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Bob Sturm 3h ago
On Aug. 7, Jimmy Johnson will be properly inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame. I have written plenty over the years about his credentials and his clear-cut case for football immortality with a bust in Canton.
Only one other team in the history of the NFL has won three Super Bowls in four seasons besides the Dallas Cowboys of the 1990s: the Patriots of 2001-2004. Assuming we allow Johnson to take some credit for the 1995 Super Bowl season and the 1994 team that fell one game short — both of which occurred immediately after the divorce with Jerry Jones — then you would have a completely different viewpoint of Johnson (2020 enshrinement class), and he would have been inducted 10 years ago. Instead, he only gets credit for the five years he was actually in Dallas, which makes him a very difficult case to fully rule upon.
However, if you take a deeper dive and understand the context of the divorce, he is also a very obvious choice given he was the full architect of the entire dynasty and a coach who took over a team that was gutted and incapable of competing in 1989, only to instantly drive them to the top of the league for what appears to have been capable of even more. He had a unique coaching career in which he had four head coaching gigs in college and the pros, and despite never staying more than five years at any of them was a champion and is now a Hall of Famer at both levels.
Rather than rehashing his incredible accomplishments, I spoke with those close to him during his time in Dallas. The premise was simple: What was their “Jimmy story”? Whether a speaking engagement, a campfire or perhaps a round of golf, when someone wants a Jimmy story, what would they tell them? Everyone got one story, but his presenter Aug. 7 and Hall of Fame quarterback Troy Aikman was allowed to bend the rules a bit.
Here is what they told me.
Dave Wannstedt
Defensive coordinator, 1989-1992
The one that comes to my mind is when we first took the Dallas job. It was that first year. I was living in an area that was brand new called Coppell, Texas. Well, it was so new that they didn’t even have cable run into the housing plan we were living in. I think we might have been, like 0-5 or 0-6 at the time, I don’t even remember. Jimmy called me one night when he was driving back from his TV show. It was a Thursday night at 8, 9 o’clock. And he asked me what I was doing. I said, “Nothing just kind of hanging out here.” And I had two daughters. One was about 5 or 6, and the other one was probably 8 at the time. I said, “Why don’t you stop on your way home and we’ll have a drink.” So he stopped and we fixed a drink.
As we’re walking to go sit outside and just talk about where we’re at and where we’re going to go in this mess. He walks by the TV. And my wife had the old-fashioned rabbit ears on the TV set with the aluminum foil. The TV got the three major stations, and we didn’t get them very good. And my little kids were sitting in front of it. I remember him walking by saying, “What is this?” And I said, “Well, we don’t have cable here, so we are just doing the best we can do.” So the next morning, we’re in the office, and my wife calls me and says there’s a satellite truck out in front of our house. And they’re unloading a satellite dish. This is 1989 and her description was the satellite dish that they are taking off and carrying to our backyard. She said that it is almost as big as our house. So, these guys came in and hooked up a giant satellite dish in our backyard. I can remember saying to Jimmy, “What are you doing?” And he says we can’t have your daughters watching TV like that. He said that this is something I want to do for you. Now, that’s a non-football story for you.
Jimmy Johnson (Kirby Lee / USA Today)
Troy Aikman
Quarterback, 1989-2000
I got one about Mark Stepnoski. So Mark always respected Jimmy and Jimmy respected Mark because Mark was smart and a hell of a player. But there was always this kind of … maybe not tension, but they just were never quite on the same page. We’re in training camp in Austin and Step had pulled his calf. Jimmy hated when players didn’t practice, he hated when they were hurt. If you weren’t gonna practice you couldn’t sit in the training room the way you could now or the way you did with Switzer. He made you come out to practice, put on your jersey you’re going to sit out there in the heat and he was going to make life as miserable on you as he could. He hated when guys were hurt. So Stepnoski is over there. He’s in his jersey. He’s not practicing that day, Jimmy comes walking out of St. Edwards. He sees Step and the injured guys. He says, “Step what the hell’s wrong with you?” And Step says, “I injured my calf, Coach” and Jimmy says, “Calf, are you kidding me? You’re missing practice because of a calf? It’s not like it’s a joint or anything.” Step says, “Hey, Coach, come on. It’s my first practice I’ve missed.” Jimmy says, “Well, I haven’t missed any.” And he was pissed and storms off and Step was just kind of mumbling under his breath back. That’s the one Step always tells about Jimmy.
Norv Turner
Offensive coordinator, 1991-1993
When I got hired, you go through that period where you move and my family is still in L.A. And I’m staying in a little one-bedroom apartment. So on Saturdays and Sundays, I’d go in the office, and I’d go and watch tape and try to get caught up on things and look at the division. Jimmy would come in on Sunday on I bet a half dozen occasions and he goes, “What are you doing?” I said, “I’m looking at some tape” and he’d say, “Come on, let’s go.” Jimmy and Rhonda and I would go have Mexican food somewhere or go to a sports bar and watch a game. And that’s really, how I think he got to know me. It was by design and that’s obviously made me much more comfortable being around him and being with him. He wanted me to be comfortable and in a very casual way. That’s where we talked a lot of football. We didn’t sit down and use a whiteboard. He liked to see what I thought about the team, the players, all the different things. And so it was really a unique way of doing things for me, but it certainly made my transition a great deal easier.
Nate Newton
Guard, 1986-1998
One time I had a car wreck, right? It was pretty major and the car was tore up all to hell, but I was OK. But, I had a big ol’ bump on my head. It was at training camp and it was just a minor injury and I was all right. And I watched coach Johnson. He walked up to Troy. Troy how is your arm today? Are you weary? No, Coach, everything is all right, Troy said. OK, well let us know because we don’t want to overthrow your arm! Then he walks over to Mike, and he said, “Boy, Mike, you are a hard worker. I appreciate what you’re doing. How are your legs, are your legs tired?” No coach, my legs are good. You know I know when to back off when your legs get too tired. Then he walked over to Emmitt and said we want to do some inside runs, but I want you to be right. How many reps do you want? How many snaps do you want? Emmitt said, “Coach, I’ll take about five or six.” Well, we are going to do a 12-play script, so I will get you in on five or six of those runs. And he walked over to me and I looked at him and he said, “Nate, get ready to practice.” He just smiled at me and started laughing. I said, “Damn, Coach, you aren’t even going to ask how I am feeling?” (laughing). But, that was the type of relationship we had. He knew I was listening to him talk to everyone and he knew I was going to say, no Coach, I can’t practice. He knew that if I could get out of practice, I was going to try to get out of practice.
Tony Casillas
Defensive tackle, 1991-1993, 1996-1997
As people could already imagine, Jimmy hated to lose. I think he just couldn’t fathom that he could lose a game in the National Football League. That is what made him so great. I believe it was 1992 and we lost up in Washington. And he was pissed obviously because we lost and, we always kind of celebrated a lot on our way back on those trips, because we won a lot, but when we lost you were just like, OK, we just need to throttle it down and just kind of keep under the radar. And if we see Jimmy, everyone just needs to shut up. Pretend like you’re sleeping or you’re looking at the playbook or whatever — something, you know, the remorse of losing. So all the coaches sat in the first class and the media sat in the middle and the players in the back, and we play cards, and we’d have a few drinks on the way back. We were all: Look, we lost, but next week, we’ll get back to work and the 24-hour rule. Jimmy, his 24-hour rule was like 48 hours and till we play the next game.
So we’re in the back and there’s a guy named Frank Cornish. Frank was always laughing. He was one of those kind of guys with a smile on his face and made people laugh and just kind of kept it real. I sat next to Mark Tuinei on the plane on road trips. Frank sat two rows back to the right on the aisle seat. So it was about an hour into the flight and we see Jimmy get up in first class. And his hair was all messed up and he had this glare in his eyes. So we’re like OK, here comes Jimmy — everybody be quiet. Frank was playing cards. I don’t know who he is playing cards with but we could see Jimmy and he started walking back. He was looking for someone to just piss him off so he could start whatever outburst he was going to have. Frank was laughing. And by the time we told Frank, “Frank, Frank, here comes Jimmy” … Jimmy was right in his face. So Frank turns around and he sees Jimmy and Jimmy looks at him and goes: “What the fuck is so funny, Frank? We just got our asses kicked and you’re laughing? I’m gonna deal with your ass tomorrow.” And Frank just turned white. And he was like, “Oh, my God, he’s gonna cut me.”
So about 45 minutes later, same flight. There was severe weather in DFW Airport and they are canceling flights. So the pilot comes on and says, Hey, guys, I gotta give you an update. We got to divert the plane. It’s gonna be about 45 minutes because of inclement weather. So we’re gonna be about an hour away. Jimmy was livid. He opens up the cockpit door. And this is a vivid memory. Stuff I’d never forget. He goes, “I’m going to tell you that I want you to land this fucking plane right now.” We’re all looking like, are you serious? And the pilot grabs a hold of him and says, “Jimmy, you need to go sit down. You lost a football game. I got 250 people on this plane that I’m responsible for.” But that was Jimmy. That’s the great thing about Jimmy as he always kept you on your toes. He never made you feel comfortable about success. I think Joe Avezzano said, “It only catches up to you when it catches up to you.”
Jimmy Johnson and Troy Aikman (Charles Krupa / Associated Press)
Aikman
(continuing off the Tony Casillas story)
The next night (after that Washington flight) was our Christmas party. And a bunch of teammates said they weren’t going to the party. But I said, I gotta go. Hell, I’m the quarterback, you know, how do I not represent the team at the Christmas party? So I went and Jimmy was still pretty hot. You know, he had ripped the players that day in the meeting after the game. And it was just a bad situation. You know, players are pissed at him. He’s not too happy with us. And now I’m at the Christmas party. No teammates are there. And I get to talking with Jimmy a little bit. And that’s when we started talking about fish aquariums. So maybe a week later, something happened. And Jimmy comes up to me and says, “Hey, let’s go get you a fish tank. You said you always wanted one. Let’s go get you one.”
All right. So I go get this fish tank with him. He picks everything out, picks all the fish out, he comes back to my house. He built my fish tank and I put it in my master bedroom. So now there’ll be occasions where after a Friday practice he would say, “Hey, Troy, let’s go get some fish for your fish tank.” How am I going to tell Coach that I’m busy? So I said, “Yeah, OK, let’s go.” We’d go shopping for fish and pick them out. He is stocking my aquarium.
Now we’ve won the Super Bowl and we’re into the ’93 season. Now we’re like, I mean, we’re friends and I’m still his quarterback. I remember this one Tuesday — Tuesdays are our day off. And I’m at the house and my phone rings and I answer and Jimmy says, “Hey, Troy, it’s Jimmy, are you at the house?” I said, “Yeah, I’m at the house.” He goes, “Well, I’m just cruising around with Rhonda.” That’s his girlfriend at the time and now his wife and he says, “I just want to stop by and check out your aquarium.” I said, “Well, come on over.” So Jimmy would come over with a cooler of beer. And he’d sit in my chair in my bedroom with Rhonda. That’s where the tank was. And just drinking Heinekens and talking fish. And I’m thinking this is just kind of bizarre right now, what’s going on.
Daryl Johnston
Fullback, 1989-1999
The one that I always remember is halftime of Super Bowl 28 in Atlanta against Buffalo. We’re down 13-6. And they really just kind of stifled us in the run game. They were doing something; they were twisting and moving inside. They were crashing their tackles inside and looping the linebacker outside, just running some stunts in the front so our guys couldn’t really tee off on them. And they were quick. It was one of the things that we always struggled with was the quickness and the movement in our run game. And they were giving us fits.
At halftime, Jimmy was outside the locker room and he said, “Listen, we know what they’re doing. You guys get off your feet, take care of your business. In about 10 minutes, let’s get back together, we’ll have everything up on the board for you. We’re going to show you what they’re doing. We’re going to show you how we’re going to counter that. And the second half, we’re going to force them out of what they’re doing right now. And then as soon as they move out of that we can get back to what we planned on doing.” So it was a play we had run about five, six weeks ago. It was just “power,” you know, just the power play. They were stunting the 3-4 outside linebacker with the defensive tackle down inside and looping the linebacker to the outside. So for power, it’s easy, everybody just adjusts and they’re basically taking themselves out of the play. If you remember the opening drive of the second half, when we had the football, it was Emmitt left, Emmitt right, Emmitt left, Emmitt right, Emmitt right, Emmitt left and it was “power” the whole way down the field. There wasn’t a whole lot of deviation on the play call. They were going to need to stop stunting and go back and play more traditional defense and at least mix it up a little bit. And they never really did. They kind of just stuck with what they were doing. And that’s why we had so much success in the second half.
I’ve always felt the way that Jimmy handled that whole thing because we were really frustrated coming in at halftime. And remember, Troy had the concussion against San Francisco in the championship game and it was just one week before the Super Bowl. So we were gonna lean on the run game a little bit more but they stuffed it in the first half and it was a little bit of “what’s going on here?” Then for him to be out at the locker-room door and to be saying, “Hey, we know what they’re doing. Don’t anybody panic, go in and take care of your business? We got the long Super Bowl halftime, we have plenty of time. Let’s make sure everybody’s (knows) what we’re doing. And we’ll go out here in the second half and we’ll force these guys out of what they’re doing and we’ll take advantage of the game plan that we have in place.” It’s Hudson Houck and it’s Norv Turner and everybody’s in on the X’s and O’s and all that stuff, but Jimmy to be there being real positive and knowing what we were going to be able to do in the second half. I thought it was, if not his best coaching moment while we were there, it was definitely near the top.
John Gesek
Guard, 1991-1993
We’re in a team meeting and Jimmy gets up and said, “I’m going to tell you guys the truth.” He says coaches will lie to you all the time. Coaches say that they will treat everybody the same. He says they’re lying to you. Because I’m gonna tell you the truth. I do not treat a free-agent offensive lineman the same way I’m treating Troy Aikman, Emmitt Smith and Michael Irvin. Most of you know where you fall on that sliding scale, but if you don’t, come see me, and I’ll let you know exactly where you fall. He ended it with, “You’re only here until I can find somebody better than you.” That always stuck in my mind now 30-some-odd years later — it pretty much sums him up. You know, he was incredibly in tune with what was going on with the team. He was always very honest about you’re only here till I find somebody better. OK, we know where we stand.
Emmitt Smith
Running back, 1990-2002
My rookie year in practice — it was a Thursday and we were having a two-minute drill. Jimmy was the referee. He was saying whether or not you get the first down. He can move around the field and do those things. And so we were going at it. I catch a ball and get the first down. As he said, “No first down. No first down. No first down.” I’m like, “Coach, I got first down, it’s pretty obvious I got the first down.” They said no first down. So he’s saying get in the huddle, get in the huddle. I go back to the huddle and then he is screaming, “timeout, timeout.” So I walk over to him. He’s upset. I didn’t realize how upset he was. “Coach, I got the first down, I got the first down.” He said, “Get your butt in the huddle.” He pretty much embarrassed me in front of all my teammates. So I was mad at him for a couple of days. I didn’t speak to him the rest of the day.
I did speak to him on Friday. We were walking by each other in the hall. And he said, “So you’re not gonna talk to me?” I said, “Coach, why did you front me out like that in front of my teammates? I got the first down.” He said, “E, let me just say this to you. That wasn’t even about you. I wanted everybody on the football field to know if I can get on my best players like that … then, if you’re not competing or playing at that level, then you understand where you stand — this is for other folks, not necessarily for you.” On top of that, he was upset because the plays were not coming in, in a timely fashion. In other words, the play clock is running down and he would have been forced to call the timeout. So he wanted to preserve the timeout. Practice wasn’t just for players. Practice was for coaches, practices were for the systems and getting the plays in — it was for everybody. And everybody was not on the same page, including the coaches and understanding what he wanted. He didn’t let everybody else know that. But he told me that specifically. I learned a very valuable lesson that sometimes it’s not about you.
Emmitt Smith and Jimmy Johnson (Ron Heflin / Associated Press)
Tony Wise
Offensive line coach, 1989-1992
One that Dave Wannstedt always remembers that we get a charge out of was when we were in our first year there in 1989. We would always go exercise at noon at lunchtime and Jimmy would get out and we talked football during the workout. And that’s where he first proposed the Herschel Walker trade to us when we were jogging around Valley Ranch. We laughed because Buddy Ryan had come out that first year and said, “Well, they don’t get to play against no East Carolinas in this league.” And, Jimmy was all in a huff and saying, “that rotten Buddy Ryan” and we must have been playing them that week, too. And, I said, “Well, he’s right you know, because we are East Carolina!” And Jimmy got a big charge out of that.
Charles Haley
Defensive end, 1992-1996
We had a talk when I was just not right and I was ready to retire because I got tired of all the struggles with depression and stuff. Jimmy asked, “What’s your problem?” I said, “You know what my problem is? You all don’t appreciate all the shit I do. Nobody has said one good thing about all this stuff I do off the field. How I train guys. How I run with them. You know how I go in the classroom and help show those guys what I see? I don’t get appreciated.” He said, “Charles, evidently you don’t read the paper or listen to the sports (shows).” I said, ” Yeah, you got that right. I don’t do it.” He told me, “Well, I appreciate the little things. You can do all the big things. But, I appreciate all the little things that you’ve done for this team.” And that meant a lot to me.
Aikman
I was in the Bahamas. This was after we won the Super Bowl in ’93. Now we are back-to-back world champs. I’m in the Bahamas with some buddies fishing. Jimmy had set me up with this GM at the Crystal Palace, Hotel and Casino in the Bahamas. And so I took some buddies and we are gambling one night. Now I don’t gamble a lot of money, but for me, it’s a lot of money. I was up $10,000 when I got to my room. But, I didn’t have my workout for the next day. So I called (Cowboys strength coach) Mike Woicik knowing he wouldn’t be at the office, but I call him and left a voicemail at his office and I said, “Hey, Mike, it’s Troy, I’m in the Bahamas. Hey, I forgot my workout. Can you fax me my workout for tomorrow so I can get my workout in?” And I said, “Oh, by the way, if you run into Jimmy at the facility, tell him I’m kicking their ass on the tables.” And that was it. I hung up.
So the next morning, we’re going deep-sea fishing and we’re leaving early. It’s like 6 in the morning. I’m out front waiting on my buddies. The GM of the casino comes out. He says, “Hey, when you get back Coach says he’s going to meet you at the tables.” I said “What?” He says, “Yeah, Coach.” I said, “Coach? Who is Coach? Jimmy Johnson? He said, “Yeah.” I said, “Jimmy is coming here?” He said, “Yeah, he’s gonna meet you in the VIP at the tables. He said he heard you are kicking ass at the tables.” And I said, “Holy shit. All right.”
So I went fishing and I come back and I still think there’s no way Jimmy’s coming. Jimmy and Rhonda were at the tables when I got back from fishing. I showered and went down and played with him. Jimmy that night won the least amount of money I’ve ever seen him win at the blackjack tables. He won about $150,000 and the disco was closed that night, but Jimmy wanted to open it up. They said, “We’re sorry, Coach, but the disco is closed.” He said, “No, the disco is open.” They open up the disco, Jimmy fronts the cost — whatever it was gonna be — and opens it up. People are filing in and having the time of their life. And he goes to bed. He leaves the next day for, I guess Palm Beach. It was a day or two later after he left the Bahamas that Jerry and him had the run-in at the owners’ meetings. At the disco was the last time I saw Jimmy Johnson as the head coach of the Dallas Cowboys. What’s crazy is at the tables, he was kind of going through personnel with me, addressing some of the things. Norv had just taken the Washington job and he says I think we’re going to lose John Gesek to Washington, but we’ll be OK. I mean the relationship had gotten so good. And I was having more fun being his quarterback and he was clearly mapping out how we were going to try to win a third (straight Super Bowl). I think deep down he felt that he was going to try to three-peat and then he was gonna move on. I think he knew that he was about tired of it. He and Jerry were at each other’s throats. But when Jerry said what he said, “Hey, any one of 500 coaches could win the Super Bowl.” I think Jimmy being as smart as he is … he realized that was the opening he needed to get paid to get out and took advantage of it.
But that was the last time I saw him as head coach.
