Quote of the day by Bubba Smith: "Well, I'm not a violent person. You have to back off. People sometimes will…"

Some people assume that physical size or obvious strength naturally comes with a short temper. Bubba Smith, the former NFL defensive lineman turned actor, suggested something closer to the opposite.

"Well, I'm not a violent person," he said. "You have to back off. People sometimes will try you and try you until you try not to, but you have to react.

Normally, I just walk away." At six feet seven inches tall, Smith understood better than most exactly how much weight his own actions could carry, and he chose restraint as his default, a choice that says considerably more about real strength than his imposing size ever did on its own.

Quote of the day by Bubba Smith

"Well, I'm not a violent person. You have to back off. People sometimes will try you and try you until you try not to, but you have to react. Normally, I just walk away"

What this quote actually reveals about him

Smith made a related point elsewhere, explaining precisely why he avoided certain situations altogether. "I don't go to clubs and stuff like that, so I don't have to put up with it in there," he said. "And normally, because obviously I could hurt somebody, and if I look at it that way, I have to back off." Read together, the two quotes paint a consistent picture, someone who was deeply aware of his own physical power and who treated that awareness as a genuine responsibility rather than something to lean on.

What the quote actually means

Smith is drawing a clear line between being provoked and choosing to escalate. He is not claiming he never gets tested. He openly admits that people sometimes "try you and try you," pushing at someone repeatedly to see how far they can go. His response to that pressure was not aggression. It was walking away, treating that as the stronger, more controlled option rather than a weaker one. The quote suggests that real strength often looks like restraint rather than retaliation, particularly for someone whose size meant that any physical reaction could genuinely hurt another person.

Why walking away can be the harder choice

Walking away from a confrontation is often assumed to be the easy option, when in practice it can require considerably more self-control than reacting does. Someone who is repeatedly provoked has to actively choose not to respond in kind, again and again, even while their patience is being tested. For someone as physically imposing as Smith, that choice carried extra weight, since any reaction from him would have looked, and likely been, far more serious than the same reaction from someone else.

Why size and strength come with real responsibility

Smith's comments reveal a genuine awareness that not everyone faces the same consequences for the same reaction. A smaller disagreement between two ordinary people rarely escalates into anything serious. For someone Smith's size, the stakes were different, and he seemed to recognise that directly, deliberately avoiding situations where his own presence alone might turn a minor disagreement into something far worse.

That kind of self-awareness is its own form of maturity.Who was Bubba SmithBubba Smith was an American professional football player and actor, born Charles Aaron Smith on 28 February 1945. He became an outstanding defensive lineman at Michigan State University, twice earning All-American honours and playing a central role in the famous 1966 "Game of the Century," a 10-10 tie against Notre Dame. He was one of only three Michigan State players to have his jersey number retired, and he was later inducted into the College Football Hall of Fame in 1988.

Smith was selected first overall by the Baltimore Colts in the 1967 NFL Draft, going on to a ten-year professional career that included two Super Bowl appearances and two Pro Bowl selections.

From football to Hollywood

Smith's career did not end when he left professional football. He became widely known in the 1970s for a series of Miller Lite beer commercials, before actually quitting the campaign himself, later explaining he felt uncomfortable being associated with encouraging alcohol use, particularly among younger viewers.

He went on to build a genuinely successful acting career, best known for playing the gentle, soft-spoken Moses Hightower in the Police Academy film series, a role that used his enormous physical size for comic and warm effect rather than menace, a contrast that suited his real personality closely.

He continued acting in film and television until his death in 2011.

Why kindness and physical strength are not opposites

Smith's public image combined obvious physical power with a genuinely gentle screen persona, and his own words suggest that contrast was not really an act.

Being capable of real force and choosing not to use it carelessly are two separate things, and his comments about walking away show someone who understood that difference clearly. Problems tend to arise only when people assume the two are the same, that someone strong must therefore be short-tempered, or that someone gentle must therefore be pushed around freely.

Smith's own account suggests neither assumption held true for him.

How to apply this lesson in daily life

Recognise your own influence honestly, since the same reaction can land very differently depending on who delivers it. Choose restraint deliberately rather than assuming it is the passive option, since walking away often requires more discipline than reacting does. Notice when you are being tested repeatedly, and decide consciously how to respond rather than reacting purely on instinct. Avoid situations likely to escalate unnecessarily, the way Smith avoided certain places specifically because of what his own presence might provoke.

And remember that genuine strength is measured as much by what someone chooses not to do as by what they are actually capable of.

Why this still resonates today

Smith's own words offer something more useful than a simple tough-guy line ever could, an honest account of someone large and physically powerful choosing patience as his default response, and being deliberate about the moments when he allowed himself to react at all. That restraint, chosen repeatedly rather than accidental, is really the more interesting story behind a man best remembered publicly for towering size and a gentle, likeable screen presence.