Dallas Cowboys offensive lineman Tyron Smith spends his Sundays helping to protect star quarterback Tony Romo from being harassed and tormented by opposing defenses. On Tuesday, police had to protect him from being harassed and tormented by his closest family members over money.
On Tuesday afternoon, Dallas police responded to a 911 call to Smith’s North Dallas home, where two of his sisters along with a third unknown person showed up to “harass and torment” him “in the pursuit of collecting financial gain,” according to police reports. It was the second time in four days that the siblings showed up at his home.
Smith, 21, is in his second year with the Cowboys, his first as their starting left tackle, is considered to be a rising star. The ninth-overall pick out of Southern California in 2011, the 6-foot-5, 308-pound Smith signed to a four-year, $12.5 million contract last season with “America’s Team” and it has brought with it a lot of unwanted attention from his family.
Over the summer, Smith filed a restraining order through his attorneys against his stepfather, Roy Pinkney, and his mother, Frankie Pinkney, barring them from contacting Smith, even through siblings.
“Lesser means were tried and they weren’t successful,” said John Schorsch, Smith’s attorney, said. “You can use your own imagination as to what it took for a guy that big and that imposing to be that worried.”
This is the latest in a long line of incidents over the course of this year in which Smith’s family members have tried to harass Smith for their financial benefit, according to the Dallas Morning News. The problems began after Smith signed the contract last season when he gave his family a substantial amount of money.
The family members kept coming back for more, getting to the point where they were accosting him at training camp – including an incident where one of Smith’s family members had to be barred from the practice facility. The restraining order also prohibited Smith’s parents, who live in southern California, from attending Cowboys training camp in Oxnard, Calif. – which is about an hour west of Los Angeles.
During training camp, one of Smith’s family members had to be removed from the practice facility, which prompted Cowboys security to devise a plan to prevent other incidents. Neither Smith, nor his parents, had any public comment and the team declined to comment on the incident or the security plan.
This comes on the heels of former NFL quarterback Vince Young, who was most recently cut by the Buffalo Bills in August admitting that he is broke. Young, who was the third-overall pick in the 2006 draft and received a contract that had $26 million guaranteed, is suing his former agent and a financial planner, and claiming they squandered $5.5 million. Young also claimed that his uncle, Keith Young, who served as his business manager, scammed millions of dollars off of him.
Smith’s parents own a cleaning business in Riverside, Calif. and he worked for the company while he was a teenager. Smith’s agent, Joe Panos, called it “a family matter, a private matter” and would address it when “it’s appropriate.” Cowboys’ coaches and brass said they haven’t noticed the struggles with his family affecting his play on the field.
“I think every player and every coach, really around this league have different things going on in their lives and you just have come into work and do your job as best as you can,” Cowboys head coach Jason Garrett said Thursday. Cowboys’ executive vice president Stephen Jones added: “He’s handling his business. It’s personal but Tyron is a man and everybody has things they have to handle personally and I have a lot of confidence he’ll handle it.”
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