The Coach and the Diplomat

Nobody has been able to figure out why Marv Levy is a football coach except he’s good at it. Jimmy Johnson couldn’t be anything else but.

Marv Levy reads Dickens and Shakespeare. Jimmy Johnson never read anything in his life that didn’t have X’s and O’s in it, and dotted lines.

Marv Levy is a very modest man, grateful to be coach of the Bills. Jimmy Johnson thinks the Cowboys are lucky to have him. They probably are.

Marv Levy is a good coach. Jimmy Johnson may be a great one.

Marv Levy runs a football team the way Plato might. Jimmy Johnson runs one the way Jesse James might.

You know how football coaches as a class are. The season opens, they say, “We may not make a first down.” They have 90 of the finest athletes on the planet under their command, but they tell the world they have their work cut out for them.

Not Johnson. He goes into the most important football game of the season and announces his team is going to kick the San Francisco 49ers’ butts. Calls up a radio station personally to make sure they get the message.

“It won’t even be close,” he vows.

It is such a shocking breach of the coaches’ oath that the world figures Jimmy Johnson has become suicidal. Not at all. He just wants his players to know he has confidence in them.

“I’m a little different from your clone coach,” Johnson boasts. “If you want a clone coach who gets up here and says the same thing every day, just get yourself a cutout and a tape recording. But I’d rather hear good questions. I’d rather have something to say.”

Levy’s game plan might be likened to a symphony, Johnson’s to gangsta rap.

Levy tends to respect experience. Johnson prefers speed, which comes in the young. His teams are a blur. Two times, they ran down San Francisco’s Steve Young from behind. Once, they even ran down Ricky Watters from behind. Now, that is speed. And sometimes they were defensive linemen, troglodytic in appearance but trackable only by radar when the ball is snapped.

Levy wants to stay at Buffalo forever.

“Amos Alonzo Stagg coached till he was 90,” he reminds you. “You can stay young and coach forever.”

Johnson never heard of Amos Alonzo Stagg. But he admits, “I get a little antsy, I get a little bored. I want a new challenge. I felt if I stayed at (the University of) Miami, I could have won a couple more national championships. But I wanted to take another challenge.”

He may be looking for yet another. He allowed as how he might like the challenge of an expansion team at Jacksonville. But owner Jerry Jones reminded him he had a 10-year contract with five years left.

Levy’s relationship with his owner, Ralph Wilson, is comfortable, non-obtrusive. Johnson and Jerry Jones were perceived by the public as joined at the hip, ex-college buddies who played on the same Arkansas team. Jones bought the team for Johnson, or so the story went.

The notion peeves Johnson.

“Just like I’m a little different from your clone coach, he’s different from your clone owner,” he says of Jones. “But people have this misconception we spend all our time together, an hour or two a day together. But, I’m a 5 o’clock in the morning guy. I’m also a 10 o’clock in the night guy. That leaves about two hours a day we even could get together!” (Laughter.)

Not even the owner escapes the Johnson rag.

Levy takes the position his scouting staff brings him outstanding football players. Johnson figures he can evaluate football talent on the hoof as well as anyone in the game.

“We got guys on an hourly wage to look at film,” he says. “We don’t give ‘em names, we just give ‘em numbers--so they won’t be influenced by preconceived notions or reputations. They watch performance, not stars. We don’t tell them whether it’s Charlie Ward or some backup.”

Johnson wants you to know he was undone once by reputation.

“We (Miami) lost the Fiesta Bowl (to Penn State). We ran up 450 yards to their 150 or 200, but we had a quarterback who had been injured and he didn’t have enough preparation and he threw three interceptions. But I wouldn’t pull him because he was a Heisman Trophy winner. We lost.”

So much for Heisman Trophy winners and other underachievers.

“You make a mistake when you let your heart make the picks,” he warns. “I got Alonzo Highsmith with my heart.”

There are those who think Johnson’s heart is easy to overlook, that he does it all the time. But Johnson bristles at the notion that the Herschel Walker trade to Minnesota for a passel of draft picks “made” the Cowboys.

“It’s what you do with the picks that counts,” he says. “The Rams got a whole mess of them in the (Eric) Dickerson trade. If you pick up a bunch of schmoes, it doesn’t do you much good.”

Johnson hints that he picked up a bunch of all-pros, not all-schmoes.

“Besides, we made probably 40 or 50 (other) trades to build the team,” he says defensively.

The Dallas Cowboys have had two coaches in their history--the legendary Tom Landry and Johnson. Under Landry, they became “America’s team.” There is some question Johnson wants to share the billing. They are Jimmy Johnson’s team. Does Johnson want to be a legend?

“Naw, I’m not into that,” says the non-legend. “I’m not trying to make a mark on history. I’m not into longevity. But I’m a very miserable person if I don’t achieve what I set out to do.”

Levy probably doesn’t want to become a legend, either. He coached at Cal, about as far from being a football factory as you can get, west of Harvard. Johnson coached at Miami, about as close to being a football factory as you can get, football’s version of the Dirty Dozen. Levy won eight games in three years at Cal. Johnson won 52 games in five years at Miami.

Levy has lost three Super Bowls. Johnson has never lost any.

Levy is gracious in defeat. Johnson is not particularly gracious even in victory. He has no patience with small talk, which he takes to mean any talk not including football.

“I don’t want to go to some dinner party and have some lady in a bouffant hairdo lean over and ask me what a quarterback is,” he grumbles. Talk football or shut up.

Johnson is not predicting victory Sunday. He probably thinks it’s unnecessary. When asked if his team might suffer from overconfidence, given the outcome of last year’s game, he frowned.

“Overconfidence is not a bad thing in football,” he said. “As long as it doesn’t boil over into complacency, where you think you’re so good you don’t need preparation. Underconfidence is worse. “

Levy, of course, doesn’t have to worry about overconfidence.