FILE PHOTO/Arizona Daily Wildcat Former UA starting quarterback Keith Smith is trying to recover from a serious leg injury and make a name for himself in the CFL.

This can't be happening. Half a season into his professional career with the Saskatchewan Roughriders, Keith Smith has his shot. No more holding the clipboard, and definitely no splitting snaps. It's his show.

And then, like a cruel replay of his freshman season, everything goes to hell.

Drop back. Look around. No one's open. There's a seam in the line ÷ run.

Snap.

Just like that, Smith, the former UA starting quarterback, is lying on the half-frozen turf in Hamilton, Ontario, feeling the most excruciating pain he's ever felt.

Hamilton is about as far away from Los Angeles as a football player is likely to get, but at this moment he might as well be on the turf in the Rose Bowl all over again.

If it didn't hurt so damn much, it would almost be funny.

Who is Keith Smith? 5-10 QB, Newbury Park, CA Years ö 1996-99 Yards ö 5,972 Attempts ö 726 Completions ö 434 Touchdowns ö 42 Interceptions ö 27

Everything came easy for Smith back at Newbury Park High School in Los Angeles, especially sports.

Baseball? Good enough to be drafted. Basketball? Started for the varsity team. Football? Only the most prolific passing quarterback in state history. And by all accounts, he did it with a smile on his face.

"He's the greatest kid you'll ever meet. Perfect work ethic, attitude, never cussed ÷ perfect kid to coach," says George Hurley, Newbury Park's football coach. "He had some God-given talent, but I don't know anyone who worked harder."

In the eighth grade, Smith hurt his throwing elbow pitching. The doctors told him he couldn't play sports for a year. So he taught himself to hit and shoot a basketball left-handed and played running back in Pop Warner football.

"He has such a positive attitude," Hurley says with a laugh. "He's going to give it 100 percent Îtil they show him the door."

By the time Smith's high school years were over, he passed for 11,433 yards and 87 touchdowns in his career. His 4,244 yards through the air and 5,018 total yards his senior year were second most in the country. His team went a perfect 14-0 that season, winning the Division III state title, and he was the California state player of the year.

But college teams weren't exactly beating down Smith's door. The only numbers college teams seemed to care about were on the Newbury Park team roster:

Keith Smith - QB - 5'10"

Five-foot-ten quarterbacks are fine in high school. But as soon as they get to college, they often become defensive backs.

"Everyone scratched him off the list," Hurley says. "When other coaches would ask about him, I'd say he was six feet with cleats on. It was frustrating trying to sell him to colleges."

Smith decided football would take a back seat for a year after graduation. Drafted by the Detroit Tigers and offered a $100,000 signing bonus, he gave baseball a try.

But after a year of playing shortstop deep in the minors and being sick of the 0-for-4 nights, Smith craved football. And Arizona wanted him.

There was no question Smith was "the man" his sophomore year in 1997.

After amassing 1,996 total yards as a freshman quarterback, expectations were high for the strong-armed sophomore. Arizona started off the season with a disappointing 1-2 record, but Smith liked his chances against his next opponent.

Nothing would be better than sticking it to UCLA in his hometown.

But the Bruins, and more specifically linebacker Brendon Ayanbadejo, ended up sticking it to him. Ayanbadejo came off the left edge on a blitz and tanked Smith, who never saw him coming.

Lying on the grass in the Rose Bowl, feeling the pain of a sprained shoulder, Smith got his first taste of vulnerability. He had never gotten hurt playing football before.

A couple of weeks later, Smith returned to find there was nowhere for him to play anymore. Redshirt freshman Ortege Jenkins would start every game under center the rest of the season.

He had lost his job to a one-week injury.

If it didn't hurt so damn much, it would almost be funny.

Smith swallowed his pride the rest of that season, but he wasn't going to sit back and let his college career slip away. He walked into head coach Dick Tomey's office before his junior year and made his intentions clear.

"If you don't give me a fair shot, I'm transferring," Smith told Tomey. "I deserve to be playing. I'm too talented to be on the bench."

The coach agreed that Smith was too good for the pine ÷ "I've never coached a quarterback better than Keith Smith," Tomey says ÷ but Jenkins had done too much the season before to be relegated to backup duty. They were going to have to share.

Smith wasn't thrilled with the arrangement, but his frustrations were assuaged by the success the team was having with the two-quarterback system. Arizona ended up putting together the strongest year in the history of the program, finishing a 12-1 season with a dramatic win over Nebraska in the Holiday Bowl.

Individually, Smith's performance in limited playing time was spectacular. He set an Arizona record for passing efficiency with a 174.2 rating, and was 15 attempts short of finishing second in the country with a 68.5 completion percentage.

But the following season was a totally different story. Ranked No. 4 at the beginning of the season, Arizona went into a nosedive after being pulverized by Penn State, 41-7, in its opening game.

Soon, Jenkins was going public with his frustrations over playing time, and Smith was quietly fuming over not getting all the snaps his senior year.

"Every time in there, I felt I didn't want to mess up," Smith says. "It was very frustrating."

Even more frustrating was that Smith could feel his chance at the NFL slipping away. For all the numbers he put up in high school and college, and for all his raw physical ability ÷ strong, accurate arm, 4.4 speed, great scrambling instincts ÷ he encountered the same problem:

Keith Smith ö QB ö 5'10"

Smith thought he had caught his break when the NFL's Dallas Cowboys came calling. They said he was the kind of quarterback they were looking for.

"I thought for sure, honestly, that I was going to Dallas, because they wanted a mobile guy to run around," Smith says. "And a week before I worked out, they signed some Arena League guy and said they couldn't take me."

So Smith followed the same path plenty of undersized and overlooked football players had taken before him: He went up north to play in the Canadian Football League.

The CFL was a refuge for the undersized quarterback, and the stories of Jeff Garcia and Doug Flutie, both of whom have gone on to Pro Bowl careers in the NFL after stints in the CFL, buoyed Smith.

Smith signed with the Saskatchewan Roughriders as the team's No. 2 quarterback in 2001 and waited 11 games until he was given the reins for the last six games of the season. His numbers for the season weren't spectacular ÷ 1,008 yards, four touchdowns and eight interceptions ÷ but he felt he was adjusting well to the wider fields and modified rules of the CFL. Then disaster struck that cold day in Hamilton.

Snap.

Smith tore his achilles tendon and broke his ankle in one swift motion. He had started to sprint, and it gave out completely.

The doctors told him he wasn't going to be able to play football for two years. He told himself he'd be back in six months.

That was Oct. 25, 2001.

"If it were anything but my legs, I probably could have dealt with it a lot better," Smith says. "One of my main assets is my speed. When you take that away from me, that breaks my heart."

Smith spent the months after his surgery, leg in a cast, at home in Los Angeles with his parents. "I was miserable. I'd sit in the La-Z-Boy all day," Smith recalls.

Smith would watch tapes of his performances in high school and college, trying to forget how itchy his leg was. He wanted to remember what he was able to do.

Progress came slowly. But after a while, walking and jumping off the couch weren't problems anymore.

No longer imprisoned on the recliner in his parents' living room, he headed back to Tucson, where he could be closest to the memories of how things were before the injury.

He would spend months agonizing through countless hours of rehab at a local high school. Most of Smith's days started at 6 a.m., trying to will himself back to that 4.4 40-yard dash he could only remember running.

It helped that he had friends like former teammate and UA quarterback Jason Johnson in his corner. Johnson, who has taken a couple of good licks himself while under center for the Wildcats, says Smith has been an inspiration.

"Keith's taught me a lot about toughness, and how to play through things when you get knocked around," Johnson says.

Finally, in late October, Smith felt like he was good enough to re-join his new team, the Edmonton Eskimos, on its way to a Grey Cup berth. Smith didn't play this year; he was placed on the reserve list before the season started because of the injury. But just being around his teammates ÷ and the game ÷ was enough for him.

"It (was) about time, I'll put it that way," Smith says. "I've never had to watch for a full season of football."

Smith hopes he'll get a shot at the NFL after next season, when he'll have a couple of seasons of professional experience. But he's not counting on it.

"I can make good money in Canada, and support myself pretty well," Smith says. "Don't get me wrong, I want to go to the NFL, but the game up there suits me pretty well."

Smith's college coach says he has full confidence Smith will get his shot, and soon.

"I just know he's going to have a great professional career," Tomey says. "Some people take circuitous routes to get (to the NFL)."

But Smith's high school coach knows that the time is running out.

"The clock is ticking. He's not 19 anymore," Hurley says.

However, Hurley also remembers the stubborn 13-year-old kid with the banged-up elbow who found a way to play.

"I know his heart's still there, and if that is there, there's still a chance," he says.

Hurley isn't the only one with his doubts. Smith realizes the NFL gets farther away every day. He might not even start for his CFL team next year, after missing a complete season and falling to No. 3 on the depth chart.

And there's always the chance he might never play another down of football in his career, especially if he ever hears another sound like that snap again.

But Smith has no problem being a dreamer. In one of those dreams, the most incredible of them all, everyone gets over his height.

"I've always wanted, in my dream world, just to get put up against every quarterback in the NFL, and let's go. Let's go workout for workout right now. The only thing they got me on is size. I'm going to run a 4.4, and I'll throw it ÷ I promise you that," Smith says.

"It's just opportunity."