Play by Play

by Verne Lundquist

  As carefree as Don was, maybe he cared too much. He worried a lot about the success of the team and, like it or not, he played a position with more than a fair share of glory and blame. Don suffered the agonies of those defeats. One of my most vivid memories of him took place in Cleveland, at old Municipal Stadium, hard on the shore of Lake Erie. This was in 1968, and our radio booth was on top of the roof of that old monstrosity. We all shivered. Near the end of the game, Al Ward escorted me to the sidelines. Even if I had still been at that more distant locale, Don’s pain would have been palpable. It was as hard as the pellet-like snow spitting down on all assembled.

  As the game staggered on, the fog rolled in and the Browns were handing the Cowboys their collective ass as the saying goes. Down by a lot, Tom Landry pulled Don out of the game and inserted Craig Morton. Didn’t matter who was in there because the Cowboys eventually lost, 42–10. For the day, his last on the playing field it would turn out, Don was 3 for 9, with three interceptions. One of those was a pick six, and the two others resulted in 10 points for the underdog Browns. The glorious 12-2 regular season came to an ignominious end. In 1966 and 1967 the Cowboys had ended their season with a loss to the Packers in the NFL Championship Game. This time, they fell short of that lousy mark. Don was only thirty years old. Though he was often injured and beaten up, he was still relatively young for a quarterback in the league.

  I can see now that what I witnessed toward the end of the game had greater significance than just another frustrating playoff loss. With about five minutes left to be played, Don was stoically standing on the bench, a low-slung plank that ran from the 30 to 30 on one side of the field for use by both teams. He had a hooded cape on and was staring straight ahead. In the gloom he was a vision of forlorn failure. I was on the field making my way toward the locker room to do my postgame show. Tex Schramm passed me going the other way. I turned and watched as Tex approached Don. He wrapped his arms around his disconsolate quarterback. Don reached down and patted Tex on the back. That’s the kind of guy Tex was. Later, we boarded the charter and Don took his customary seat in the last row. That season, his row mate was Pete Gent. Pete was a wide receiver and later the author of a bestselling tell-all novel, North Dallas Forty.

  We took off and I didn’t think much about it until we got to Dallas and everyone was wondering where Don was. The aircraft had two exits, and before we left Cleveland he and Pete had slipped out the rear one without anyone noticing. Later we learned that Don and Pete had booked another flight to New York City and were holed up in Frank Gifford’s place. He contacted Tex and said that he was done; he was going to retire. Nineteen sixty-eight was going to be his last season. And what a season it was for him. He passed for exactly 2,500 yards and threw 21 touchdowns, earning All-Pro honors. Too many fans focused on his 12 interceptions.

  My other vivid memory of Don is of him being nearly in tears following a Cowboy loss in the Cotton Bowl. I worked my way down to the locker room and his hangdog look and tone after the game was painful to witness. He’d been removed from the action and was lustily booed by a sellout crowd. He told me that he couldn’t understand these people. Why were they booing him? Did they think he wasn’t trying? He said that he was out there trying to do his best on every play. Did they think he wasn’t out there putting in the effort? In fact, he was more than putting in the effort. He was laying it on the line. He famously threw a touchdown pass to future Denver head coach Dan Reeves one play after he’d had his ribs broken. His buddy Pete Gent recalled on Don’s passing how he’d visited him in the hospital after that game. Don was in intensive care (and intense pain) having his collapsed lung reinflated.

  Don’s fun-loving side clearly rubbed the all-business, all-the-time Tom Landry the wrong way. That was a huge reason why Don walked away from the game at such a young age and while still being very productive. He enjoyed great success as a broadcaster and did some acting as well. Maybe he had a vision of what his life could be like beyond football, understood that life was meant to be lived larger than what the confines of the gridiron allowed for. No matter the case, he was a real treat to be around. I just wish he could have been around longer.

  When Meredith struggled, Morton came on in relief after being drafted fifth overall in 1965. Another gifted athlete—he was pursued by several Major League Baseball teams as a pitcher—Craig enjoyed a standout collegiate career at the University of California, Berkeley. I also really enjoyed getting to know and become friends with Craig. He wasn’t as famous as Don was for his sense of humor, but his laid-back Californian vibe made him a pleasure to be around. You have to keep in mind that I was around these young guys when I was a young man myself. We were contemporaries with the same interests. We were young, single, and pursuing an active social life. Also, back then, the athletes I knew weren’t as guarded with the media as they are today. They didn’t have to be wary of what we might report on social media or to friends who might repeat something told in confidence and have it find its way onto TMZ or some other scandal-mongering outlet.

  Like Don, Craig suffered the slings and arrows of Cowboy fans and their high expectations. At this time, the Cowboys were on their way to becoming known as America’s Team. Roger Staubach was Craig’s foil. A graduate of the U.S. Naval Academy, he had to wait until completing his four years of active duty before joining the team at age twenty-seven. Roger’s maturity and discipline stood in contrast to Craig’s slightly more lax approach to life and to the game. Both were very, very talented. Both would have liked to have been Tom Landry’s number one. It took a while, but eventually Roger won out.

  And the beginning of the end for Craig was that 1972 divisional round playoff game against the Niners. With the Cowboys down 21–13 at the half, things were made worse by a Calvin Hill fumble inside his own five-yard line, which resulted in a San Francisco touchdown to push the lead to 28–13. Dallas wasn’t moving the ball much on offense, and Craig was having an off day. Near the end of the third quarter, Landry decided to make a change. Craig’s 8 out of 21 completions with an interception and a fumble just wasn’t going to cut it with so much at stake. (I should note that the interception was on a pass that was right on target but went through the hands of the intended receiver.)

  Roger’s day began inauspiciously. His interception and fumble stalled the offense but a Bruce Gossett miss on a relatively easy 32-yard field goal kept the score unchanged. Roger and the offense got untracked and a Toni Fritsch field goal brought them within two touchdowns. The problem was the clock. The Cowboys got the ball back with just a little more than two minutes left and a huge hill to climb. A least the first step of that climb wasn’t going to be too arduous.

  A poor punt gave them the ball on the Niners’ 45-yard line. I sat there amazed as, 32 seconds and four completions later, the Cowboys were in the end zone. Roger connected on a 20-yard toss to Billy Parks for the score with 1:20 left in the game. Exciting stuff, but we all knew that if the Cowboys had any hope of victory, then something special was going to have to occur. It did in the form of a Toni Fritsch onside kick. Toni was Austrian and had played a lot of European football in his day. Tex, ever the innovator, had his scouts checking out foreign soccer players. Much of that had to do with Tex hating the idea of “wasting” a draft choice on a kicker or punter.

  Toni had great footwork and frequently practiced on his own unusual approaches to kicking the ball. That day in San Francisco, he lined up as if he were going to kick the ball to the left, but in a somewhat balletic move, wrapped his kicking leg behind his plant leg and kick-punched the ball to the right. The Cowboys recovered. Roger scrambled for 21 yards on the first play, niftily evading tacklers. He next hit Parks on a perfect sideline route to set up the winning score—a bullet of a pass to Ron Sellers from the 10.

  That 15-point fourth-quarter rally got the Cowboys to the NFC Championship Game. It also became the foundation for the legend of Roger “Captain Comeback” Staubach. That nickname, along with “Roger the Dodger” and “Ca
ptain America,” formed a wonderful trio. Unfortunately for Roger and the Cowboys, that magic didn’t last. George Allen and his “Over the Hill Gang”—a Washington Redskins team composed of wily veterans—took out the Cowboys, 26–3. The Redskins had a quarterback controversy of their own with Billy Kilmer and Sonny Jurgenson swapping roles as starter and backup. It hardly mattered who was behind center. Allen was as defensive-minded as any head coach and despite having six starters older than thirty on that side of the ball, they had the stingiest defense in the league. The Cowboys managed fewer than 200 yards in total offense and just 8 first downs total. No repeat championship. No fourth-quarter heroics from Captain Nickname.

  Another of those long, silent flights ensued. At least everyone on the team boarded and stayed on board.

  Despite the loss, I know that I was truly blessed to be with the Cowboys during that amazing stretch in the 1970s when they went to the Super Bowl five times. I wasn’t with the team professionally in the 1990s when they reestablished themselves as a major force in the league and truly became America’s Team. Some people say that all good things must come to an end, but that doesn’t mean they can’t start over later. I don’t want to turn this into a downer, but one of the other vivid memories I have of my time with the Cowboys was just before Super Bowl XIII in Miami.

  I was still doing my nightly newscast, and that particular Wednesday, we did a remote from Fort Lauderdale with Jackie Smith as my guest. Jackie had come out of retirement to join the Cowboys after the fourth game of the season when starting tight end Jay Saldi fractured his arm. Jackie was a terrific player for the St. Louis Cardinals in his fifteen years with them. He was lightly regarded coming out of college. He was drafted in the tenth round but eventually became a Hall of Famer. His years with the St. Louis Cardinals were marked by his excellence and the Cardinals’ mediocrity. From 1963 to 1977 the Cardinals only made the playoffs twice, losing both times in the divisional round.

  Jackie came back believing that he’d have a shot at what every competitor truly wants—the ring, the championship. Jackie and his wife were on camera with me that night. It was clear that he was giving this one more shot and that, win or lose, this would be his final game. I asked him what he hoped for. He said that his fantasy would be to make a meaningful catch in a Cowboys victory. Jackie was a stand-up guy and I hoped that he’d see that vision brought to life.

  Standing in the way were the Pittsburgh Steelers. And, man, those Cowboys–Steelers match-ups were a real hoot given their relative rarity and the consequences adjoined to each one. Not only was this a contest to determine the champion of that season, it was in large measure a test of football dominance. The Steelers had beaten the Cowboys 21–17 in Super Bowl X. Both teams had each won two Super Bowls in their history. The winner of this game would be the first to three victories in the ultimate game. The Cowboys had won in 1977, so they were seeking back-to-back league championships. The Cowboys had dominated Denver the previous year. Craig Morton versus Roger Staubach was one of the main story lines going into that game. The Cowboys’ 27–10 victory capped off an amazing playoff run in which they beat their opponents by an aggregate score of 87 to 23 and humbled the Bears, the Vikings, and the Broncos.

  For their part, the Steelers had won back-to-back titles in 1974 and 1975 and their roster was populated with names like Mean Joe Greene, Jack Lambert, Lynn Swann, Terry Bradshaw, Chuck Noll, and others who formed a who’s who of NFL football. Any time two franchises with histories of great success square off, expectations are very high. The Cowboys entered the game with a record of 13-4 while the Steelers were 14-2. Clearly the two best teams in the league would be going at it. To top it off, this was going to be the last Super Bowl held in the historic Orange Bowl. According to many, this was the greatest matchup, on paper, to that point in Super Bowl history. In retrospect, it’s easy to see why that was so. Nineteen participants in that game—players, coaches, owners, management—made it into the Hall of Fame.

  One other sidelight. Thomas “Hollywood” Henderson was quite a character, as his nickname suggests. Born and raised in Austin, Thomas moved to Oklahoma to live with his grandmother since his home life in Austin was less than ideal. He wasn’t a particularly good high school football player by NFL standards. He wasn’t heavily recruited by NCAA Division I schools like most pro football players are. Instead he attended a small National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics school. He walked on at Langston University, a historically black college in Oklahoma. He was a standout at that small school and the Cowboys selected him with the eighteenth pick of the first round of the 1975 draft. He was a part of what some referred to as the Cowboys’ Dirty Dozen—one of the twelve rookies who made the team from that draft. As for Thomas, how great of an underdog story is his?

  And how is this for a great line? Prior to the Super Bowl, he said of the Steelers’ Terry Bradshaw, “He couldn’t spell ‘cat’ if I spotted him the C and the T.”

  The letter that most people expected to be prominent in the game was D. Both teams had the top defenses in their respective conferences. The game didn’t go to plan in that regard for the Doomsday Defense or the Steel Curtain.

  In the previous year’s draft, the Cowboys had gambled on Tony Dorsett. They made a big trade in order to move up to the number two spot in the draft to select him out of Pitt. The day of the draft, before the trade was made, I was at my desk at Channel Eight when I got an anonymous tip. This individual reported that someone had been at one of Chuck Howley’s dry cleaning establishments (Chuck was long-time linebacker for the Cowboys). Inside, someone was sewing the last “t” on a number 33 Cowboy jersey. I ignored the possibility and missed a big scoop. Tex laughed at me later when I confirmed the dry-cleaner story and never let me forget how I’d missed out on making a big news splash.

  Some regarded Dorsett as too small, but he figured large in the Cowboys’ plans. They also paid him large—he was the first Cowboy to top the $1 million per-season mark. Back-to-back 1,000-yard-plus seasons in his first two regular seasons demonstrated the Cowboys’ scouts knew a thing or two about what it took to succeed in the league. Dorsett was something special, and his 99-yard touchdown run against the Vikings in a 1983 Monday Night Football contest ranks as one of the most memorable. He did it when the Cowboys only had ten men on the field.

  Five years earlier, in the opening moments of Super Bowl XIII Dorsett showed why he was worth trading up for, gaining 38 yards on 3 carries. To mix things up a bit, instead of letting the league’s leading passer, Roger Staubach, air one out, the Cowboys elected a bit of trickery. A wide-receiver reverse-pass play resulted in a Drew Pearson fumble. Tight end Billie Joe Dupree, the intended receiver, had broken free but the handoff went awry. The Cowboys had practiced that play for weeks in anticipation of needing it against a stout and aggressive defensive opponent. The moment was right but the execution wasn’t. The Steelers took over near midfield and a few plays later, Terry Bradshaw connected with John Stallworth on a 28-yard touchdown pass. Similarly, the Cowboys capitalized on a Bradshaw fumble late in the first quarter to tie the score on a Staubach–Tony Hill pass. Taking advantage of an all-out blitz, Hill beat his man in single coverage and the Cowboys scored the only first-quarter touchdown the Steelers defense allowed that season. In my mind, that could have possibly been the only touchdown either side would surrender. The game might have come down to a battle of the kickers.

  The second quarter opened with the Dallas D doing its thing. Mike Hegman and Hollywood Henderson blitzed. Bradshaw tried to evade them, and did initially, but he ran into his own Franco Harris. He dropped the ball but picked it up. Hegman and Henderson double-teamed him, with the former stripping the ball loose and running it into the end zone. The Cowboys were up 14–7 and the Steelers had turned the ball over on three straight possessions. That lead didn’t last long. Three plays into the following possession John Stallworth turned a 10-yard completion into a 75-yard touchdown with a combination of breaking a tackle and pati
ently waiting for blockers to join him downfield. Just before halftime, and taking advantage of a Staubach interception, a Bradshaw to Rocky Bleier touchdown strike gave the Steelers the edge at 21–14.

  Following the lengthy halftime show, both offenses struggled as the defenses asserted themselves. The most notable play came with about three minutes left in the third quarter. On third down from the Steelers’ ten, Roger went back to pass. Jackie Smith broke free and was wide open in the end zone. From our vantage point, it looked like a sure touchdown. Roger threw the ball softly, Smith seemed to struggle to keep his feet beneath him, and the ball bounced off the veteran’s hands. I flashed back to that earlier interview with him and his wish to contribute with a big play in a Cowboy victory. Instead, that dropped pass has gone down as one of the great gaffes in Super Bowl history. As Roger told me later, he didn’t put a whole lot on the pass. Smith himself said that the ball was low but catchable. What really troubled Roger is that the play as called was designed to go five yards. When the call came in, he tried to get Landry to change the play selection. All Tom said was to run it. They did, and maybe that bit of confusion resulted in the drop. Difficult to say, but 9.9 times out of ten Roger delivers a strike and Smith makes the catch. One of those what-ifs, I guess.