THE NFL / BILL PLASCHKE : Switzer Keeps the Cowboys on Winning Track--Honest

Barry Switzer shuffles toward his desk at the Dallas Cowboys’ training complex. He grimaces and lowers himself gingerly into his chair.

The room is filled with a deep sigh, the kind that accompanies the end of a tortuous journey. Some days for Switzer, crossing his office is that journey.

It’s his lower back. There is a pain there as big as Texas. A nerve thing. Doctors have already cut him once. Standing on artificial turf for four hours on a Sunday can be agony.

How does he handle the pain?

“Whiskey,” Switzer says. “I drink plenty of whiskey.”

In his six months as coach of the Cowboys, Switzer has done this sort of thing time and again.

The leader of the two-time defending NFL champions is approached in search of wisdom.

His inquisitors are knocked backward with honesty.

Switzer is watching film of last week’s 24-13 victory over the Philadelphia Eagles. When he gets excited, he stamps his feet and says, “Whoo-eeeh,” then pushes the rewind button over and over.

Because he never played or coached in the NFL before, he is asked whether he knows what he is watching.

He answers, as usual, by explaining what he doesn’t know.

“See all those linemen there?” he says, pointing to the green-shirted Eagles. “Don’t know any of those guys. Hell, no. I know quarterbacks, running backs, guys like that. But those linemen. Hell, no.”

He laughs.

“You know, I can’t even tell you which teams are in what divisions in the other conference, that AFC,” he says. “Now, I know the names of all the teams over there. I think. I just can’t tell you where they go.”

Why does he say such things? Why acknowledge ignorance of everything from the playing rules to opponents’ names?

Why on earth did he leave the field for several minutes late in a recent game against the Washington Redskins, missing several key plays, and then later admit he was using the bathroom ?

No coach in the history of the game has ever acknowledged leaving the field to use the bathroom.

“What did you want me to do, make a mess?” Switzer asks.

The answers to several such questions finally became clear last weekend, when, after one quarter, his team had gained six yards, had no first downs and no pass completions, and trailed the Eagles, 7-0.

The Cowboys didn’t quit. They only played harder until they had shed their funk, then manhandled perhaps the second-best team in the league.

The Cowboys didn’t quit because their coach has them believing, as Jimmy Johnson once did, that they are incapable of quitting.

They believe this, because they believe everything else Switzer says.

After all, what kind of person would lie about not knowing the length of the halftime intermission?

It is this honesty that has convinced most of his players that he is doing a good job.

The biggest risk of the 1994 NFL season is working.

Switzer is doing a good job.

“Barry has done exceptional,” said Troy Aikman, another Cowboy who shoots straight. “He has been very honest, very up front. The players have responded to that.

“Right or wrong, there is nothing artificial about him. And we appreciate that.”

Told of those comments, Switzer reacted in his typical smooth fashion.

“Troy said that? Really?” Switzer said. “What else did he say?”

He was told that Aikman endorsed Switzer’s habit of talking to individual players, catching guys in hallways and in front of soda machines and in deserted end zones.

Whereas Jimmy Johnson delivered a weekly theme to the entire team every Wednesday, Switzer passes it along bit by bit, player by player, one on one.

“He has struck us as a guy who really wants to get to know his players, what makes them tick,” Aikman said. “Jimmy sort of kept his distance.”

As coaches go, however, there is no comparison between Switzer and Johnson, nor will there ever be. For players of the modern era, Johnson is still the best NFL coach breathing.

And Switzer is still, well, not responsible for the Cowboys’ league-leading defense. Or their powerful offense.

He only calls the short-yardage and kicking plays.

His halftime speech last week consisted of, “OK, boys, let’s go out in the second half and pour it on.”

And yes, he has left his team four times on Saturday nights to watch his son play college football. No coach in recent memory has acknowledged doing that once.

“Barry has no real point of reference right now, and so the things he does leave him open for criticism,” Aikman said. “But it’s refreshing.”

And it’s working. His light but apparently sincere touch is keeping the Cowboys, with a 5-1 record, on a course for history.

For Switzer is fulfilling his sole requirement as curator of what is currently the NFL’s most important treasure.

He is not messing things up.

COACH’S CORNER

It’s not quite midseason, but rating the league’s coaches is the sort of fun that lasts all year.

The five best:

1. Bobby Ross, San Diego Chargers--No team plays harder or makes fewer mistakes. He might be the best active coach, period.

2. Bill Belichick, Cleveland Browns--There finally seems to be a method to his madness. He has built a great defense and is adapting with an injury-ridden offense. And enough about Bernie Kosar, OK? Quarterbacks don’t win games in Belichick’s scheme.

3. Dennis Green, Minnesota Vikings--Major points for an unchanging style while working with an ever-changing roster.

4. Dave Wannstedt, Chicago Bears--Nobody gets more out of less. Those who say he blew it by signing Erik Kramer have never seen Kramer in January.

5. Rich Kotite, Philadelphia Eagles--He is not the total coach-general manager-salesman package that owner Jeffrey Lurie wants. All he does is turn shredded teams into winners.

The busts:

1. Wade Phillips, Denver Broncos--You know what they say about nice guys.

2. Dave Shula, Cincinnati Bengals--Really now. A Bengal general manager who is the son of the late Paul Brown should have known better.

3. Wayne Fontes, Detroit Lions--Looks great smoking a cigar. Looks bad running a team.

4. Art Shell, Raiders--We loved it when he shouted down quarterback Jeff Hostetler on the sideline. But we hated it that Hostetler refused to apologize.

Is this a coach who has lost his players?

5. Sam Wyche, Tampa Bay Buccaneers--Enough, already.

THE HIDDEN

SOUTH-CENTRAL

A reporter from a Los Angeles newspaper approaches cornerback Mark McMillian in a quiet corner of the Philadelphia Eagles’ locker room.

The Eagles have been playing well, McMillian is a hometown kid, a second- year starter in one of the league’s best secondaries. He has played well, shut down Sterling Sharpe and John Taylor.

A nice note, maybe.

Then McMillian stares at the reporter in wonder.

“You know,” he says, “you are the first Los Angeles newspaper guy to ever talk to me.”

You mean this year, right?

“No, I mean ever,” he says.

Surely he is mistaken. Nobody can play at Kennedy High in Granada Hills, then at Glendale College, then at the mighty University of Alabama, then be a 10th-round draft pick of the Eagles in 1992 and never be interviewed.

“If you live in South-Central L.A. where I lived, it can happen,” McMillian says. “The media there still acts like we don’t exist. All kinds of athletes come out of there, but people are afraid to go down there and interview them, I guess.”

But there are hundreds of Los Angeles athletes in the sports world. Why should we make an exception for South-Central kids?

“I’m just trying to tell you how important it is that those of us from the neighborhood who make something of ourselves are recognized,” McMillian says. “I really want to be a role model, I really want to go back there in the off-season and help others who were in my shoes. But how can I do that if nobody knows what I do?”

McMillian, who has succeeded even though he didn’t play until his senior year in high school, talks of returning home in the summer and playing basketball with old acquaintances.

“Guys will say, ‘I remember you from somewhere. What do you do?’ ” McMillian relates. “I will say, ‘I play ball. For the Philadelphia Eagles.’ And they say, ‘No, really? You’re kidding me?’ ”

McMillian shakes his head.

“Little kids needs to know that there are people like me out here,” he says. “But it’s hard to get across that message.”

He smiles. “OK, so what did you want to know about this team?”

Suddenly, that does not seem so important.

QUICK HITS

* NEON PROBLEMS: Although the rest of the league figures Deion Sanders will give the staid San Francisco 49ers a much-needed jolt toward the playoffs, those inside the locker room aren’t on that page.

Sources say that several veteran 49ers, always the classiest team in the league, are furious that Sanders injured himself during last week’s celebrated sideline dance after his 93-yard interception return for a touchdown against the Atlanta Falcons.

They are also furious that he began his postgame news conference in the Georgia Dome with the words, “This is my house.”

Couldn’t Jerry Rice say the same thing everywhere the 49ers play?

Couldn’t players in the high-powered 49er offense have perfected sideline and end zone dances by now?

Except Rice rarely brags. And his teammates never dance.

They just win, something that won’t be so easy late in the season if Sanders continues to stir up the locker room with his shtick.

* NEON POSTSCRIPT: The probable reason that Sanders and Andre Rison were not ejected after their fight Sunday can be found in the identity of the officiating crew.

Led by referee Gordon McCarter, it was the same crew that was heavily criticized for calling a taunting penalty on Chris Calloway of the New York Giants during their recent failed comeback attempt against the New Orleans Saints.

The NFL has shown it is not reluctant to publicly embarrass officials with apologetic phone calls to teams. McCarter and his crew probably didn’t want the hassle.

* YOU PROBABLY DIDN’T KNOW THAT BEETHOVEN WAS ALSO A PRETTY MEAN PAINTER: After the Pittsburgh Steelers’ 14-10 victory over the Cincinnati Bengals last week, Coach Bill Cowher said, “It wasn’t a Mozart.”

* HEAVE SHULER: His five interceptions against the Arizona Cardinals last week are not the real reason rookie Heath Shuler of the Washington Redskins has been benched.

Sources say Redskin coaches are frustrated by Shuler’s inability to figure out the new offense and his lack of work ethic.

“He has no idea even what the game plan is,” one Redskin said.

* WE COULD BE WRONG, BUT WE DON’T THINK FUZZY THURSTON AND RAY NITSCHKE EVER HAD THIS ARGUMENT: Although it obviously had no impact on their 13-10 overtime victory over the Green Bay Packers on Thursday, the Minnesota Vikings were divided earlier this week by a typical modern-day fight.

Adrian Cooper and Henry Thomas brawled over the use of a trainer’s table.

* THEY WERE TURNED TO ORANGE PARMALEE: How well did Bernie Parmalee play in the Miami Dolphins’ 20-17 victory over the Raiders last Sunday?

Several times during the team meeting Monday, when Parmalee appeared on the game film, Coach Don Shula asked for applause.

“That was the first time that ever happened,” Shula said.