The reason you're not able to use the rich text controls (including emoticons, emojis, and smileys) is almost always because the editor has been inadvertently toggled to "plain text mode." Once that choice is made, it persists in your forums profile (usually even across devices) until you switch "rich text mode" back on.
There's a button on your editor that looks like two square brackets: [ ]. Clicking that button will toggle BB code on and off. BB on enables the icons in the red box below, which include emojis.
Footballguys Forums - Unable To Post Emoji's
