September 11 attacks against the United States by Al-Qaeda, which Casualties of the September 11 attacks, killed 2,977 people and instigated the global war on terror, were a defining event of 2001. The United States led a Participants in ...

, style="text-align:center;", , 7 , , 23 , , 7 , , 11 , , 223 , , 133 , , 356 , , 78 , , 43 , , 0.3 , , 0.5 , , 9.7 , , 5.8 , , 15.5 , , 3.4 , , 1.9 , - ! scope="row" style="text-align:center" ,

2002 File:2002 Events Collage.png, From left, clockwise: The 2002 Winter Olympics are held in Salt Lake City; Queen Elizabeth The Queen Mother and her daughter Princess Margaret, Countess of Snowdon die; East Timor gains East Timor independence, indepe ...

, style="text-align:center;", , 7 , , 23 , , 3 , , 3 , , 150 , , 109 , , 259 , , 63 , , 44 , , 0.1 , , 0.1 , , 6.5 , , 4.7 , , 11.3 , , 2.7 , , 1.9 , - style="background-color: #EAEAEA" ! scope="row" style="text-align:center" ,

2003 File:2003 Events Collage.png, From top left, clockwise: The crew of STS-107 perished when the Space Shuttle Columbia disintegrated during reentry into Earth's atmosphere; SARS became an epidemic in China, and was a precursor to SARS-CoV-2; A des ...

, style="text-align:center;", , 7 , , 21 , , 3 , , 5 , , 133 , , 125 , , 258 , , 57 , , 36 , , 0.1 , , 0.2 , , 6.3 , , 6.0 , , 12.3 , , 2.7 , , 1.7 , - ! scope="row" style="text-align:center" ,

2004 2004 was designated as an International Year of Rice by the United Nations, and the International Year to Commemorate the Struggle Against Slavery and its Abolition (by UNESCO). Events January * January 3 – Flash Airlines Flight 6 ...

, style="text-align:center;", , 7 , , 6 , , 3 , , 1 , , 35 , , 21 , , 56 , , 14 , , 11 , , 0.5 , , 0.2 , , 5.8 , , 3.5 , , 9.3 , , 2.3 , , 1.8 , - class="sortbottom" ! colspan=3, Career ! 278 ! 0.4 ! 0.4 ! 2503 ! 1553 ! 4056 ! 844 ! 544 ! 131 ! 116 ! 9.0 ! 5.6 ! 14.6 ! 3.0 ! 2.0

Post career

After his retirement from football, Smart was an unsuccessful candidate for the

Liberal Party The Liberal Party is any of many political parties around the world. The meaning of ''liberal'' varies around the world, ranging from liberal conservatism on the right to social liberalism on the left. __TOC__ Active liberal parties This is a li ...

for the

electoral district of Norwood Norwood is a former electoral district of the House of Assembly in the Australian state of South Australia. It was a 14.2 km² inner-urban electorate in Adelaide and was named after the inner-eastern suburb of Norwood. In its final config ...

in the

2006 South Australian state election The state election for the 51st Parliament of South Australia was held in the Australian state of South Australia on 18 March 2006 to elect all members of the South Australian House of Assembly and 11 members of the South Australian Legislative ...

. He also lived briefly in Canada and France with family, then completed an MBA at the University of Adelaide. Smart has been a member of the Crows' board since 2005, and assumed the role of Deputy Chairman for the

2009 File:2009 Events Collage V2.png, From top left, clockwise: The vertical stabilizer of Air France Flight 447 is pulled out from the Atlantic Ocean; Barack Obama becomes the first African American to become President of the United States; 2009 Iran ...

. On 1 March 2013, Smart became the Chief Operating Officer of the Adelaide Football Club and has been instrumental in growing the Crows' presence in

E-Sports Esports, short for electronic sports, is a form of competition using video games. Esports often takes the form of organized, multiplayer video game competitions, particularly between professional players, individually or as teams. Although orga ...

including the acquisition of a professional team called Legacy.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Smart, Nigel Adelaide Football Club players Adelaide Football Club Premiership players 1969 births Living people All-Australians (AFL) South Adelaide Football Club players South Australian State of Origin players Australian rules footballers from South Australia South Australian Football Hall of Fame inductees Christies Beach Football Club players Australia international rules football team players Two-time VFL/AFL Premiership players