Trent Richardson leading Alabama players off a plane Wednesday in New Orleans, site of the national championship game.  NEW ORLEANS — Emmitt Smith first heard about Trent Richardson a few years ago, from the coach they shared in common. That coach, Jimmy Nichols, long worked at Escambia High School in Pensacola, Fla., and nearly 20 years after Smith graduated in 1987, after he became the N.F.L.’s leading career rusher, another back of similar prowess emerged in his hometown.  Nichols said Richardson reminded him of Smith, only bigger, stronger and faster. They held in common a position, a city, even a high school, but if Smith was the prototype, he said Nichols made Richardson sound like version 2.0.  “You should have heard him,” Smith said in a telephone interview. “He described Trent as a beast of a running back. That he attacked the line of scrimmage with force, moved defenders backwards. He said it took five players to bring him down.”  It took far more than that to lift him up, off Pensacola streets described by Richardson last week as “a lot of deaths and a lot of drugs,” to Alabama, all the way to the Bowl Championship Series national championship game here on Monday night. It took a family — a bus driver and a preacher and a track coach among others — for Richardson to navigate the chaos of his childhood.  All week, he answered questions about his literal strength, the sleeves of his jersey rolled up to reveal biceps the size of grapefruits. Yet he also continued to reveal another strength, culled from the family that helps him raise two daughters, that guided him through two injuries.  “To come from where I come from, I never thought I’d be here,” Richardson said.  The family takes its cues from Gloria, Richardson’s grandmother, a woman his mentor, Derrick Boyd, described simply as “the boss.” She drove a city bus for years, retired, then came out of retirement to drive a school bus because she still wanted to work. She cared for Richardson when his mother, Katrina, worked as many as four jobs.  Richardson never really knew his father, once a boxer, who died of lung cancer a few years ago. Into the void stepped Willie Richardson, his uncle, now a preacher and once a classmate of Smith’s. Uncle Willie used to watch Smith in awe, and while his nephew runs with a different style, closer to someone like Earl Campbell, the comparisons — productive, powerful, Pensacola born and bred — still fit.  Their hometown has produced its share of athletic specimens, among them linebacker Derrick Brooks, the sprinter Justin Gatlin and the boxer Roy Jones Jr. Richardson, in terms of pure athletic gifts, soon joined them.  Uncle Willie insists that Richardson emerged from the womb with his physique already intact. Richardson did not lift weights until high school and never took supplements, yet by age 5, Uncle Willie said, “he was already cut” and “even had a six-pack.”  Everything about Richardson was big. As a high school freshman, he stood 5 feet 9 inches tall and weighed 190 pounds. When he wrestled with his uncle, and Willie threw Richardson with a hip toss, his body’s impact with the ground shook the house. Even the nickname bestowed by his brothers was Big Tooth.  Despite now standing 5-11, Richardson played power forward in basketball, and his older brother, Terrell, remembered fans at games who exclaimed: “Who is that little big dude on the court? Look how big his arms are!”  But Richardson, his brother said, was also bow-legged and pigeon-toed and susceptible to teasing for his awkward running form. That was where Boyd, who coached Richardson in track at Escambia, came in.  He taught Richardson to run with a smaller base, his shoulders more symmetrical with his legs. He had Richardson run what they called the Bluffs, hills of sand that turned legs to Jell-O and led Richardson’s workout partners to vomit. In one race, Boyd said, Richardson stuck with Jeff Demps, who also runs track at Florida, for half of 100 meters.  This article has been revised to reflect the following correction:  A previous version of this article stated that Mark Ingram won the Heisman Trophy "last year.â He won the trophy in 2009.  A previous version of this article stated that Mark Ingram won the Heisman Trophy "last year.â He won the trophy in 2009.
Trent Richardson went to the same high school as Emmitt Smith, who calls Richardson âthe best running-back prospect in a long time.â