Editing Rod Smart (section)

===="He Hate Me"====<!-- This section is linked from [[XFL (2001)|XFL]] -->
"He Hate Me" is the phrase Smart chose to place on the back of his Las Vegas Outlaws [[Uniform number (American football)|football jersey]]. Though most sports organizations allow only a surname or first initial and surname to be placed on the back of a jersey, XFL rules permitted players' jerseys to be stitched with whatever words they wanted. The Outlaws happened to be playing in the league's first nationally televised game (the one that would, ultimately, be the most widely watched game, as the league's viewership plummeted after that point), and the league's choice of camera angles more akin to video games meant that Smart's jersey was prominently featured on the telecasts. The jersey was the XFL's best seller.

Smart explained the origin of the [[non-standard dialect|grammatically non-standard]] phrase in a January 30, 2004 article with the ''[[Milwaukee Journal Sentinel]]'' as, "Basically, my opponent is going to hate me. After I win, he's gonna hate me. It is what it is. It's a saying I was saying when I'd feel something wasn't going my way. For example, (when) I was on the squad in Vegas and coach was putting other guys in, (if) I felt I'm better than them, you know, hey, 'he hate me.' See what I'm saying? Give me a chance. That's all I ask. It came from the heart. Within. The way I felt. I feel as if everyone hates me, from my mom to my dad and even my brothers and sisters everyone "Hates Me". My buddy Greg Kates always used to use it, so I took it from him."<ref name="Fans love 'He Hate Me'">{{cite web |url=http://www.jsonline.com/story/index.aspx?id=203873 |access-date=August 16, 2006 |author=Silverstein, Tom |title=Fans love "He Hate Me" |publisher=Milwaukee Journal Sentinel Online |date=January 30, 2004 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070513161851/http://www.jsonline.com/story/index.aspx?id=203873 |archive-date=May 13, 2007}}</ref>

Smart stated that he originally planned to use a different nickname on the back of his jersey every week of the season but abandoned that plan when "He Hate Me" became a national sensation. He and his agent also credit the nickname with getting NFL scouts to notice him after the XFL collapsed.<ref>[https://www.theguardian.com/sport/blog/2017/aug/11/mlb-players-weekend-nickname-jerseys-age MLB's nickname gimmick won't solve baseball's mounting age issues]. ''The Guardian''. Retrieved August 11, 2017.</ref>

When Smart and the Outlaws played divisional rival the [[Los Angeles Xtreme]], two Xtreme players put "I Hate He" and "I Hate He Too" on the back of their jerseys to express their disdain for Smart. In a later game between those two teams, those two players changed their nicknames to "Still Hate He" and "Still Hate He Too". The curious maxim also caught the eye of American audiences (as well as Smart's future [[Carolina Panthers]] teammate [[Jake Delhomme]], who named one of his [[thoroughbreds]], "She Hate Me").<ref name="Fans love 'He Hate Me'" /> The title of Spike Lee's 2004 film ''[[She Hate Me]]'' was also inspired by Smart's nickname.<ref>{{cite web |author1=The Playlist Staff |title=The Films of Spike Lee: A Retrospective |url=https://www.indiewire.com/2012/08/the-films-of-spike-lee-a-retrospective-107307/ |website=[[IndieWire]] |access-date=November 25, 2018 |date=August 10, 2012}}</ref>