By Lisa de Moraes
Thursday, November 16, 2006; C01

Three-time Super Bowl champ Emmitt Smith took home the Cheesetastic Disco Ball Trophy last night to become the most successful football player ever to compete on ABC's hit "Dancing With the Stars."

Last season's token athlete, former San Francisco 49er Jerry Rice, made it all the way to the final two, but in the end sanity prevailed and viewers voted to award the trophy to Jessica Simpson's former brother-in-law, Drew Lachey of boy band 98 Degrees.

This time around, however, the sports hero won after 10 grueling weeks of competition, though he was not the better dancer of the final two. Mario Lopez was -- though not by as much as you'd think.

Emmitt was, however, the only actual amateur dancer left in the competition, and I don't care how many times that Samantha co-host chick says otherwise.

"You do some moves that are even difficult for some professionals and you're so good, sometimes it's easy to forget you're actually an actor and you're not a professional dancer -- did you ever think you would get to this level?" she gushed last night at Lopez, the hunky Animal Planet show host, former "Saved by the Bell" actor and -- we cannot emphasize this enough -- "Kids Incorporated" hoofer.

"No way!" Lopez said on cue. "Just like you said, Samantha, I'm just an actor and a host."

Lopez and partner Karina Smirnoff re-performed the freestyle dance to "It Takes Two" that brought down the house the night before and led judges to tie up their votes for each contestant. Smith and partner Cheryl Burke redid one of their better dances, but it wasn't in the same league.

But, what did that matter, the votes were already in.

"It's awesome!" Smith shouted when his win was announced in the final minutes of the heavily padded hour. Surprisingly, he did not shout out that he was going to Disneyland -- ABC is owned by Disney.

He did, however, heap praise on Burke, who is a two-time winner, having been Lachey's partner for the show's second edition. Think male celebs negotiating to participate in the fourth edition of the series are all demanding Burke for their partner?

Smith also had nice things to say about Lopez, calling him a "true gentleman," while Lopez graciously said, "This whole journey was unbelievable" and dance partner "Karina the most unbelievable person."

But before that moment, we got to see repeat appearances by all nine contestants who'd been booted from this edition of "Dancing." Has there ever been a stiffer dancer onstage than Tucker Carlson?

Best moment of the show came when Sara Evans -- Tom DeLay's candidate of choice, who left the show abruptly when she filed for divorce, claiming her husband had cheated on her with the nanny, watched porn in front of the kid and stockpiled nude snaps of his excited self -- came out, dancing and prancing in a cowboy hat, cowboy boots, low-cut top and very short blue-fringy skirt to "These Boots Are Made for Walking":

You keep saying you've got something for me.

Something you call love, but confess.

You've been a messin' where you shouldn't have been a messin'

And now someone else is gettin' all your best.

These boots are made for walking, and that's just what they'll do

One of these days these boots are gonna walk all over you.

Yee-haw!

During last night's final episode, NFL Hall of Famer Troy Aikman promised in a taped bit that if his former Dallas Cowboys teammate won, "I don't think any of us are going to give him a hard time about that."

We'll see about that.

The hit series, which pairs the formerly famous with professional dance partners, had churned up an average audience of nearly 27 million viewers for its final performance broadcast Tuesday -- the most watched telecast on all of TV this season to date.

That's right, bigger than the supermarket shootout on "Desperate Housewives."

Bigger than Mr. Eko's death on "Lost."

Bigger than the Manning Bowl on "Sunday Night Football."

Bigger than Madonna on "Oprah."

Bigger than Katie's debut on "CBS Evening News."

"Dancing," in fact, pasodobled ABC to its biggest Tuesdays, without sports, in six years.

And, because we know you want to compare: In the most recent edition of "American Idol," the final night of competition clocked about 32 million viewers in May.

Hours before last night's Cheesetastic Disco Ball Trophy Ceremony, the two contestants and their professional dance partners met with the queen. Oprah.

We'd been promised Oprah would be sure to get to the bottom of juicy reports that Lopez was dating his dance partner.

Here's how that went:

Oprah: We heard rumors you and Karina Smirnoff are dating. Is that true?

Lopez: They are always slick about their editing; at the end of the day you have to remember it's a reality show. I should be so lucky, but she's just a strict partner-slash-teacher.

Which explains that footage of him necking with Smirnoff -- the editors made him do it.