Just hours before his sudden death at age 36, former San Francisco 49ers star Aldon Smith was doing something few people would have expected during the darkest years of his NFL career: delivering food to people in need.
According to the San Francisco Chronicle, the former 49ers star, whose once-promising career became synonymous with suspensions, arrests, and missed opportunities, spent part of Saturday, June 13, donating pizzas to a homeless outreach organization in Northern California. By the end of the day, he was dead.
Those closest to Smith say he appeared healthy and optimistic only moments before tragedy struck.
According to friend Amir Shirazi, Smith accompanied him to CHAM Deliverance Ministry, a local charity that provides meals to unhoused residents. The visit wasn't part of a publicity event or organized team initiative. Smith simply showed up with food and helped out.
"My impression was that this is a young man that wanted to help the homeless, which was great," said charity co-founder Scott Wagers. "When the 49ers and people like that want to help the community, that's everything."
After leaving the charity, Smith and Shirazi returned to Shirazi's home. What happened next remains difficult for his friend to process.
"He was perfectly fine an hour before," Shirazi said. "I came out and he was basically dead in my front seat. I'm just in shock."
For many football fans, Smith's death reopens one of the NFL's most complicated stories.
Selected seventh overall by the 49ers in 2011, Smith exploded onto the league's biggest stage almost immediately. He recorded 14 sacks as a rookie and followed it with a staggering 19.5 sacks in 2012, earning Pro Bowl and First-Team All-Pro honors. At one point, he appeared destined to become the next dominant defensive superstar. He still owns the NFL record for the most sacks accumulated during a player's first two seasons.
But the rise didn't last.
Beginning in 2013, a series of arrests and violations of the NFL's substance-abuse and personal-conduct policies repeatedly interrupted his career. The 49ers eventually released him, and although he later resurfaced with the Raiders and Cowboys, he never fully regained the trajectory that once made him one of football's brightest young stars.
Yet friends say the man they knew near the end wasn't defined by those headlines.
"He was a very sweet, caring, loving giant," Shirazi said. "That if you really knew him, you'd know who he truly is."
