CLEVELAND, Ohio — Troy Smith was finally back in the NFL -- or so he thought.

A workout last August with the Miami Dolphins had gone well. But in the 20 minutes between being told he'd made the team and sitting in General Manager Jeff Ireland's office to sign a contract, something changed. The way Smith remembers it, Ireland mumbled something about taking a different route and to stay in shape.

One month later, the 2006 Heisman Trophy-winning quarterback from Glenville and Ohio State found himself standing in the check-out line of a Dick's Sporting Goods store in Omaha, Neb., with $600 in football equipment. His new team, the Omaha Nighthawks of the United Football League, provided a place to stay, but the players were on their own for gear, from cleats to toiletries.

"That's the story of my life, man," he said. "But the thing about it is, it's life."

The Troy Smith story turned another challenging page on June 25, when his latest crack at the NFL ended in a simple tweet and five-sentence news release from the Pittsburgh Steelers that he'd been cut.

Smith had been competing for a backup role with Pittsburgh, who had signed him in late January to a "reserve/futures" contract. When he signed, veteran backups Charlie Batch and Byron Leftwich were free agents. The likelihood of keeping both was in doubt, providing an opening for Smith just two hours from home.

He participated in the Steelers' off-season training, hoping to make the roster behind Ben Roethlisberger and possibly beat out Batch and Leftwich, who both wound up re-upping with the Steelers. The opportunity looked promising, anyway.

"He brings experience. This isn't a total project," Steelers General Manager Kevin Colbert said when asked a few months back about the team's interest in Smith. "This kid has started and won games in this league."

Smith was feeling pretty good about how he was embraced by the Steelers, even participating in a friendly distance throw-off with Leftwich on the training session's final day. Smith's 68-yard heave landed three yards short of Leftwich's toss.

Head coach Mike Tomlin had assured him, "We know you've got good football left," and to not get caught up in the depth chart or who took snaps with which offense.

"We've got one starter. That's Ben Roethlisberger," Smith recalled the coach saying. "Everyone else is competing for a position."

The Steelers had been intrigued with Smith since Ohio State, where he beat out the highly-touted Justin Zwick, won 25 of the 28 games he started and took the Heisman Trophy by the second-largest voting margin ever.

"First and foremost," Colbert said, "he was a winner."

After Smith was cut, Colbert, through a team spokesman, declined an interview request. Smith said Tomlin called him before the team announced his release. Tomlin told Smith he thought he could start in this league, and that they wanted to let him go early enough to catch on with another team.

Smith, who turns 28 on July 20, will now have to try to win somewhere else. A few unidentified teams reached out the day he was cut, but his football future is uncertain.

"We'll just keep plugging and plugging," he said.

Stuck in the NFL loop

A week before being cut by Pittsburgh, he was philosophical about -- and humbled by -- a string of career disappointments during recent interviews near his Warehouse District condominium, where the Browns' Greg Little is a neighbor.

"I'm to the point now," he said, "where I solely believe you get what you work for."

Football for Smith, from St. Edward High to Ohio State to Baltimore to San Francisco, has played like an endless loop. Overshadowed by a more prototypical quarterback. Prove yourself and win the job. Have the position yanked away or fumbled by what he calls "my thick-headedness and me having to grow up as a man."

Smith's release comes a month before the start of training camp. He's still young, still has a cannon. Quarterbacks go down all the time, so the NFL may call again.

"Troy definitely can play in the National Football League. I have no doubts about that," said Baltimore GM Ozzie Newsome, who chose Smith in the fifth round (174th overall) of the 2007 draft. Smith, considered undersized at 6 feet tall, had slipped after a 41-14 BCS Championship loss to Florida in which he went 4-14 for 35 yards and five sacks in his final college game.

Smith watched round after round, day after day, from his Quay 55 apartment off the Shoreway near East 55th Street as nine quarterbacks were drafted ahead of him. Bobby George, a friend from St. Ed's and his business manager, sat on the couch with him.

When the Ravens finally called Smith's name, he and George headed over to his mother's house on the city's East Side and celebrated as if he was a first-round choice.

An untimely illness

In Baltimore, Smith started two games in three seasons and had beaten out Joe Flacco and Kyle Boller for the starting job when he contracted a severe case of tonsillitis that leaked into his lungs and developed a blood clot in his neck. Smith lost nearly 30 pounds and said the illness got so bad he was on all fours to breathe.

Flacco won the job by default, although some teammates publicly urged the offense be given back to a recovered Smith. Instead, he was traded to San Francisco in 2010. He went 3-3 in six more starts and had beaten out Alex Smith, the team's No. 1 overall pick in 2005.

In his marquee game, on Nov. 14, 2010, Smith went 17-for-28 for 356 yards and a touchdown in a 23-20 overtime win over St. Louis.

"He's a playmaker. He can extend the play," Newsome said. "He has a real strong arm, and people like to knock him for his height, but he knows how to find throwing lanes in the pocket."

A sideline shouting match with then-head coach Mike Singletary got plenty of TV air time. When the season ended, Singletary, who declined an interview for this story, was gone and so was Smith. The 49ers let him go, and the tryout last summer with Miami didn't stick.

"Despite how things go," said Jim Tressel, Smith's coach at Ohio State, "whether it was bad fortune or his own errors, he's the kind of guy that's going to pick himself up, learn from it, dust himself off."

An outpost in Omaha

Ten months ago, when the dust settled, the Heisman winner was a third-string quarterback for the UFL's Omaha Nighthawks.

Nighthawks coach Joe Moglia spoke to Smith by phone to make it clear where Smith stood before signing him. Smith arrived a week before the season started and accepted his role, which evolved into the starter by the final game.

"I couldn't have been prouder of what his attitude was," said Moglia, now the head coach at Coastal Carolina. "He showed exemplary leadership."

Former Nighthawks offensive coordinator Bart Andrus, who had coached Steve McNair and Neil O'Donnell with the Tennessee Titans, remembered watching video of the first game and seeing Smith jumping up and down on the sidelines and helping teammates despite not playing a single down.

"That, to me," he said, "is the mark of a true professional."

When Smith finally got the start, he was 17-of-33 for 191 yards, two touchdowns and an interception in a 25-19 overtime loss. He had led Omaha to a 17-9 second-quarter lead on an 81-yard touchdown.

But from the Heisman to the NFL to the UFL? What a come down.

"We don't look at it like that," said Ted Ginn Sr., the patriarch of Glenville football, where Smith had transferred after being kicked off the St. Ed's basketball team for elbowing an opponent in the head.

Ginn first noticed Smith as a young boy. They've remained so close that Smith still affectionately refers to him as "my dad." Ginn is also a role model, spiritual advisor and his biggest supporter. Ginn considers any suggestion that Smith has failed because he's barely clinging to a pro football career missing the point.

"What about the example he's given the kids of Cleveland, Ohio? What about the example he's given to the kids that walk down the streets of St. Clair?" Ginn asked. "People have told you, 'You shouldn't even expect to win a Heisman or be a professional player or to even go to college?' What about that example? What about the example of the kid that had the background that he had and still be an example? What about that?"

Hard lessons, all learned

Smith, who spent much of his childhood in foster care, said his refusal to quit after multiple knockdowns comes from his mother. She overcame drug addiction to resurrect a life.

At Glenville, Smith was the starting QB. But he was also a cut-up, a distraction, to the point where Ginn Sr. called him into his office one day to straighten him out. When Smith walked in, sitting next to Ginn was legendary Grambling football coach Eddie Robinson.

Together, they gave him the "you'd better get your act together" speech.

"When they were looking at me," Smith said, "it felt like they were looking through me."

Smith nearly wrecked his career at Ohio State by taking money from a booster. He stumbled through other scuffles, but with constant monitoring by Ginn and Tressel, Smith left Columbus with a communications degree and the drive to be an NFL quarterback.

"The light's still on," said Ginn. "He's still an example of a kid from Cleveland. His core values and base are still there, because he's fightin' every day."