Tom Landry Stands by His Cowboys

Outside the Dallas Cowboys’ locker room in RFK Stadium, you could hear the players chanting, “T.L., T.L.” Inside, Tom Landry could hear the words of center Tom Rafferty, who was speaking for every one of them.

“I said, ‘This man has taken a lot of grief and unfair criticism. But he’s stuck by us. And he’s the guy who’s going to get us back on top,’ ” said Rafferty, a Cowboy for 13 seasons including a chunk of the glory days of America’s Team.

“And then I gave him the ball.”

Rafferty said it as though he could hardly believe he had the audacity to give Landry a game ball. So what if the Cowboys had lost 10 games in a row? So what if they’d just beaten the defending world champions in their own ballpark?

How do you hug a statue? How do you heal the hurt feelings of a computer?

Tom Landry, however, was not cold, calculating or made of stone Sunday. He was, and is, vulnerable these days. Aging a bit and beaten often, he’s showing his heart and drawing forth gumption in his young team in response. They’re down; in fact, they’re awful. But he refuses to desert them. Tom Landry doesn’t leave his wounded.

“We thought we’d won the Super Bowl. We were looking for the champagne,” said Landry, his voice full of Texas twang, relief and merriment. “We’re really delighted. Especially against my favorite group, the Washington Redskins. I’d say, under the circumstances, it was one of our greatest victories. . . .

“I was really touched by the game ball and very surprised. What they said was important (to me),” Landry added, standing in the bowels of the stadium where he has suffered many of his most exasperating defeats. “Can’t remember the last game ball I got. But, in 29 years, somebody had to give me one sometime.”

When the Redskins’ final pass failed in the end zone, Landry threw his arms over his head in joy. “I don’t know if I’ve ever showed that much emotion here,” he admitted. “I doubt it.” Linebacker Eugene Lockhart ran to Landry, hugged him and screamed, “We finally made it!” That seemed to free something in the 64-year-old coach and he started looking for players to grab. First, Landry patted Jim Jeffcoat’s big tummy, then he jogged to smack the rear of Michael Downs, who made the game-saving deflection.

Hard times have humanized the Cowboys, and Landry in particular. Redskins Coach Joe Gibbs ran to midfield to shake hands. “Joe’s the first Redskin coach in a long time who’s been a friend of mine,” said Landry. “You don’t find better people or coaches than him.”

The Cowboys insist the same is true of Landry, who, during the 10-game nightmare, heard himself described as senile and read polls where two-thirds of Dallas fans say he should retire immediately and not finish the year that remains on his contract. With the Cowboys up for sale, Landry’s future could be in jeopardy. This week, a minority owner, Ed Smith, dared to say he’d buy the team and fire the coach.

Could this 24-17 Dallas win have saved Landry’s job? “I don’t know,” said Landry, breaking his career record for smiles and quips in one day, “whether I want to save it or not.”

Landry doesn’t care what anybody thinks of his coaching. Except his players. And what they think, let Randy White speak for them all: “He deserves a game ball each week. If you’re on the inside, you know this is one of the best coaching jobs he’s ever done here. We’ve lost 12 games but nobody’s quit. That comes from the top. He’s still out there coaching every position. If they leave Tom Landry alone, he’ll turn this team around. This guy’s one of the greatest coaches who ever coached anything. And he still is.

“If he told me to stand over there and pour water,” added White, “I’d probably go over and pour the water. That’s the respect I have for the man.”

From a distance, it is easy to wish that, after 5 Super Bowl trips, Landry would hang up his fedora with stoic dignity and amble away. But that denies the competitive fire in this man only those close to him can feel. With less than 5 minutes to play in frigid RFK, the Cowboys faced third-and-9 at the Redskins 12. Score tied, 17-17. Who called the game-winning play? Landry, of course. Three Jet, Y and X Cross, Wing Hank. That means Landry figured how to get his hot receiver, Michael Irvin (3 touchdown catches) isolated on Dennis Woodberry, who’d replaced injured Darrell Green. Basic coaching, you say? If it’s easy to get advantageous matchups in a crisis, how come, in the last minutes of play, Washington was throwing unsuccessfully to Mike Oliphant and Don Warren, not guys named Monk, Sanders and Clark?

Landry doesn’t want the easy way out--the rocking chair and the engraved invitation to the Hall of Fame. Maybe the times have passed him by. Maybe he shouldn’t come so close to being his own offensive and defensive coordinator. Maybe he doesn’t delegate enough. Maybe the flex defense is passe’. Maybe the linemen he’s got now would be bad enough to doom any coach for years to come.

But that’s not what Landry sees, or, at least, will allow himself to see. He’s the only coach the Cowboys have ever had and, dogged as a real cowpoke rounding up strays, he’s going to drag them back to the top. Then retire. If he feels like it. “Patience,” Landry says, then repeats it a couple of more times. “You can’t build anything without it.”

Was this day a final small moment of modest glory for Landry--a match lighted against a larger darkness? Or was it the symbolic beginning of a long road back for a bad team that had lost 25 of its previous 33 non-strike games? Was this Landry’s last trip to RFK? Or will he still be laughing last in the ‘90s?

One key may be whether the Cowboys pick first or second in the NFL draft. Who’ll have the league’s worst record, the Cowboys or the Packers, with whom they started the day tied at 2-12? In order to pick first (and tap UCLA quarterback Troy Aikman), it would have helped to lose this game.

“What happened to Green Bay (against the Vikings)?” Landry asked casually.

They won, he was told.

“That’s incredible,” he said, shaking his head. “That’s amazing.”

Slowly, a soft, sundown smile crossed Landry’s face. Yes, another smile. “Now there’ll be some people who’ll say I shouldn’t have coached so well today.”