NORFOLK — Perhaps the most accurate way to gauge the worth of people is to watch them when they are far from the public eye.

Norfolk Mayor Kenny Alexander said former NFL football star Bruce Smith showed his true character one afternoon a few months ago when they were driving around the city in Smith’s car.

“It was just Bruce and me. We were looking for opportunities, places for Bruce to develop,” Alexander said.

When Smith saw a group of kids with football helmets along Brambleton Avenue asking for money, he stopped, got out of the car and took the coaches’ name and telephone number. And didn’t say another word to Alexander.

A week or so later, Alexander received a call from Smith. “I want to take you to a football game,” Smith said.

“At first, I thought, I’m going to an NFL game,” Alexander said. “Instead, he drives me to Lake Taylor High School and that team was playing and lo and beyond, every player had brand-new cleats, jerseys and helmets because of Bruce.

“Bruce was smiling just like a kid at Christmas. That shows what a huge heart this man has.”

His big heart, and his love for his hometown, is why Smith received an unusual honor recently. Smith was named Norfolk’s First Citizen by the Norfolk Cosmopolitan Club, a 101-year-old philanthropic group that in the last century named 96 people the city’s First Citizen.

Before Smith, none had been a professional athlete.

The list of previous winners reads like a veritable who’s who of the city’s and region’s most influential political and business leaders, including Priority Automotive founder Dennis Ellmer, former Congressman G. William Whitehurst, former Norfolk Mayor Paul D. Fraim and local attorney and philanthropist Peter G. Decker Jr.

Rob McWilliams, who led the Cosmopolitan Club selection committee, said his group did not take lightly deviating from the norm. But Smith, a 60-year-old Booker T. Washington High School and Virginia Tech graduate, fit the mold, he said.

“He was born and raised in Norfolk,” he said. “Then he spent 19 years in pro football.

“So many great athletes from our area have done well and never returned. They’ve gone to New York or some other place to do business.

“Well, Bruce came back. He came back to Norfolk, to Hampton Roads, to try to do business and try to build a better community.

“He has strong Norfolk connections and has been an outstanding role model. He’s worked hard trying to help young people. And he loves Norfolk. Bruce would do whatever he can to help Norfolk.

“The more we looked at Bruce, the more we realized that he more than deserved this award.”

While he was still sacking quarterbacks for the Buffalo Bills, Smith founded Bruce Smith Enterprises in Virginia Beach. In the two decades since he retired, he’s helped build dozens of projects across the Mid-Atlantic, including hotels, apartments or entertainment centers in Virginia Beach, Norfolk, Blacksburg and the Washington-Baltimore area.

He has funded scholarships at Booker T. Washington, mentored youth groups, worked to promote Operation Smile and, thanks to Decker’s prodding, helped raise money for the St. Jude’s Children’s Hospital in Memphis, Tennessee.

He’s also been a sometimes-controversial advocate for social change. He was raised in Ghent and, like many other African-American families living there in what was then a lower-income, blue-collar community, the Smith family was forced to move to make way for redevelopment.

Ghent is now an upscale, largely white community.

America was a much different place half a century ago and, Smith hopes, he’s played a small role in opening up opportunities for minority developers and investors.

He has said several projects that he wanted to develop in Virginia Beach were unjustly denied to him and others and was not shy about saying so.

Now, he says, Virginia Beach is open to business for everyone.

Virginia Beach Mayor Robert M. “Bobby” Dyer was among those on hand at the Norfolk Yacht and Country Club to fete Smith as First Citizen.

“This is something I would not have wanted to miss,” Dyer said.

Smith said “so many of my friends have said to me, why don’t you just enjoy your best life and not worry about all of that stuff? But I’m a firm believer that God places people in your life that allow you to grow and become the best you could possibly be and do goodwill in his service and his name.

“I feel like I was called to be a voice for voices that weren’t being heard.”

Interviewed a few days after receiving the award at his Virginia Beach home, he simply pointed to his back yard when asked why he moved back to Hampton Roads. He has a large home on Lynnhaven Inlet with a breathtaking view of the inlet all the way to the Lesner Bridge.

“I could sit in here for, I mean, for hours, and enjoy this view,” he said. “Occasionally I’ll see an eagle fly by and swim down and scoop a fish up and eat him right on my pier.

“Sometimes we’ll drop the jet skis in the water and go down to Chick’s Beach to eat shrimp.

“So many people around the country don’t appreciate what we have here. You’re not gonna get this in Chicago or Atlanta.”

Recently, Smith announced the biggest development deal of his career. Bruce Smith Enterprises and the Cordish Companies recently got the nod from Petersburg to build a $1.4 billion development that will be anchored by a casino and a luxury hotel.

Voters must approve a referendum in November for the project to proceed.

The project promises to be a lifeline for Petersburg, one of the Commonwealth’s most impoverished cities, located about 25 miles south of Richmond.

The project would begin next year with the construction of a temporary casino and a hotel. Eventually, it is scheduled to include a 3,000-seat indoor entertainment venue, 400,000 square feet of casino, hotel and dining space. There will be apartments, restaurants, including several set aside for existing Petersburg restaurants to relocate.

Most important of all, Smith said, the average salary will be $70,000 for the 7,500 new jobs expected to be created.

Smith has put together an investment group of largely African-American business people who will own 50% of the project.

“This will be a life-altering project for the city of Petersburg,” he said. “It’s going to provide so many good-paying jobs.

“Casinos are projects that come around once in a lifetime. And they can change a community. Who would have thought that Petersburg would become a destination city? And that’s exactly what it will become.”

Smith has yet to build a signature project in Norfolk, but hopes to break ground next year on a 287-unit apartment building to be known as 78 at St. Paul’s — 78 is a nod to his jersey number, which was retired by the Bills.

It would be built across St. Paul’s Boulevard from Scope and would rise seven stories in an area where Norfolk and the Norfolk Redevelopment and Housing Authority have torn down public housing.

Smith’s apartments would add to the hundreds of apartments under construction or already occupied. About 20% of his apartments would be available for former public housing residents at below-market rates.

A 500-space city-owned garage that will be a part of the project will provide 100 spaces for the Queen Street Baptist Church, where Smith attended services as a youngster with his parents.

Family members, including his wife, Carmen, and son, Alston; his former Booker T. Washington basketball coach Zeke Avery, business partner Dan Hoffler and officials from Queen Street were at the Norfolk Yacht and Country Club, as Alexander put the First Citizen medal around his neck.

Smith walked to the podium on crutches — his 13th and most recent surgery was for a knee replacement just a few days earlier — but stood without aid at the podium as he choked back tears to thank everyone who ever gave him a helping hand.

He paid particular homage to Cal Davidson, the late Booker T. Washington football coach who persuaded Smith to try football.

“I look around this room and see so many people, so many of you, who helped me at a key moment in my life,” he said.

Ellmer, the Priority Automotive founder, who has become close with Smith, said that’s likely because they saw what Ellmer sees in him — a man who hasn’t let success go to his head.

“My son and I went to a Bills game with Bruce, and while I enjoyed the game, the thing I will most remember is how Bruce interacted with the fans,” Ellmer said.

“Bruce is still a legend there. The fans were all over him. I’m sure that gets old after a while. But Bruce was so accommodating, so good to everyone. He shook every hand, took every selfie people asked for. He didn’t turn anyone away.”

Nor, when he became rich and famous in the NFL, did he forget his roots.

“Why did the community embrace me like it did?” he said during his acceptance speech.

“Why did so many people work to keep me out of harm’s way? Why did so many school teachers see more in me than I saw in myself?

“Of course I came back to Norfolk. This is my home. It will always be my home.”

A former Virginian-Pilot and Daily Press sports writer, Minium wrote his first story about Bruce Smith 43 years ago when Smith was a 17-year-old senior at Booker T. Washington High School. Minium is senior executive writer at Old Dominion University. Contact him at hminium@odu.edu