THE NFL / BILL PLASCHKE : Cowboys Really Suffering Switzercide

As reported earlier this week, there is indeed a problem within the locker room of the Dallas Cowboys.

It indeed involves a blond, blue-eyed quarterback who dislikes another segment of the room.

But quarterback Troy Aikman’s problem isn’t with blacks.

It is with Coach Barry Switzer.

He doesn’t like his work habits. He doesn’t like his late-night habits.

He thinks Switzer has lent the Cowboys his image without turning over his soul.

But Aikman is in the minority.

There are many other Cowboys who feel Switzer is the perfect, low-maintenance, high-compassion coach for the nearly perfect football team.

So this is the problem within the locker room of the Dallas Cowboys.

It is divided along heart lines.

That most of Aikman’s group is white, while the other group is led by Emmitt Smith and mostly black, is irrelevant.

What is happening is not racism.

It is Switzercide.

Until the Cowboys either fire Switzer, or fire Aikman, or hire a top young assistant who can serve as a liaison between the two, the potential for explosion will remain.

The issue was stirred up Thursday when a published report quoted sources as saying that Aikman and Switzer have barely spoken since former Cowboy assistant coach John Blake accused Aikman of being a racist.

The report said that Blake was upset because it seemed that Aikman singled out blacks for angry outbursts.

The truth is that Aikman and Switzer have barely spoken for months.

And that Aikman’s only bias is against losing.

Point 1: Like any good leader, Aikman sometimes yells.

Point 2: Only three of the Cowboys’ 22 starters besides Aikman are white.

Conclusion: Who the heck is he supposed to yell at?

“The funny thing about all of this is that few places in society involve more real relationships between blacks and whites than in an NFL locker room,” said Leigh Steinberg, Aikman’s agent. “These are real human beings who deal with each other on a real level.

“Sometimes they hug each other, and sometimes they yell at each other. I don’t think Troy asks to check a racial questionnaire before doing either one.”

Steinberg is white.

But blacks on the team feel the same way, as evidenced in comments Thursday by Michael Irvin. He used words that bear repeating.

“I’m as black as anybody you’ll ever see. I’m as black as they come, and I know that man loves me,” Irvin said of Aikman.

Nonetheless, Blake, who was such a cancer on the team he was allowed to leave last month to begin his job as coach at the University of Oklahoma, told Switzer that Aikman was a racist.

That Switzer did not immediately back him up only added to Aikman’s increasingly heavy grudge against his coach.

Which brings us back to the real problem that has polarized Switzer-land.

When Switzer replaced Jimmy Johnson under ugly circumstances two years ago, Aikman was Switzer’s biggest advocate in a hostile locker room. That was even though they had had unpleasant dealings at Oklahoma in the mid-1980s.

Aikman thought Switzer would return that loyalty by putting in the hours, sweating the sweat.

About the fourth time Switzer left the team on a Saturday night before a game to watch his son play football, Aikman started wondering if he had been used.

With five years left on his contract--making him the most important investor in the team besides owner Jerry Jones--Aikman now wonders how much longer he can play for a guy he clearly does not respect.

When asked that question, Aikman blanched.

“We . . . work together fine,” he said.

Watch Aikman if the Cowboys defeat the Pittsburgh Steelers Sunday. Watch which coach he hugs hardest. It will be offensive coordinator Ernie Zampese, not Switzer.

Switzer shrugs.

“I’m not going to drink RC Colas or double-date with him, but we don’t have a problem,” Switzer said. “I like and respect Troy, and whether he respects me or not, it doesn’t matter.”

On the other side of the line is a group of mostly black players who love Switzer.

“Barry understands where players are coming from,” Smith said. “Barry just seems to know things.”

Switzer, who grew up amid black families in an Arkansas neighborhood, said his ability to deal with players has always been his strength.

“You work in high school and college, you become part of players’ lives,” he said. “This ability stays with you.”

There are times that one side takes shots at the other.

Unless the Cowboys do something this summer, those occasions will increase.

When Aikman threw a ball at tackle Erik Williams after Williams had missed an assignment at the end of a late-season loss to the Philadelphia Eagles? Part of him, it seems, was angry at Williams for taking advantage of Switzer’s easy work schedule.

When Smith was asked earlier this week about being criticized? Check out part of his answer.

“If you guys build a super-ego individual, then they’re going to see that individual as a super ego,” he said, referring to the popular view of him.

Then he said, “If you guys build a blond-haired, blue-eyed individual--America, motherhood, apple pie and everything--they’re going to see that individual as that. It’s all about perception.”

Gee, wonder who that blond, blue-eyed individual is?

Switzer laughed Friday when asked about his possible retirement if the Cowboys defeat the Pittsburgh Steelers Sunday.

“Hopefully, if we do win the ballgame, it’s good news we won, bad news that I’ll be back,” he said.

He may not realize how right he could be.

*

From the person who picked the San Diego Chargers to defeat the San Francisco 49ers in last year’s Super Bowl comes this confession . . .

I’m not going to be that stupid again.

The Pittsburgh Steelers will come close Sunday.

They will shake up Aikman while remaining calm themselves.

They will run the ball against a suspect Dallas middle as no AFC team has run it in the last 11 Super Bowls.

They will achieve the impossible, fixing it so Deion Sanders spends four hours on national TV without once being in the spotlight.

The Steelers will hang around, and hang around . . . and then Smith will carry the ball eight times on a 13-play drive that takes up 7 minutes 50 seconds of the fourth quarter.

And the Cowboys will win on his touchdown run in the final two minutes. By four. In a classic.

The most valuable player will be Cowboy defensive end Charles Haley, who will register his third sack on the Steelers’ final drive.

The most valuable Steeler will be Bam Morris, who will score three times and rush for more than 100 yards.

And not surprisingly, one of the coaches will do something really silly.

In an upset, that coach will be the Steelers’ Bill Cowher, vastly overrated as a tactician. This will be proven again when he panics in the final minutes and refuses to give the ball to anybody but Morris, or pass to anybody but Yancey Thigpen.

And it will be four whole days before the Cowboys make news again.

When Switzer announces his retirement.

QUICK KICKS

TUCK THIS AWAY: Remember when, shortly after the Dallas Cowboys defeated the Philadelphia Eagles in their NFC semifinal, Switzer said, “We kicked their . . . “?

Ray Rhodes, Eagle coach, does.

“He will wish he never said that, and soon,” Rhodes said recently. “Paybacks are a . . . , man. It’s something I’ll never forget. Switzer’s gonna get his, man. That score’s gonna be settled by the Eagles.

“You don’t stand up there in front of national TV cameras and microphones and all that and talk about kicking anybody’s . . . in this league. And you don’t say that about Ray Rhodes and my football team and not pay for it.”

*

FIFTEEN SECONDS OF FAME: While new Tampa Bay Buccaneer Coach Tony Dungy and General Manager Rich McKay were finishing a celebration dinner in a Tampa restaurant Sunday night, a valet brought McKay’s jeep to the front of the building.

Several television cameras focused on the front of the restaurant, their red lights blinked on, and one announcer said breathlessly, “When the doors of Bern’s Steak House open, the next coach of the Tampa Bay Buccaneers will walk out.”

The doors opened, and out stepped two middle-aged, overweight tourists.

*

FOND FAREWELL: Shortly before leaving town for the final time for Tennessee, Houston Oiler owner Bud Adams paused to say that Mayor Bob Lanier had not been trustworthy during the failed negotiations to keep the team there.

“Being called [not trustworthy] by Bud Adams is like being called ugly by a bullfrog,” Lanier said.