Ames, Ia. – Big-time, hard-hitting college football players have heart. They have emotion.

They even cry.

“You bet I did,” said Iowa State’s James Smith of the heartwarming reunion with his mother July 21 in their native Haiti. “I’d be lying if I said I didn’t tear up, and my mom – she cried a lot.”

Smith and his mother, Lidi, met for the first time after being separated 19 years ago, when James was 3 years old. It’s a story Smith told The Des Moines Register when he was a freshman in 2006, and then updated in a front-page story last month when talking about plans for a reunion.
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“When I got off the plane, she came right at me,” Smith said. “Somehow, she knew it was me. It was a moment I’ll never forget. I really couldn’t understand a lot of what she said, and I’m sure she didn’t understand what I was saying, either, but we didn’t need any words at that moment.”

His mother, born, raised and still living in Haiti, speaks Creole. Smith speaks English after living in the United States since being separated from his mother.

“I’m glad I did it,” said Smith, a senior starting defensive back, said of the reunion. “It went well. It went very well.”

Smith, who played high school football at Council Bluffs Thomas Jefferson while living with his fifth foster family, was taken from his mother by an aunt, the sister of his now-deceased father.tions and processes.

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Original Source: http://www.desmoinesregister.com/article/20090803/SPORTS020602/908040354/1094/