REVERSING HIS FIELD : Duane Thomas Has Returned to the Cowboys--as an Author

For the first time since his comeback attempt with the Dallas Cowboys in 1976, once-silent Duane Thomas is back with the team--this time as an author.

Coach Tom Landry and team president Tex Schramm have forgiven the mercurial running back for the grief he gave them in the early 1970s, when he called Schramm “sick, demented and totally dishonest,” and said Landry was “a plastic man, not a man at all.”

Thomas was a key member of the 1970 team that lost in the Super Bowl to the Baltimore Colts and the one that came back the next year to defeat the Miami Dolphins, 24-3, for the NFL title. This week, he was back at the Cowboy training camp working on a book about the franchise, joking with Schramm and eating lunch with Landry.

“I may have a place in that book,” Landry said. “You never know. It could be a plastic chapter.”

Thomas said he will be at every Cowboy game this season to gather information for the book, which will cover the path he and the Cowboys have taken since the early ‘70s. He is collaborating with Paul Zimmerman of Sports Illustrated.

Thomas was the Cowboys’ top draft pick in 1970 and rushed for 1,596 yards in his first two seasons.

In 1971, he skipped the exhibition season in a contract dispute and reported just before the season opener.

All season, he refused to talk to the press and only on the rarest occasions to teammates. After Dallas won its first Super Bowl and he was named Most Valuable Player did Thomas finally talk, and his conversation with CBS’ Tom Brookshier is now part of broadcast history.

Brookshier stammered through a long-winded question that finally ended: “Duane, you don’t look that fast the way you run, but then you’re able to outrun the defensive players. Are you really that fast?”

Thomas’ reply: “Evidently.”

Thomas made his disparaging comments about Landry and Schramm at a 1972 news conference after a contract hassle led to his being traded first to New England, then, after that fell through, to San Diego.

He wound up in Washington, where he scored a touchdown against the Cowboys. He tried to make a comeback with the Cowboys in 1976, failed and retired.

“I’ll be honest. I think those things will always lay in the back of my mind,” Thomas said. “But knowing that those things are over and that you have to keep moving forward, those things are buried. They no longer exist.”

Schramm and Landry say they’ve forgiven Thomas.

“We get along very well,” Landry said.

Said Schramm: “I’ve had a very nice relationship with him since then. To me, it was nice seeing him and very comfortable and everything, talking to him.”