An agency investigating a deadly boating accident involving two NFL players and their friends in the Gulf of Mexico has concluded it was caused when the vessel was improperly anchored and the boat capsized after one of them tried to throttle forward to pry loose the anchor. The Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission’s investigation also cited carelessness and operator inexperience as contributing factors. The combination of errors came at the time a storm front was moving in, making conditions on the water very rough.

The Detroit Lions will retire No. 93 for the 2009 football season in memory of player Corey Smith, a Richmond native and one of three men lost when their fishing boat capsized off the Florida Gulf Coast three weeks ago. Lions player development director Galen Duncan told several hundred mourners at St. Paul’s Baptist Church yesterday that Smith’s number would be retired for a year in honor of a player of extraordinary heart and competitive drive.

Scholarship fund will honor Smith Award named for NFL player will go to Marshall students Corey Domanic Smith was a quiet, gentle man who led by example, friends and family members said. “We all looked at him as the epitome of what we wanted in high school athletes, and not just at John Marshall [High School],“ said Kevin G. Adams, athletic director at John Marshall and one of Smith’s early coaches. “He’d give you 110 percent. He’d just go and go.“

When William Brown thinks of his friend and former football teammate Corey D. Smith, Brown recalls perhaps the only contradiction in Smith’s life. “He didn’t eat seafood, but he enjoyed fishing,“ Brown said. Then Brown chuckled, ruefully, sadly. Mr. Smith was fishing Feb. 28 when the boat he and three other men were in capsized in turbulent waters of the Gulf of Mexico, about 30 miles off the Florida coast. Coast Guard and private searches found one survivor. Mr. Smith is presumed dead.

BY PAUL WOODY and ELLEN ROBERTSON Times-Dispatch Staff Writers When William Brown thinks of his friend and former football teammate Corey D. Smith, Brown recalls perhaps the only contradiction in Smith’s life. “He didn’t eat seafood, but he enjoyed fishing,“ Brown said. Then Brown chuckled, ruefully, sadly. Mr. Smith was fishing Feb. 28 when the boat he and three other men were in capsized in turbulent waters of the Gulf of Mexico, about 30 miles off the Florida coast. Coast Guard and private searches found one survivor. Mr. Smith is presumed dead.

MADIERA BEACH, Fla.—The search for Richmond native Corey Smith, another NFL player and a third man missing in the Gulf of Mexico was scaled back today, but charter boat operators said they still hoped to recover their remains. Charter captains planned to keep an eye out when they take customers out to fish, but there wasn’t the dedicated effort of yesterday, when about a dozen boats combed the Gulf off Florida for signs of the missing men.

A charter captain says the search for two NFL players and another man off Florida’s Gulf Coast has become a subdued effort to find their remains.

The search for Richmond native Corey Smith and two other missing boaters has been suspended. The Coast Guard ended its search in the Gulf of Mexico off the Florida coast last night at 6:30. Smith is one of four fishermen lost at sea when the boat from which they were fishing capsized in rough waters Saturday. One of the men was rescued. The men were about 30 miles off the coast of Clearwater, Fla.

Size and good health of missing boaters could help them survive, Coast Guard says.

The Coast Guard yesterday narrowed the search area for two NFL players, including Richmond, Va., native Corey Smith, and a third man missing since a weekend fishing trip off the Florida Gulf Coast. Crews rescued a fourth man clinging to their capsized boat. Survivor Nick Schuyler, a former University of South Florida player, told rescuers the boat the four friends were aboard was anchored when it flipped Saturday evening in rough seas, Coast Guard Capt. Timothy M. Close said.

CLEARWATER, Fla. — Detroit Lions defensive end Corey Smith and Oakland Raiders linebacker Marquis Cooper were among four boaters missing Sunday off Florida’s Gulf Coast, the Coast Guard and Smith’s agent said.