There will never be another Landry
By Mike Littwin, Scripps Howard News service
s-t.com
Tom Landry played the role of Tom Landry as well anyone could have played it.
He was the perfect Tom Landry.
The obituary writers used the word "stoic" to describe Landry, and, though he was stoic, the word was as insufficient as if they had used "tall" to describe Wilt Chamberlain.
Everyone trotted out the famous Walt Garrison quote. You've heard it by now. Asked if he ever saw Landry smile, Garrison said no. "But," Garrison added with a wry smile -- and, you see, you had to use the wry smile when you talked about Landry's non-smile -- "I was only there for nine years."
Some people will flesh out Landry for you. And some will try to make him more human. He was human. I'm sure he hugged his grandchildren. These people will tell you of his faith. But it isn't the real Landry, the little-known Landry, the human Landry, that has intrigued us all this time.
It's the Landry as archetype that will endure for as long as there's pro football. It's the Landry as archetype that we cannot forget.
It is the Landry, arms folded, wearing the famous hat. It is the Landry possessed of the angular jaw who never showed emotion in all the famous wins and losses, who said that emotion just didn't have any place in the decision-making process.
Landry was the perfect foil for Don Meredith and for Pete Gent. He was the perfect not-quite-fictional coach for "North Dallas Forty." And if they called him cold and unfeeling – and they did – it was partly the time and the place when that could even be an issue. Now, we'd say, what else would a football coach be?
He was the perfect coach for what would be America's Team. The Cowboys became that team because Tex Schramm, who ran the Cowboys as president, was as innovative off the field – remember, the Cowboys even had America's cheerleaders – as Landry was on the field. But it was more than that. And it was more than even the wins and losses.
It was what Landry, for better and for worse, brought to the mix.
The Cowboys were the football version of the turmoil that had marked the country. They had the characters – from Meredith to Duane Thomas to straight-arrow Roger Staubach – and they had Landry to make the contrast work. Landry was the World War II fighter pilot who stood, for many Americans, as the quiet-man coach who stood above all the turmoil to produce champions.
He was as important, as a symbol and as a coach, as the sainted Vince Lombardi. They can't be separated. Somebody, someday, will write the Landry book that rivals David Maraniss' book on Lombardi, "When Pride Still Mattered."
Landry and Lombardi seemed destined to play these twin roles. They were even assistant coaches together on the New York Giants. It was Lombardi who symbolized the American obsession with winning and who, of course, beat Landry in the years when it was said Landry couldn't win the big one.
It was Landry, though – who seemed so coldly efficient – who put the corporate touch to that obsession and took it with him right into America's boardrooms as well as its living rooms. That's the NFL we know today.
He was a football coach who won two Super Bowls, who had 20 consecutive winning seasons, whose teams played in some of the most memorable games in NFL history.
And yet, as great as his achievements were, he transcended the game. Some coaches are just coaches. Don Shula, who won more games, was just, in the end, a coach. You can talk about Landry's flex defense and other innovations, but they aren't what we'll remember.
When Jerry Jones bought the Cowboys and fired Tom Landry, it was as if he had fired an era. It was as if Jones, the flashy owner who wanted nothing more than to be his own coach, had said Landry's achievements were for nothing.
It was Landry, for once betraying his true feelings, who said, "You've taken my team away from me."
The Cowboys were his team. They were, of course, from the very beginning. The Cowboys will always be his team.
In later years, he said he wasn't bitter about his sad ending, coming after a 3-13 season when they said the game had passed him by. He seemed to recover. He even would do those American Express commercials, suggesting he wasn't quite as dignified as the ever-present coat and tie made it seem.
The later Cowboys, who had their successes, who won their own Super Bowls, didn't seem much like Landry's Cowboys, though.
He belonged to a different era, but it isn't enough to say that. In many ways, he helped define that era.
And how many football coaches can you say that about?
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