Boys Will Be Boys (28 page)

An enraged Jones immediately returned to the nearby Hyatt Grand Cypress, plopped himself down atop a stool inside Trellises, the lobby bar, and railed against Johnson to friends. “I should have fired Jimmy and brought in Barry Switzer a
long
time ago,” he said. Sitting nearby were a handful of sportswriters. Jones greeted the journalists and left the bar with Lacewell. Within minutes most of the scribes departed too. The four who remained—Rick Gosselin and Ed Werder of the
Dallas Morning News,
Joe Fisaro of the
Tampa Tribune,
and Geoff Hobson of the
Cincinnati Enquirer
—sat drinking with Ackles, who had ambled up to the bar. “The place cleared out until it was just a few of us,” says Gosselin. “Then Jerry and Larry came back in and Bob said, ‘That’s my cue to leave.’”

Without skipping a beat, Jones grabbed Werder by the left pants leg and said, “Why don’t you guys sit down a while. Let me buy you a drink. You sure as hell don’t want to go to bed and miss the biggest story of the year.”

Werder looked at Gosselin. Gosselin looked at Werder. This abso
lutely, positively had to be their scoop. “Guys,” said Gosselin, “I’m heading off to bed.”

“Me too,” said Werder.

Fisaro and Hobson followed their colleagues to the elevator banks. The two non-Dallas writers retreated to their rooms. The two Dallas writers returned to the bar, where Jones and his loose lips awaited. Thus began
the
interview. “I think it’s time that I let you know I’m thinking of firing Jimmy,” Jones said. “I think it’s really time that I go ahead and do it before we run into more trouble. Now, I think, is the time to go ahead and get rid of his ass.”

Gosselin and Werder were stunned. This wasn’t quite what they had anticipated.

“You know, you may laugh at me for this one,” Jones said. “But I could step out and hire Barry Switzer as coach of the Dallas Cowboys tomorrow and he’d do a better job than Jimmy. Hell, I could probably get Lou Holtz over here. I might just step out tomorrow and hire either one of them. You know that Barry and I have been friends for thirty years. I think he’d do a great job in the NFL.

“Let me point out one thing before you go to bed tonight,” Jones said. “I think there are five hundred people who could have coached this team to the Super Bowl. I really believe that. Shit, I could have coached the hell out of this team.

“You know,” he added, “I should have gone and fired that little sonofabitch a year ago. I can assure you this right now: I’m going to fire that sonofabitch and I’m going to hire Barry Switzer!”

For the next hour, Gosselin, Werder, Lacewell, and Jones sat and continued to speak of all things Jimmy, Jerry, and the future of the Cowboys. “Lemme ask you boys a question,” Jones said to the table. “Can you win a Super Bowl without a franchise quarterback?” The answer, of course, was yes. “Can you win a Super Bowl without a franchise running back?” Yes, again. “Well,” he said, “can you win a Super Bowl without a fucking great coach?”

Indeed, you could.

“People have said that Jerry was drunk or Jerry was out of his mind
or Jerry was just venting at the wrong moment,” says Gosselin. “None of that is true. He was almost talking himself into firing Jimmy. He knew exactly what he was saying and what he was doing.” The owner of the Dallas Cowboys wanted to win in the worst way—but he didn’t want to win
this
way.

In a nod to proper journalism, Gosselin and Werder double-checked that everything Jones said was on the record. It was 5
A.M.,
after all, and Jones’s bloodshot eyes and half-empty glass of Scotch told the story of an owner lacking momentary judgment. “Print it,” Jones said. “Print fuckin’ all of it.” No, said Werder, let’s meet for breakfast and review the information. When the three men parted ways, Werder rushed to his room to start typing while Gosselin began his mad-dash reporting. Luckily for the scribes, earlier that morning Lacewell had filled Johnson in on Jones’s feelings, and now Johnson had caught wind of Jones’s rant. As Johnson wandered the hallways of the hotel, looking for Gosselin, he encountered Don Shula, the legendary Miami Dolphins coach. Johnson’s face was blank. “Jimmy, what’s wrong?” Shula asked.

“It’s nothing,” Johnson said. “I think I’ve just been fired as the head coach of the Dallas Cowboys.”

Moments later Johnson found Gosselin. “I am really dumbfounded,” he told the reporter. “For the simple reason that I don’t know what I did.

“It concerns me when he says to a group of reporters that he’s not only going to fire me, but even says who the replacement is going to be. This wasn’t a statement to one person behind closed doors. This was a statement made in a bar with a lot of people around.”

Come 9
A.M.,
the two reporters and Jones met in the lobby. A more subdued Jones reviewed his quotes and restated his initial declaration: Print it. “That’s one thing about Jerry—he’s always good to his word,” says Gosselin. “Say what you want about him, if he says something, he never backs off.”

On the morning of Wednesday, March 24, readers of the
Dallas Morning News
walked to the end of their driveways, picked up their
newspapers, pulled off the rubber band, and gasped. POST-SEASON SCRIMMAGE, screamed the front-page headline. The story read:

“By the time the story came out, it was pretty clear to me that Jimmy’s tenure was over,” says Gosselin. “It wasn’t official, I suppose, but the relationship was torn apart. There was a lot of negativity behind everything, and it all exploded in Orlando. They were two men who could no longer coexist.”

Later that day, Jones held a thirty-minute press conference at the hotel, refusing to apologize for his threat while chalking everything up to “just another day in the life of the Dallas Cowboys.”

He went on, “[The bickering] is something that happens all the time. It never does affect any decision-making on my part, and I know it won’t affect any on Jimmy’s.”

As Jones spoke, his coach was sitting in his convertible, driving back home to the south Florida coast, thinking about escaping a job he no longer wanted and an owner he could no longer tolerate. Jones had gone too far, and Johnson knew he would never again work for the Dallas Cowboys. “It was over,” he says. “I really knew it was over.”

Four days later, on March 28, the owner of the Dallas Cowboys dipped into his notebook of phone numbers and dug out the ten-digit extension for a man living a remarkably humdrum life in the college town of Norman, Oklahoma. “Barry,” said Jones, “it’s Jerry. I have two questions for you. First, do you still want to coach? And second, how would you feel about coaching the Dallas Cowboys?”

In the history of America’s Team, here was a truly historic moment. This was Clint Murchison hiring Tex Schramm and Tom Landry in 1960. This was selecting Roger Staubach in the tenth round of the 1964 draft. This was…

“Jerry, do me a favor,” Switzer said. “Can you call back in a couple of hours? I just got home from the hospital and I’m still sorta groggy. They did one of those damn colonoscopies on me.”

I
N LIFE, THERE
are things that make perfect sense and things that make no sense at all.

Ghostbusters
made sense.

Ghostbusters II
did not.

Kiss’s
Destroyer
made sense.

Kiss’s
Music from “The Elder”
did not.

Chocolate-covered raisins make sense.

Chocolate-covered ants do not.

Jimmy Johnson coaching the Dallas Cowboys made sense.

Barry Switzer coaching the Dallas Cowboys did not.

The whole thing had to be a joke, right? Jerry Jones would
not
hand over the reins of America’s Team to a man who had been away from the game for five years; who had left the University of Oklahoma in disgrace after a scandal-pocked career resulted in probation for the school because of his failure to “exercise supervisory control”; who didn’t even watch the NFL and, for the life of him, couldn’t tell you what division the Cowboys played in; whose area of expertise was the
friggin’
wishbone offense;
who had spent his most recent days operating an insurance agency.

“There was sheer disbelief when Barry’s name came up,” says Jim Dent, the legendary Texas sportswriter. “Here was this man who had coached the hated Oklahoma Sooners, a team no self-respecting Texan could stand, and the rumor was he was coming to Dallas. I couldn’t fathom it.”

Neither, for that matter, could Switzer. Back in 1989, when Jones was closing in on purchasing the Cowboys, he had considered Switzer a long-shot possibility to replace Tom Landry as head coach. At the time Jones wanted Johnson, and knew he’d likely have him—but the soon-to-be Cowboy owner loved Switzer’s bravado; his open-mindedness; his personal touch; and his understanding and appreciation of the African-American athlete. Mostly, he loved his 157–29–4 record in sixteen seasons with the Sooners, whom he coached from 1973 to 1988.

“Barry Switzer is a winner,” Jones said. “That’s the bottom line. He wins.”

Now five years later here was Switzer, fresh off of a colonoscopy, standing in his living room and wondering what the world was coming to.
Coach the Dallas Cowboys? Me?
Three hours after Jones’s initial phone call, Switzer dialed the Cowboys owner back. “I had one of those anal probes, but I’m a little more clearheaded now,” he told Jones. “Did you say you wanted me to coach the Cowboys?”

Indeed.

“This is not an interview,” Jones said. “You don’t have to prove yourself. I know who you are. I know what you stand for. I’m firing Jimmy tomorrow, so consider this an offer—if you want it, you’ve got the job.”

The day was March 28, 1994, and professional football was spinning on its head.

In Norman, home to the University of Oklahoma, Switzer was treated as a merging of mayor and favorite son. He was making appearances on behalf of this car dealership and that bakery, shaking hands
and kissing babies and eating like a king at his favorite local restaurant, Othello’s. He had even made a handful of trips to Italy with his three children—Greg, twenty-five, a concert pianist; Kathy, twenty-four, a senior at Oklahoma; and Doug, twenty-one, a quarterback at Missouri Southern. “I didn’t need the work,” he says. “I really didn’t.” And yet, in his soul Switzer was a football coach. A whistle around the neck, the crisp green grass of a practice field, helmets shining beneath a boastful sun:
That
was heaven.

Switzer thought and thought and thought. “OK,” he finally said to Jones. “I guess I’ll do it.”

“Football’s been my life, and it was an opportunity to do what I love,” says Switzer. “It was close enough to Oklahoma for my family to be a part of it, and I knew enough people with the Cowboys to think it’d be enjoyable.”

A sporadic reader of the newspaper, Switzer was only mildly aware of the volcanic eruption that had taken place 1,278 miles away in Orlando. He knew that Jones and Johnson had had their issues, but he also knew they’d won the last two Super Bowls together. “Great coach, great owner, great organization,” says Switzer. “I couldn’t understand why those guys weren’t working out. But some problems are irresolvable.”

In the aftermath of the debacle, nothing had been healed. Troy Aikman and Emmitt Smith spoke out against Jones, with the tailback threatening, “If you fire Jimmy, fire me,” and the quarterback going so far as to say, “If I could have anticipated something like this happening, I would have been hesitant about signing a long-term contract.” On the morning of Monday, March 28, the
Dallas Morning News
reported that Jones and Johnson would meet that day to maybe—just maybe—sort out their differences and pursue a third straight Super Bowl crown. Wrote Tim Cowlishaw: “Both sides believe anything is possible this week.” Little did Cowlishaw know that on that same morning Jones would call to offer Switzer a chance at coaching redemption.

On the afternoon of Tuesday, March 29, with Switzer’s official
hiring still a well-kept secret, Johnson and Jones held an awkward, bizarre, surreal joint press conference at Valley Ranch, announcing their divorce. With contorted faces and pursed lips, the two men sat side by side. It was like watching an old episode of
Moonlighting,
knowing damn well that when the cameras stopped rolling, Bruce Willis and Cybill Shepherd couldn’t stomach each other. Randy Galloway of the
Morning News
accurately termed the scene a “lickfest.”

“You will never witness anything more fraudulent in all of sports,” Galloway told KERA radio. “Not even in a Don King press conference.”

He was right.

Jones’s words: “This is so ironic, because it was just five years ago that a lot of us were here in this room and certainly a lot of us here in Dallas, when basically I said that I thought that Jimmy Johnson would prove to be worth five Heisman Trophies, or worth five number one draft picks, or all of it combined. There’s no question that that’s what has proven to be. Jimmy has done everything in his power and has done it successfully for you, as fans, to be a part of something that really had not been done before, if you really look at where it came from.”

Jones’s thoughts:
Thank God I fired this asshole.

Johnson’s words: “Over the last five years, Jerry Jones and myself have been able to do some things that a lot of people would have said couldn’t be done. Because of our relationship and how we were able to do things in a quick, decisive way, we were able to take a team that was the worst in the NFL to winning two Super Bowls. We’ve had probably the most candid discussions the last couple of days that we have ever had and I can sincerely tell you that I feel better about Jerry Jones, as a friend, for understanding me today than I ever have in our entire relationship.”

Johnson’s thoughts:
Thank God I quit this asshole
(and snagged a $2 million buyout to boot).

As the aftershocks worked their way through the hallways of Valley Ranch, Jones exited the facility and went about his business.
Though he had feigned sadness during the press conference, the Cowboy owner felt about as sentimental as a tote bag. Johnson was gone—praise Jesus.

On the afternoon of Wednesday, March 30, the Dallas Cowboys officially introduced Switzer as the team’s coach. Nearly 150 media representatives attended the Valley Ranch press conference—an ode to both the aura of America’s Team and the lunacy of the move. “Nothing is going to change,” Switzer told the assembled journalists. “Get ready to watch the Dallas Cowboys be the best in the NFL.

“I give Jerry my commitment of loyalty,” Switzer said. “I promise you I don’t have an ego that allows me to put myself in a position to damage the relationship. I’m not attacking Jimmy here, but when it comes to getting credit, what the hell difference does it make?” Jones was beaming from ear to ear. Switzer was, too.

Did he have a message for the fans? someone asked.

“Yeah,” Switzer said. “We’ve got a job to do and we gonna do it, baby!”

Uh…

“Barry Switzer, head coach of the Dallas Cowboys?” wrote C. W. Nevius in the
San Francisco Chronicle
. “Kind of has a ring to it, doesn’t it? Like Regis Philbin, ambassador to China. Somewhere Tom Landry has just decided that he will skip dinner and is going to lie down for a while.”

In the wide swath between scumbag and saint, there’s a place for Barry Lane Switzer. Depending on who you ask, the third head coach of the Dallas Cowboys is either a brave leader or a brazen cheater; a proponent of opportunity or a proponent of opportunism. “Barry,” says Larry Lacewell, his longtime friend and coworker, “is everything to everybody and nothing to nobody.”

To those who supported his hiring in Dallas, Switzer was the genius behind an Oklahoma program that had dominated the collegiate landscape for much of his sixteen seasons. More than just a coach,
Switzer excelled at loyalty. If you played for Switzer, you almost certainly came to love him. “He’s a great,
great
man,” says Dean Blevins, Switzer’s former quarterback at Oklahoma. “When Barry was recruiting me out of high school he found out that I played golf every afternoon. So he’d drive out there, strap my bag on his shoulder, and be my caddy. To this day, I’d do anything for him.”

Yet to the masses who bemoaned his hiring by the Cowboys, Switzer was the worst kind of heathen. Sure, he’d won national championships in 1974, ’75, and ’85. But what good is victory void of integrity? In the early ’80s Switzer was charged with insider trading by the Securities and Exchange Commission. Although the case was dismissed for insufficient evidence, he and two partners were asked to repay $1.5 million in loans. In 1984 he was arrested for driving while drunk. Four years later, the Sooners were placed on three years’ probation for “major violations,” including offers of cash and cars to recruits and airline tickets to players.

Those who believed it could get no worse only had to wait until early 1989, when, within a two-month span, Sooners defensive back Jerry Parks shot and wounded a teammate, three players were charged with rape in the athletic dorm, and star quarterback Charles Thompson was charged with selling cocaine. Switzer had allegedly alerted Thompson to the fact that he was under investigation, forcing the FBI to call off a larger probe and move against Thompson before it intended. “Barry’s biggest problem throughout his career was he didn’t have any interest in nuts-and-bolts discipline,” says Brad Sham, the longtime Cowboys announcer. “That doesn’t work as a father, it doesn’t work as a boss—and it certainly doesn’t work as a football coach.”

Unlike the majority of his coaching peers, whose stories of lifelong gridiron glories read like dime-a-dozen
Inside Sports
profiles, Switzer’s background spoke of a man saved by the game; a man who easily could have been dead or in jail or selling used cars.

Born in tiny Crossett, Arkansas, on October 5, 1937, Switzer grew up in a shack without electricity or running water. He was raised
in a “shotgun house,” so named because, he once said, “you could shoot a blast through one end and out the other without hitting a thing.”

“We didn’t have a telephone until I was in college,” Switzer said. “I went through junior high studying under coal-oil lamps and listening to battery radios because we didn’t have electricity. We had the old privy out back, the three-holer with the Sears, Roebuck catalog and the lime sacks in the corner. At night I used to take my grandmother and mother to the privy carrying a coal-oil lamp and a .22 pistol to shoot the copperheads. My granddaddy planted tomatoes behind that very same privy, and I’ll tell you something else—they were the best darned tomatoes in the country.” To take baths, Barry and his younger brother Donnie would use barrels to catch rainwater. To keep the mosquitoes away in the summer, Barry would fog his bedroom with toxic Real Kill spray.

With that inextinguishable smile, Switzer can make his youth sound downright Opie Taylor–esque. Yet not only were Frank and Mary Louise Switzer dirt-poor, both were alcoholics. As Mary Louise stayed home to raise Barry and Donnie, Frank failed at one business venture after another before turning to bootlegging. If there was a bright spot to an otherwise down-in-the-dirt childhood, it was that, unlike most other white children growing up in America in the 1940s and ’50s, the Switzer boys came to ignore skin color. In his career as a bootlegger, the majority of Frank’s customers were poor and black, and their children served as young Barry’s closest confidants. Wrote Switzer in his 1990 autobiography,
Bootlegger’s Boy
: “[One] particular black settlement was a dozen or more shanty houses. The people who lived there raised cotton and sugarcane and had an old sorghum mill, and an old black mechanic named Sam Patton had a garage of sorts. In the fourth grade I used to pick cotton for a black man, and I’d go swim in the creek with the black kids. They had a barrel stay we used for a basketball hoop. Other than my big collie dog, Major, black kids were my best friends.” Later on, as rival coaches scratched their heads over Switzer’s ability to recruit minorities, it became clear that his advantage was empathy. Switzer wasn’t black, but he knew what it was to
feel
black.

He also knew what it was to feel pain. Though Barry worshipped his father in the way boys naturally do their paternal role models, Frank Switzer brazenly cheated on his wife, with little regard for her emotional stability. When she wasn’t minding her boys, Mary Louise spent her days reading novels and sinking into a depression fueled by her husband’s infidelities and nonstop drinking. There was no joy in Mary Louise’s life; no momentary sparks. She was sad, poor, listless, and married to a man who broke the law to line his pockets and violated the vows of matrimony to sow his wild oats. She took barbiturates by prescription and, according to her oldest son, “would kind of glide through the day with a glaze around her.”

Barry’s escape from a tortured home life came via sports. He entered Crossett High School in 1951 and soothed feelings of inadequacy with athletic brilliance. He played football, swam freestyle, and excelled in the shot put, setting a regional record with a 53-foot, 4-inch toss. For a boy who had always seen himself through the prism of his parents’ shortcomings, the fields and pools of his youth allowed for mental and physical liberation. During Barry’s senior year, the Alcoholic Beverage Control Commission came to the Switzer household and arrested Frank. As his father was being cuffed, Barry watched one of the agents smash Frank in the mouth with a gun butt. “You sons of bitches!” Frank yelled. “You broke my teeth!” He was sent to the Arkansas State Penitentiary. His wife and sons were ashamed, but visited every other Sunday.