While I still like the occasional professional football game, I find I prefer high school football to either the pros or collegiate competition. Frequently, I find the modern pro game somewhat sterile, with its plastic grass and TV time outs.
Sure, talent typically outshines everything — but you are more likely to see a high school team beat a more talented squad on good old-fashioned guts and determination. I think we saw an example of what grit and fortitude can do when the Lake Travis Cavs defeated the Westlake Chaps last Saturday, but had to battle from a 21-10 third quarter deficit to do so.
I tend to prefer my gridiron action “old school.” While I admired Troy Aikman and Emmitt Smith, for the most part the Cowboys under Jerry Jones have been an exercise in hedonism. And yes, I had issues with the way Jones threw Landry under the bus, with a flippant “he’s too old for the game” dismissal. Jones made the move in front of the glaring spotlight of the media while Landry was on a Lakeway golf course on vacation.
Of the move, the late NFL Commissioner Pete Rozelle said, “It is like the day Vince Lombardi died.”
Ah yes, thinking before you act can make a difference…
Jones is the picture perfect example of what has alienated me from the NFL, as well as professional sports in general. When I was a kid, athletes understood the importance of being a role model, contrary to the rationalizations we hear from folks like former NBA star Charles Barkley. Granted, not everyone in sports, even way back in the day, was cut out for the job of role model.
But Coach Landry was. He flew 30 bombing missions over Europe in World War II while Jones was just a baby in his mama’s arms. That fact alone screamed of better treatment.
Simply put, the game never passed Landry by. What nonsense. Yes, he had three consecutive losing seasons, but even today’s coaches are typically afforded four years to build. And those coaches can’t boast 20 consecutive seasons without a losing record — a record in all of American professional sports that will stand for a very long time.
Landry’s influence is felt everywhere in today’s game. He invented the 4-3 defense and reinvigorated the old “single wing” offense into what we now call the “spread.” Oh yes, he also won 270 football games, went to five Super Bowls — winning two. And he won more playoff games than any coach in NFL history — that includes the likes of Lombardi, Don Shula, Paul Brown and on and on.
The only reason Landry had to be fired was because he had no quit in him. I know of where I speak — I knew Coach Landry. He was a frequent visitor to our Garland neighborhood back in the 1960s, before Dallas swallowed the old farming community. While Coach Landry typically went to visit Fr. Ted Nelson, an Episcopal Priest who lived across the alley from us, my father had been friendly with both of them when they all attended UT in the late 1940s after World War II.
Landry set an example for me and everyone else, and he was never above talking with the neighborhood kids — and even playing catch with us from time to time. From the age of 11 on, I was active with a host of organizations that Landry quietly took part in — especially the Fellowship of Christian Athletes.
The “stone-faced” reputation is inaccurate. While he may have been business-like when on the job, the Coach Landry I knew as a kid was patient, kind and always willing to help you up if you had fallen down. I can still clearly recall Coach Landry saying the one aspect of his job that bothered him most was telling players they had been cut from the team. In today’s NFL, there’s no time to let a little thing like character get in the way.
It was almost comical to me when folks were so shocked by the depth of his volunteer work after his death. People were amazed to find out that Coach Landry had an active prison ministry and had reached out to the suffering for decades in his spare time — like a coach has spare time…
Simply put, he was a hero of mine as a kid and remains one to this day. It was from people like Coach Landry that I learned the importance of owning up to your mistakes — rather than blaming others. I can think of many players who had off-field problems that he reached out to even after their playing days. Running back Duane Thomas and linebacker Thomas Henderson, among others, come to mind.
I am really not here to bash Jerry Jones. He has made it clear that even he wishes he would have handled Landry’s firing differently and he reached out to the coach to mend fences shortly before his death. Still, I find Jones extremely self-absorbed.
I was raised to believe that building character was primary reason why kids should take part in sports. That was certainly my experience — and I know the coaches at Lake Travis still think it is important.
Yet sadly, even football at the high school level has largely succumbed to the pressure that winning is more important than character building. I find that attitude abhorrent.
Still, it is the inherent optimism of kids that still make a high school game fun.