Nigel James Smart was an Australian rules football

Australian rules football

Australian rules football, officially known as Australian football, also called football, Aussie rules or footy is a sport played between two teams of 22 players on either...

er with the Adelaide Crows from 1991 to 2004. He was a defender who was a crowd favourite with his bald head and goatee.

One of the most famous incidents attributed to Smart's career was during the 1992 pre-season, where the Adelaide Crows

Adelaide Crows

The Adelaide Football Club, nicknamed The Crows, is a professional Australian rules football club based in Adelaide, South Australia, playing in the Australian Football League ....

 organised a session to walk over hot coal

Coal

Coal is a combustible black or brownish-black sedimentary rock usually occurring in rock strata in layers or veins called coal beds or coal seams. The harder forms, such as anthracite coal, can be regarded as metamorphic rock because of later exposure to elevated temperature and pressure...

s. Smart suffered burns to his feet but returned to play football soon after.

After his retirement from football, Smart was an unsuccessful candidate for the Liberal Party

Liberal Party of Australia

The Liberal Party of Australia is an Australian political party.Founded a year after the 1943 federal election to replace the United Australia Party, the centre-right Liberal Party typically competes with the centre-left Australian Labor Party for political office...

 for the electoral district of Norwood

Electoral district of Norwood

Norwood is an electoral district of the House of Assembly in the Australian state of South Australia. It is named after its surrounding geographical area, Norwood, South Australia. Norwood is a 14.2 km² urban electorate in Adelaide's inner eastern suburbs...

 in the 2006 South Australian state election.

Smart has been a member of the Crows' board since 2005, and will assume the role of Deputy Chairman for the 2009 season.