“Fuck that!” screamed Irvin. “Barry, do you have any idea how many players he’s fucked over money? Do you?”
Switzer was unbowed. “Mike, lemme finish,” he said. “Just gimme a chance to…”
Irvin left.
“I wasn’t mad at Barry,” Irvin says. “I was just disappointed at losing a man I had come to love.”
Switzer could have handled the uncomfortable incident in any number of ways. Wisely, he stepped back and did nothing. “Michael doesn’t know me, but I know Michael,” Switzer told reporters the next day. “I know what a great leader he is on the field, I know how he practices. I respect his fierce loyalty to [Jimmy Johnson].”
The words resonated with Dallas players, many of whom had spent three or four years under Johnson’s 10,000-pound thumb. Though few thought Switzer would match Johnson as a pure football coach, he arrived in Dallas with a much-needed air of casualness. “Jimmy kept that pressure on everyone all the time, and it could beat a person down,” says Jay Novacek. “The way he ran practices, the way he hammered guys—there’s no way we could have survived much longer. Barry’s style was important. He changed the pace when the pace needed to be adjusted.”
By the aftermath of Super Bowl XXVIII, most Cowboys had had it with the hypocrisy of Jimmy Johnson. Throughout his final two seasons, Johnson preached the concept of one-for-all-all-for-one. “Ego and selfishness have no place here,” he said repeatedly. “No place at all.” Yet when push came to shove, why had Johnson departed? Because he was unwilling to share credit with Jerry Jones. Because of ego.
“That was the biggest disappointment with Jimmy—ego took precedence over everything,” says Mark Stepnoski, the Cowboys’ veteran center. “The thing I didn’t understand was that Jimmy used to talk repeatedly about how if we all have success, there’ll be enough credit to go around to everybody. Which is true. And sure enough, we got better every year and the more games we won the more attention guys got, the more guys made the Pro Bowl, the more money guys made, the more coaching awards Jimmy received. Then—BAM!—Jimmy and Jerry split up. I can’t really fathom what it would take to make a guy walk away from a situation that good. But he did.”
While there would always be the sense that he was Jones’s bobo, Switzer won over his new minions not by establishing himself as the anti-Jimmy, but by being smart enough to leave things alone and stay out of the way. With the exception of Norv Turner—who departed to coach the Washington Redskins and was replaced as offensive coordinator by Ernie Zampese—Switzer kept the on-field staff intact, and even stuck with Johnson’s old playbook. Though he failed to garner the support of Butch Davis, the arrogant defensive coordinator, this was hardly Switzer’s failure—Davis had campaigned for the head coaching job and was outraged when he was overlooked. (As Davis would later prove in his four disastrous years guiding the Cleveland Browns, it was a solid no-hire.) Most of the other assistants found Switzer refreshingly easy to work for. In his first meeting with his new staff, Switzer laid out his manifesto. “I’m gonna let you coach,” he said. “You do your job, I’ll do mine. But if I find any one of you motherfuckers being disloyal I’ll fire you on the spot.” To Davis, this amounted to a threat. To his coworkers, it was heaven. In a league overstuffed with egomaniacal sideline blowhards, Switzer merely desired professionalism. “There was talk in the media that the coaches were against Barry, and it was complete garbage,” says Dave Campo, the defensive backs coach. “He made it clear early on that he saw himself more as an overseer than a hands-on guy, and that was very wise. He put a lot of trust in us. Personally, I loved Barry.”
If Switzer faced a grueling uphill battle, it was with a press corps sprinkled with lazy homers willing to take one or two misguided sources at their word. At its best, the Dallas media market offered writers like Rick Gosselin, Frank Luksa, Ed Werder, Randy Galloway, and Denne Freeman—true professionals who accurately depicted the goings-on with America’s Team. At its worst, though, fans were subjected to so-called radio and television “journalists” who viewed the job as a chance to make friends with the players and gain a level of fame themselves.
Most egregious was the approach taken by Dale Hansen, the longtime Cowboy radio analyst. As far as professional football broadcasters went, Hansen was one of the nation’s elite. On KVIL-FM he played well off of partner Brad Sham and knew the game with unquestioned insight. The problem, though, was that at the same time Hansen doubled as a journalist (he was a sportscaster for Channel 8), he maintained questionable personal relationships with the men he covered. For example, Hansen was thrilled to be included in player-only poker nights, during which illegal drug usage took place. “One time I remember three of the guys lighting up a joint,” says Hansen. “They looked at me and said, ‘You’re not gonna report this, are you?’” Of course he wouldn’t report it—hell, he wanted to be invited back. “But then I looked one of the guys in the eye and said, ‘But if you fuck up Sunday, I might have to blow on you.’ My theory was ‘Guys, this is not my job. But if you don’t play well and I know you were drunker than hell and left with a hooker Saturday night, I’m going to report that.’”
The approach was inane—especially when it came to Troy Aikman, the object of Hansen’s puppy love. The crush dated back to the final days of 1988, when Aikman and UCLA were preparing to battle Arkansas in the Cotton Bowl. In a radio interview held at a Tony Roma’s in Dallas, Hansen caught the senior quarterback’s attention with quirky questions like, “How long until you replace Steve Pelluer?”
“Troy laughed all the way through the interview,” says Hansen. “Then he came to training camp and he and I became great friends. We started to hang out a lot, doing things together.” Though it did not strike Hansen as odd that he was a forty-year-old journalist befriending a kid half his age, others in the media found the bias laughably transparent. Aikman could play like Steve Pisarkiewicz on ice skates and Hansen would refuse to rip him.
When Switzer was first hired, Hansen sought input from the golden boy, who had spent parts of two seasons as a quarterback at Oklahoma. “You’re gonna love this guy,” Aikman raved. “He’s smart, he’s funny, and he understands the press.”
Yet by the early days of training camp, Aikman was reminded why, while he liked Switzer at Oklahoma, he didn’t especially respect him. During practices the new head coach would walk around the fields, whistle dangling from a shoelace around his neck, a vacant look in his eyes. When he spoke, it wasn’t with the authority of a Jimmy Johnson, but the distant casualness of an onlooker who wasn’t quite sure whether his team played in the NFC or AFC. Famously, there was an on-field incident with trainer Kevin O’Neill, a prideful man who didn’t take kindly to unneeded interferences. Once, as Switzer tried to offer advice before a gaggle of players, O’Neill turned and screamed, “Don’t tell me how to do my fucking job!” The coach slinked away.
Part of Switzer’s trepidation was due to newness; one doesn’t make the jump from five years of autograph show appearances to running the Dallas Cowboys without stumbling. But there was something more—Switzer’s apparent need to be one of the guys; to establish himself as a chum, not an overlord. As a collegiate player Switzer never encountered a curfew he didn’t break, and that modus operandi reigned as his players hit Austin’s 6th Street bars until the wee morning hours without consequences. “Curfews,” he once said, “are rat-turd things made to be broken.” Once, after several players arrived in the morning with reddened eyes and reeking from the scent of Jack Daniel’s, Switzer sauntered toward the 50-yard line and yelled, “If any of you sons of bitches ain’t in the pool in the next ten minutes, you’re gonna have to practice today!” Ninety-nine percent of the Cowboys cheered with delight. Aikman did not. To the regimented quarterback, Switzer’s casual approach seemed ineffective and his practices disorganized. “Switzer was prone to saying erratic stuff in meetings that would drive Aikman insane,” says Michael Silver, the former Sports Illustrated football writer. “He would give a speech to the te
am and he’d start talking about ‘my daddy’s black mistress.’ It drove the real serious guys who won under Jimmy nuts.”
As Aikman soured on the head coach, so, too, did Hansen, his broadcaster lackey. He heard the tales of Switzer’s lackadaisical ways, then turned to assistant coach Butch Davis, who—after watching Switzer aimlessly roam practices—was happy to slam his new boss. On the morning of the final Thursday of camp, Hansen was interviewed by KLIF’s Norm Hitzges. When Hitzges asked if there were any concerns for the season, Hansen said that Switzer was having trouble with his assistants, and that he needed to immediately work it out. The words emerged from Hansen’s mouth, but derived directly from Aikman and Davis. “I thought it was a very innocent comment,” says Hansen. “Innocent but true.”
That night, at exactly 10:34 P.M., Hansen and Switzer sat down for what initially seemed to be an ordinary on-air TV chat. Both men were dressed casually—Switzer in shorts and a blue golf shirt, Hansen in a red-and-blue golf shirt. With the Channel 8 camera rolling live, Hansen began with a run-of-the-mill question about training camp. Switzer responded, “I loved it. If I had orchestrated it any better it couldn’t have gone better. Because I didn’t orchestrate it. It just happened.”
Quickly, things turned nasty. Hansen asked Switzer about the team’s recent trip to Mexico City for an exhibition game against the Houston Oilers, which was plagued by travel issues that included a four-hour runway wait.
HANSEN: “A lot of players are unhappy that you haven’t spoken out more saying that Jerry Jones was at fault for more of the problems we had down there. Aren’t you concerned that you run the risk of losing the respect of your players?” Game on.
SWITZER: “I didn’t know [Jerry] was a Mexican official. That’s the next thing we’re gonna accuse him of. He had nothing to do with it. Nothing to do with it. I think—I know—that Jerry is a great guy, but I’ve gotta convince you and some other people…But it really doesn’t matter.”
HANSEN: “You don’t have to convince me, but I think you have to convince some of your players.”
SWITZER: “As long as he pays them, it doesn’t make a difference. I wanna ask you. You made a phone call on the Norm Hitzges show and you said that we had a controversy on our staff down here today and discord…”
HANSEN: “A power struggle…”
SWITZER: “A power struggle? On our staff?”
HANSEN: “You’re saying that’s not true?”
SWITZER: “What are you talking about?”
HANSEN: “I’m talking about your assistants are all fighting…As some have said to me, you have like five head coaches.”
SWITZER: “Dale, you know better than that. I’ve got the second-fastest gun on the team. You know why? Because Jerry’s got the one and I’ve got the other, and I can fire any player on this squad, other than the ones that got the great contracts and make all the money.”
HANSEN: “Jimmy Johnson said 1984 was his worst year in coaching, and the worst mistake he made was taking over a football team with an inherited staff. Aren’t you making the same mistake?”
SWITZER: “No, not at all. Those guys and I get along great. All you’ve gotta do is interview them. We get along fine. And Kevin O’Neill, when you said we had a screaming match…an altercation…”
HANSEN (finger raised): “I said players told me that happened.”
SWITZER: “Well, I don’t know what players you’re talking to, but it certainly didn’t happen. I asked Kevin—what are they talking about? I asked the coaches, I grabbed the reporters. You guys fabricate things. You can’t think. Read the Dallas Observer—where do you get that crap? Tell me about it. Where’s it come from?”
Until this point, there had remained a paper-thin layer of civility. Now it had vanished. The Dallas Observer, an alternative weekly newspaper, had recently run a piece on Hansen’s after-hour activities that proved terribly embarrassing to the broadcaster. Switzer knew there was a bruise, and he chose to slam it with a hammer.
HANSEN (raising a finger and his voice): “I know where my sources come from. You don’t have to take a cheap shot at me.”
SWITZER (smiling, grabbing Hansen’s hand): “Hey, I’ve had as much heat as you’ve had. We’re on the same team, we come from the same school. Lemme ask you something—”
HANSEN: “Let me say something. I’ve never said an assistant coach has a problem with Barry Switzer. What I’m saying and what a lot of players are saying is and what a lot of coaches are saying is that assistant coaches are having problems with assistant coaches, and players want you to step up and stop it.”
This was Hansen the journalist at his worst. Did he have “a lot of players” and “a lot of coaches” confiding in him, or did he have one or two players or one or two coaches telling him the alleged mood of the team? Was he speaking to Leon Lett and Alvin Harper, or just Troy Aikman, a close friend who could use Hansen as a mouthpiece?
SWITZER: “I think they don’t know what they’re talking about, and you don’t either, Dale Hansen. There’s no problem here on this staff on the Dallas Cowboys. I promise you that.”
Hansen seemed to take a step back. He was losing control of the interview. What followed were some innocent questions—one about the opening game against Pittsburgh, another about Robert Jones’s ability to start at middle linebacker, where he was replacing free agent defector Ken Norton, Jr. Then Hansen seemed to offer an olive branch, asking about Switzer’s enthusiasm for the job. The coach was not having it.
SWITZER: “They know who the boss is, and I’m the boss. Don’t you ever question that, and Jerry Jones knows that too. Because if I wasn’t I’d say, ‘Jerry, this is your team, I’m your coach.’ But if I don’t like it and it comes down to a decision between me and a coach or a player—not the guys like Aikman or Emmitt—but hey, it’s me or them, handle that, because I can go back and sit on my couch any day [punches Hansen hard in the left shoulder and raises his voice to a scream], because I came to Dallas with more money than Jimmy left with!”
HANSEN (rubbing his shoulder): “This is starting to hurt a little bit, but it hasn’t changed what I believe. I gave you the forum. I still think you have dissension among your staff…”
SWITZER: “Aw, you don’t know what you’re talking about. You guys fabricate…”
HANSEN (sarcastically): “We make it all up…”
SWITZER: “You do! You do! [hits Hansen again] You’re the guy who last week walked up to Jerry and you said [hits Hansen again] that Tony Casillas had a brain tumor! You guys manufacture everything! Oh, I’ve got a radiologist that saw the film! You guys manufacture everything!”
During camp it was rumored that the Cowboys were interested in re-signing Casillas, their former nose tackle, but that he was enduring a “personal problem.” A rumor circulated around the league that Casillas had a brain tumor. Hansen asked Jerry Jones if it was true—a fair question. When Jones said no, Hansen killed the story.
HANSEN: “Did you ever see that story on the air or in print?”
SWITZER: “No, but you walked over and told Jerry that.”
HANSEN (raising a finger): “I did not tell him that.”
SWITZER: “Yes you did!”
HANSEN: “I did not do that. I asked a question.”
SWITZER: “Yes you did! Yes you did! Are you getting good ratings tonight?”
HANSEN: “I’m getting very good ratings. But don’t start questioning—”
SWITZER: “You told Jerry he had a brain tumor.”
HANSEN: “I did not. I did not!”
SWITZER: “Did you tell someone?”
HANSEN: “I did not tell anybody. Barry, I’m giving you the forum. But let’s play fair. I did not tell anybody any such thing. I ask a lot of questions, I ask a lot of tough questions, I try to ask tough questions.”
SWITZER: “But you were false about that. Now you talk about our coaching staff having dissension. That’s ridiculous.”
HANSEN: “I never reported [the tumor].�
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SWITZER: “I think I’ll go call Kevin O’Neill. I’m gonna have a screaming match with Kevin. Send your camera over [grabs Hansen’s left arm and laughs].
HANSEN (smiling): “Start hitting my other arm…”
As far as local television went, the duel was classic. But while Switzer’s points on Casillas and the Dallas Observer article were ill-gotten, they were obscured by Hansen, who came off as stubborn and misguided. Troy Aikman did not like the way things were going under Switzer. Butch Davis did not like the way things were going under Switzer. But Hansen was wrong—most players loved the man.
“I had Barry sit at a table with Clayton Holmes and myself and tell us, ‘The organization wants me to cut one of you sons of bitches, but I’m gonna find a way to keep you both,’” recalls Kenny Gant, the special teams wizard. “That was in the preseason, and it was straight-up. I’ll never forget that.”
Boys Will Be Boys Page 28
