
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: SATURDAY, September 23, 1995                   TAG: 9509270124
SECTION: EXTRA                    PAGE: B-11   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: FROM WIRE REPORTS
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Short

THE PEOPLE COLUMN

Jimmy Smits could have ended up on ``Monday Night Football'' instead of ``NYPD Blue'' if not for a high school field trip.

The actor, a varsity linebacker at Jefferson High School in Brooklyn, recalled that on a bus trip, his coach pointed out Shea Stadium, where the New York Jets then played, and said, ``Jim, you could be playing there some day.''

Then his English teacher took the class to see Raul Julia in ``The Threepenny Opera,'' Smits said.

Julia ``was from the same background I was, and he was up there and everyone was looking at him and he was terrific,'' Smits said. ``And that was it. I never really wanted to do anything else after that.''

Smits quit football. He knew he had made the right choice when his teammates came to watch him in a school play and gave him a standing ovation.

by CNB