He Makes Best of Bum Deal

Quite a time this has been for the state of Arkansas.

The governor got elected President of the United States. The two best basketball players from the University of Arkansas both were taken by the Milwaukee Bucks in the first round of the NBA draft. And a couple of old schoolmates, Jerry Jones and Jimmy Johnson, went from villainy to victory by taking the Dallas Cowboys to their first Super Bowl since the Carter Administration.

Oh, all the news out of Arkansas wasn’t so good. The state university fired its football coach after one game and fired his replacement at the end of the season. And golfer John Daly, the pride of Dardanelle, discovered liquor to be a far more dangerous hazard than water.

All in all, though, Arkansans have been having a heck of a fine time. And no one more so than Jerry Jones, the man who wondered if he would ever be forgiven for being “the man who fired Tom Landry.”

The welcome that he and his football team received at the Dallas-Ft. Worth airport after Sunday’s 30-20 victory over the 49ers in San Francisco was a sight like Jones had never before beheld. It was difficult for Jones to believe that the thousands hailing and back-patting him were part of the same lynch mob that vulgarly cursed his name and drowned out his voice with hoots and jeers on that day not so long ago when the new owner of the Cowboys took the field to induct Lee Roy Jordan into the team’s Ring of Honor.

Inside a locker room Sunday at Candlestick Park, Jones was near tears.

He embraced Eddie DeBartolo, owner of the 49ers, and said: “I just have so much respect for everything you’ve done.” Then he turned and bumped smack dab into Dave Wannstedt, the suddenly in-demand Dallas assistant coach who was being courted by the Chicago Bears about taking over Mike Ditka’s command.

Jones knew something about firing a super-popular coach and bringing in a stranger. In Dallas, he had done virtually the exact same thing with Landry and Jimmy Johnson.

“Don’t you go taking that other job,” Jones said to Wannstedt, jokingly. “I’m going to kick Jimmy (Johnson) upstairs and make you the coach.”

A few steps away, wide receiver Michael Irvin, who came along for the ride with his coach from Miami to be part of the restoration of the Dallas Cowboys, watched the man who signs his paychecks wandering from locker to locker, almost in a daze.

Irvin said: “After Jerry bought the team, I went up to him one day and said: ‘Great investment.’ Today, baby, is the day the man starts seeing some serious returns.”

Back in 1989, when Bum Bright decided to put the Dallas Cowboys up for sale, there were other bidders. Jerry Buss, the Laker owner, was one of them, although Bright later said he kept waiting for Buss actually to sit across a table from him and deal. A Japanese investment group also had indicated to Bright that money was no object.

Had either of these parties bought the Cowboys, there is a chance that Tom Landry might still be coaching the Cowboys today. There also is a chance that the Cowboys might not be in the Super Bowl today.

None of it came easy for Jerry Jones. Keeping the negotiations secret was terribly tricky, and he even made Dallas dinner reservations under the name of his son-in-law. Also, Bright assured all bidders that if they, too, intended to bring in a favorite coach of their own, he, Bright, would gladly be the one to take responsibility for firing Landry.

Didn’t matter. Jones got the blame. Nobody was sympathetic to his lifelong friendship with Johnson or for that coach’s incredible success on the college level. He was just some Arkansas interloper who had no regard for legend and legacy. He was some guy who ushered Landry, Tex Schramm, Gil Brandt and the other Cowboy foremen out the gate without so much as a “See ya.”

Some NFL owners let Jones twist in the wind. Approval of the sale was detained until it was proven to everyone’s satisfaction that Schramm would be taken care of, even though Jones was under no obligation to do so. Severance for Schramm, the former GM, ended up including a $1.2-million annual annuity, a Texas Stadium private box and automobiles and legal expenses for 10 years.

A $175-million petroleum deal that Jones made with an Arkansas gubernatorial candidate, not Bill Clinton but Sheffield Nelson, also was investigated and re-investigated. Had discrepancies been found, Jones might not have been able to buy the team.

Even after he did, it turned out there was an unaccounted-for $600,000 in Cowboy debts, and it was unclear whether Bright or Jones was liable. Bright suggested: “Let’s flip a coin.”

And so, Jerry Jones indulged in a coin toss for more than a half-million dollars. He flipped Bum’s quarter so hard, it hit the ceiling and landed inside an ashtray. Before it landed, Bum called tails. It came up tails, so Jones owed the 600 grand.

Bright later framed and mounted a two-tailed coin. He sent it to Jones with a handwritten note that said: “You’ll never know.”