Jimmy Smits could have ended up on "Monday Night Football" instead of "NYPD Blue" if not for a high school field trip.

The actor, a varsity linebacker at Jefferson High School in Brooklyn, recalled that on a bus trip, his coach pointed out Shea Stadium, where the New York Jets played, and said, "Jim, you could be playing there some day."Then his English teacher took the class to see Raul Julia in "The Threepenny Opera."

Julia "was from the same background I was, and he was up there and everyone was looking at him and he was terrific," Smits said. "And that was it. I never really wanted to do anything else after that."

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Smits quit football. He knew he had made the right choice when his teammates came to watch him in a school play and gave him a standing ovation.

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