A Cowboy Tale : Wacky Football Feud Was About Money, Ego

If you like your tales filled with a mixture of powerful people, the lure of money, the egos of the elite, the feuding of the Hatfields and McCoys and even a little hint of sex, this one might prove too good to be true. But trust us, nothing has been changed to protect the innocent. And just think, we once thought sports gave us a fantasy world of relief from real life’s impurities.

Chapter One: A group of friends is sitting at a table with Dallas Cowboys Coach Jimmy Johnson. They are all former Cowboys employees, including a couple who were fired by owner Jerry Jones. They are attending a social function in conjunction with the National Football League winter meetings in Orlando, Fla. Jones spots them and wanders over to say hello. Inspired, he raises his glass to toast the continued success of the Cowboys. Of those sitting at the table, only Johnson makes any effort to respond, and even his acknowledgment is half-hearted. No question, Jones isn’t welcome.

To Jones, the greeting is symbolic of a more troubling problem. Johnson and those around him have never shown him the respect the owner thinks he deserves. He knows they laugh at him behind his back, particularly when he takes credit for any football-related move associated with the Cowboys. From the outside, everything should be perfect for the Cowboys: They’ve won consecutive Super Bowls, they’ve got a young team that will be favored to capture an unprecedented third, and they are making money, lots of money.

But Johnson grates more and more at what he perceives as Jones’ ever-growing desire to be cast as the Cowboys’ savior. The football people in the organization want Jones to receive no recognition at all, except for having the common sense to hire Johnson five years ago from the University of Miami even though Johnson had no pro coaching experience. Johnson and his cohorts are amazed at the enormity of Jones’ ego. The irony is that he really doesn’t interfere with their ability to run the football operations. He just demands they keep him informed of what they are doing, so he can give his blessing before the moves are implemented. Even though Johnson and Jones vary between talking a lot and a little, depending on their moods, the Cowboys remain the most aggressive, responsive and effective organization in the National Football League. Jones needs to be stroked, that’s all, but they prefer for him to go away.

But what does it take to keep Johnson satisfied? He is being paid $1 million a year, he is universally credited with being the brains behind the rejuvenation of this once-proud club, he is one championship away from almost certain induction in the Pro Football Hall of Fame. Yet just before the regular season ends, he expresses interest in jumping to the expansion team in Jacksonville, knowing it would rub Jones wrong. More than anything else, Jones demands deeply committed loyalty, and Johnson shows signs of distancing himself from his boss. Now this group in Orlando is laughing at Jones, too. Even though Johnson has five years left on his contract, Jones previously decided he would have an off-season meeting with his coach to straighten things out. Johnson has to re-establish his long-term commitment--with free agency and the salary cap, Jones isn’t interested in a coach who would stay maybe one more year--or Jones is prepared to make a change.

The snub at the party outrages Jones and churns at his gut. Let them laugh. He adjourns to a bar in his hotel and has a few. Then a few more. He starts talking to reporters, telling them he should fire Johnson, that 500 coaches could win with the Cowboys, that Barry Switzer would be a great replacement. Tossing out Switzer’s name has special meaning. Johnson and Switzer were college coaching rivals when Switzer was at Oklahoma and Johnson was first at Oklahoma State and then at Miami. In many ways they are much alike, but in truth, Johnson dislikes Switzer, who was the freshman coach of Jones and Johnson at Arkansas. If Jones wants to really outrage Johnson, he knows the correct button to push.

Johnson is outraged. Informed of Jones’ outburst, Johnson storms from the meetings two days early. His fragile ego is aching. He has never spent more than five years at any head-coaching job, and he already has put in five years with Dallas. An intensely driven man, he needs to be reassured constantly about his achievements. He is angered by every imagined slight, outraged sometimes by the smallest mistake. He is a control and neatness fanatic, a man who can never get enough of the spotlight. He rarely has a spontaneous moment, carefully planning the messages he sends to his players, opponents and, yes, owner through the media. He loves to party, drink beer and eat Mexican food, but he is wound so tightly, especially during the season, that there is a constant tension around the Cowboys’ office. He doesn’t have a lot of friends and does little to broaden his circle. Courting favor is not a Johnson strength.

The combination of Johnson’s restlessness and Jones’ uneasiness drives the two toward the owner’s desired meeting. They exchange jabs through the press. The secretive Johnson suddenly is available for all types of interviews. He even flies in his mother and father, who rarely are seen in his company, to his Florida vacation spot. He appears on the verge of crying. Jones is being outmaneuvered by the master manipulator.

Chapter Two: The two college friends finally decide to talk March 25 in Dallas. Or were they friends? Not really. They played on the same college team and roomed on the road because their names were next to each other in alphabetical order. But Jones hired Johnson because he was smart enough to recognize Johnson’s coaching acumen. And Jones always has felt more comfortable surrounded by people he has known.

But this is business, and those old college ties mean nothing. People get the wrong read on Jones if they just listen to him talk in public. With his Arkansas drawl, he comes off as a country bumpkin. He and Johnson would chuckle about it, knowing that the rest of the NFL thought they were the second coming of Homer and Jethro. But engage Jones in a business conversation and out comes the side that made a fortune in the oil business. He is a tough, shrewd thinker who never reacts spontaneously in a business deal. He is bottom-line Jerry, tight with the buck and driven to succeed. The kind of person you shouldn’t underestimate.

“The way they have gotten along for five years and with the success this team has had, you would think they could work something out,” Cowboys center Mark Stepnoski says. But the two men never really wanted to compromise. Jones goes into the meeting convinced that the chances of Johnson staying are far less than the chances of him being released. Just in case, Jones already has called Switzer, to make sure he has a replacement ready. Maybe if Johnson agrees to coach five more years with the same commitment and fire that characterized the last five, then the duo can continue to function. But Johnson wants one more season, period. He already has been spending less time in the off-season at the Cowboys’ complex than he had in previous years, even though key incumbent free agents, such as Stepnoski and guard Nate Newton, need to be courted and resigned. There isn’t as much desire as before, and winning a third Super Bowl really isn’t that important to him, at least not enough to put up with an owner who can’t get his shadow out of Johnson’s spotlight.

By the second day of the meetings, it is obvious their tenure is over. Johnson considers the two equal; Jones, as owner, thinks he is the boss. It is Jones’ team; why should he back off from his role in personnel matters? Jones hands Johnson a $2 million severance offer. In exchange, Johnson can coach anywhere else immediately, but he agrees to talk positively about the breakup. Then, the two hold one of the most bizarre news conferences in sports history. They act like best pals who just won the lottery. But a grim-faced Johnson is packed and out of his office by early the next morning. Cowboys players, who rebelled sometimes at his psychological maneuvering but loved his drive and enthusiasm, are told to go to his house to say goodbye. Even in the end, Jimmy is choreographing their every move.

Chapter Three: Barry Switzer? The same guy who hasn’t coached anywhere since 1988, his final season with an Oklahoma program that had lost control of its players. The same guy who never has coached in the pros? That Barry Switzer sits with Jones at yet another news conference, this one a day after Johnson is released. Switzer, the third head coach in Cowboys history, the guy who admits he thought he would never get a chance in the NFL, occasionally gets so enthusiastic it’s almost laughable. He upstages his boss. He whacks him on the back. He makes people laugh. He is spontaneous. He is not Jimmy Johnson.

But given his Arkansas ties--and his ties with Jones--the hiring makes sense. He is high-profile, he is a motivator, he is a players’ coach. Johnson also is all three. But Switzer is much looser, less moody, less prone to rebel at slights. He has an ego, but it hardly rivals Johnson’s. Switzer is a good ol’ boy, a skirt chaser, a party animal. His friends say he can coach; others say that Xs and O’s were never a strength. But Jones knows Switzer is inheriting a great staff of assistants--Johnson left much of the football stuff to his aides--and Jones believes his new coach is smart enough not to interfere. He needs a skilled point man, and Switzer fills that need.

It’s almost too easy to dismiss Switzer as a Jones pawn. “It’s Goober hiring dunce,” Switzer jokes. Maybe that will be his role. But, unlike Johnson, Switzer is fully aware of who is in charge. Switzer is a leader in the Johnson mode; his main task will be to win over the affection of the Cowboys players. Receiver Michael Irvin, who reacts to Johnson’s fate by throwing an empty garbage can at would-be TV interviewers, says, “Ultimately, I don’t give a damn who the coach is. I’m going to still work out because I’ve still got to play.” Stacey Dillard, the New York Giants’ defensive lineman who played for Switzer at Oklahoma, says the new Cowboys coach “gets everything possible out of his players. He’s a players’ coach. And he knew how to win.”

Switzer leaves to spend the weekend studying the playbook “so I can learn what a forward pass is.” He already has dealt with two major problems. Quarterback Troy Aikman played for Switzer at Oklahoma after being promised the Sooners would utilize a passing attack. But Aikman suffered a broken leg his sophomore season, and Oklahoma went on to win the national title with the wishbone. When Aikman realized Switzer wasn’t going to abandon the ‘bone, he transferred to UCLA.

“I’m not sure he is the best coach for the situation,” Aikman says before Switzer is hired. After Switzer signs up, Aikman is more optimistic. “I think the chance of us repeating for the third Super Bowl is as realistic as before,” he says.

Switzer also meets with Larry Lacewell, his former trusted assistant at Oklahoma. During a lawsuit involving his book, “Bootlegger’s Boy,” Switzer testifies that he had an affair with Lacewell’s now ex-wife. Lacewell eventually joins the Cowboys, where he directs college scouting before being elevated last week to head the personnel department. Lacewell will direct the draft, but Jones will make the selections, a role Johnson had filled. Switzer says he will be an onlooker at this year’s draft. After all, he isn’t aware there no longer are 12 rounds. And Lacewell claims that the two men have made up and can work together just splendidly. Sure.

The Epilogue: In his second day as coach of the Cowboys, Barry Switzer learns that reserve tight end Alfredo Roberts, who spent the 1993 season on injured reserve, has been released. Switzer gets the news on his car radio. “I don’t have an ego that allows me to be put in a position to injure” his relationship with Jones, Switzer has said earlier. That ego already is being tested. The head coach of the Cowboys no longer is in charge of personnel.

Twenty-four hours later, Jerry Jones is sitting in the living room of his vacation place in Florida. In the background, a grandchild is laughing. Three days have passed since he severed ties with Jimmy Johnson, and Jones knows that around the NFL lots of people are laughing at him.

He’s heard the laughter before from these football people. When he bought the Cowboys, man, did they chortle. Those two had no chance, none; after all, who was going to do the drafting? Who was going to teach Johnson to coach in the NFL?

After rebuilding the Cowboys into champs . . . after parlaying a $140 million investment that bought him a team and a stadium into a sum worth perhaps twice as much in five years . . . after becoming one of the most influential owners in the league, Jones believes he should have earned everyone’s respect. Indeed, he feels that if he had been general manager alone, without the owner’s tag, he would have been highly honored, perhaps been chosen Executive of the Year at least once, for what the Cowboys have accomplished.

Now, there will be no question who really is the general manager of Dallas. But he won’t be doing it alone. Just without Jimmy.