‘"It’s the people who present the award that make it special and this is from the people of Western New York," Smerlas said. "This is where I spent most of career, where I learned about a lot of things. "To play football here, people just bleed football. They take pride in their sports, so much pride . . . Of course, it never began as a love-fest with the city of Buffalo when Smerlas came to Buffalo in 1979 as a second-round draft choice out of Boston College. "No one wants to come here," Smerlas said. "You hear and believe all the stories about it being 60 degrees below in the summer. But then you come here and you never want to leave."’