Through the Hazing, Rookie Quarterbacks Tune Up for Cowboys

One of the older buckaroos on the Dallas Cowboys paused between mouthfuls at the training table in Thousand Oaks and barked out orders.

“Aikman! Get up there!”

Troy Aikman obeyed.

“Let’s hear it!”

Aikman reached down for a ketchup bottle. He held it to his mouth like a mike. Then he went into his best Hank Williams Jr.

“Ohhhh, if heaven ain’t a lot like Dixie,

“Then I don’t want to go;

“If heaven ain’t a lot like Dixie,

“I’d just as soon stay home.”

Most of the Cowboys kept on chewing, some not even listening. Aikman just kept wailing.

“If there ain’t no Grand Old Opry

“Like Nashville, Tennessee “Then send me to hell or New York City,

“They’re both the same to me.”

The big Cowboy sang until he was a little hoarse. Then he sat back down to his meal, to scattered applause.

Meanwhile, same team, same station:

“Walsh!”

Steve Walsh stopped, mid-fork. Put down his utensils. Stood.

“Let’s hear it!”

Walsh picked up an A-1 steak-sauce bottle. Stuck it up by his mouth. Sang.

“Wastin’ away again in Margaritaville,

“Lookin’ for my lost shaker of salt .

“Some people say there’s a woman to blame,

“But I knowwww . . . it’s my own damn fault.”

Not bad, but not exactly Jimmy Buffett. Walsh returned to his food, to mixed reviews. He was told not to quit his day job.

Millionaires? All-Americans? Choice draft choices? Quintessential quarterbacks?

So what? To the older dudes among the Cowboys, Troy Aikman and Steve Walsh are plain old rookies. Pledges in a frat. Plebes at an academy. Entitled to a hazing.

Wide receiver Michael Irvin played with Walsh and for Coach Jimmy Johnson at the University of Miami before leaving for the pros a couple of years ahead of them. He has no sympathy for these poor singing rooks.

“Went through the same treatment myself,” Irvin said after catching Walsh’s touchdown pass Saturday night in the Cowboys’ 27-20 exhibition victory over the Raiders at the Coliseum. “They made me get up there and sing, same as every other rookie.

“But at least I sang some nice top-20 tune, something that didn’t hurt your ears. Aikman gets up there and sings that country-western stuff of his.”

Was he any good?

“Man, how do I know?” Irvin asked. “It was country western!”

In Cowboy camp these days, heaven looks a lot like Aikman and Walsh. Not many teams have two such gifted rookie quarterbacks. (Well, physically gifted, if not musically.) Not many teams that wouldn’t like to have Aikman, the Okie from UCLA, or Walsh, the hurryin’ Hurricane.

They are taking turns as starters until the coach--who’s also a rookie--makes up his mind. Aikman started the Aug. 12 game at San Diego, won by the Cowboys, 20-3. Completed eight of 11. Walsh played the first half against the Raiders. Completed 11 of 16. Aikman worked the third quarter: four of 8.

Afterward, Jimmy Johnson said he didn’t know, didn’t care.

“They’re both top of the shelf,” he said.

Irvin, too, didn’t know, didn’t care.

“Really doesn’t matter which one starts,” Irvin said. “We need ‘em both. We could rotate all year long, be OK with me. Run in one, then the other. Always have a fresh one in there.”

Sound like a good idea?

“No way,” Walsh said. “I don’t think that’s such a hot idea. I don’t think Coach Johnson believes in that philosophy, either. He had Bernie Kosar and Vinnie Testaverde at the same time at Miami and didn’t do it. Why would he do it in the NFL?”

If it’s a predicament, it’s a good predicament. Johnson, for one, seems to be enjoying it.

“Does it look like a quarterback competition to you?” Tom Landry’s successor asked. He had the look of a cat that had just digested a scrumptious order of canary and gone back for seconds.

The Cowboys figure they can’t lose, either way. That is, of course, pretty much what they did last season--lose, every which way.

They lost so often that they got to pick first in the college draft. They picked Aikman. Then they took Walsh in the supplemental draft. Each has made one NFL start so far. Each is 1-0.

How do they look so far?

Fine, which is fine with the guys who catch their passes.

“I was talking to Steve on the sidelines,” Irvin said, “and he said he was having some trouble adjusting, having some trouble getting comfortable with his throwing. And I said: ‘That never stopped you before! Get in there and throw some more! Relax! Have fun!’

“Then, later on, I was talking to Troy on the sidelines. I asked him if he was going back in. He said he didn’t know. I said: ‘Hey! Get in there! I want to go deep!’

“Both them guys can get me the ball.”

Michael Irvin, an equal-opportunity receiver.

Meantime, the hazing continues. There are no doughnut runs, no towels to pick up, not yet. But there is more singing to do. Aikman’s already been up three times, singing rodeo songs, doing everything but yodeling. Walsh went straight from folk to Bob Marley.

The rest of the Cowboys are keeping their helmets on.