CANTON, Ohio – Strolling through the halls of the Pro Football Hall of Fame, where all of the NFL’s stories are forever stored, will make you think back, recall some of the old days, the more obscure stories that you either witnessed or told.
Here’s my recollection of a couple, with former Cowboys head coach Jimmy Johnson and Ring of Honor greats Drew Pearson and Cliff Harris, who are finally entrenched in the Pro Football Hall of Game this weekend, where their stories have a rightful resting place Find.
There are so many memorable moments I remember reporting on each of Jimmy’s 88 games with the Dallas Cowboys, including those two Super Bowl wins when he went to the ranch at one of his Tuesday press conferences, when if he would be mad at a question but he really wanted to send his players a message that he was madly mad before the first practice of the week on Wednesday. Or how he and Cowboys owner Jerry Jones, together with the coaching staff, celebrated their 1991 playoff win against Philadelphia in the 15th game of the season on the charter flight back to Dallas. Or when I introduced him to family members in a hotel elevator the day before a 1989 pre-season game in San Diego, when I introduced him to my wife and 11-year-old daughter, he said, “Boy, your daddy’s sure tough on me.”
But this one is an all-timer. The year was 1991. The Cowboys were a surprising 6-4 in a Sunday game against the Giants at Giants Stadium after losing five consecutive seasons, two of them in Johnson’s first two seasons as Cowboys head coach. The Cowboys would lose their second straight three-game road trip game 22-9 and Jimmy was hot – hot to lose and hot to reigning, his team now a precarious 6-5.
So in the post-game interview room, Jimmy diverted attention from the loss and went straight to the reigning NFL crew. He felt like the cowboys were being jobbed in the game, specifically two calls, a hold call to linebacker Dixon Edwards when Giants QB Jeff Hostetler ran out of pocket who set up a Giants touchdown, and then an Emmitt Smith fumble when the replay was shown on the screen he had never caught the passport.
This is what we got when Johnson was asked about some of the calls:
“There’s no way I can live with four or five of the worst calls I’ve seen in my life.”
Next, Jimmy was put on one of the big lines in his coaching career when asked if this was the worst official game he had ever seen.
“The worst since I was 4 years old and my dad said, ‘That’s what you call a football'”
We’ve heard, seen, or seen in person Drew Pearson’s playoff game winner, 50-yard touchdown catch in the 17:14 victory over the Vikings in 1975 that became the famous “Hail Mary” en route to Super Bowl X. inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame and the Cowboys.
But here are two offshoots of that catch that told me about Drew many years later. First, what he did after scoring the touchdown at Metropolitan Stadium 24 seconds before the game, mainly because the night before the game he had a dream of catching the winning touchdown and then kicking the ball into the stands, a move that came with a $ 150 fine.
“But I said, damn it, it’s on national TV, in the playoffs, I’m throwing this ball,” he says.
So he did, the former high school and Tulsa University quarterback, who heaved the ball into what he thought was the celebrating grandstand.
“But it turned out that there weren’t any stands there,” he said of the spot where he threw the ball. “It was a scoreboard and the parking lot (outside the stadium). So the ball landed in the parking lot. Then I was bullied afterwards.”
The ball will never be found again.
“Nobody ever said they had the ball,” claims Drew.
Obviously, someone does it without knowing what the actual ball from the infamous Hail Mary play would be worth then and especially now.
Then this one. Drew likes to tell the story when years later he was doing business in Minnesota, flew to Minneapolis, called a cab, and the cab driver looked at him and said, “Are you Drew Pearson?”
And Drew says, “Yes sir.”
The taxi driver shoots back: “I’m not taking you anywhere, take the next taxi.”
“I was finally taken three taxis later.”
Ah, fan-bitterness at its best.
He must have spent a few hours interviewing Cliff Harris for a brief documentary about his career a few years ago, first at his home in the Dallas area and then in Arkadelphia, Ark., At Ouachita Baptist University, in the press room by Cliff Harris Stadium, built in 2014 and named after one of the school’s greatest athletes. Coincidence or not the same season, the Tigers go 10-0 during the regular season.
Oh the stories, and for memories to last, in a walk-in closet with shelves in his house, Cliff has folders from each of the 10 seasons he played with the Cowboys and every folder with the fixtures for each game that year, including the notes that he would scribble during the meetings. Amazing.
Just like his stories, especially this one.
The Cowboys (11-2) were scheduled to play Washington (9-4) on December 12, 1976, the last game of the regular season. The cowboys had packed the NFC East. Washington had to win its last four games of the season and finish with one over the Cowboys to qualify as the NFC wildcard playoff team.
Two nights before the game, quarterback Billy Kilmer is stopped by police in Alexandria, Virginia and charged with drinking under the influence of driving. The timing was pretty bad and Kilmer got grief.
So Cliff tells the story of how early in the game he walks up to the line of scrimmage, shows lightning, got Kilmer to cut his cadence, and points out that “Billy is a great quarterback” before continuing the story .
“He looks at me and says, ‘Come on, Cliff, everyone’s on me because I’m being stopped, can you give me a break,'” recalls Cliff.
Startled, Harris says he’s losing focus, and next Kilmer resumes his snap count, the ball caught instantly, catching the cowboys completely off guard. “I mean, he talked to me,” says Harris.
The then Redskins would win the game 27:14 at Texas Stadium to qualify for the playoffs in George Allen’s next penultimate season as head coach.
Yes, if only the trenches could speak.
Which reminds me of what John Madden said during his Hall of Fame speech in 2006.
“Here’s the deal: I think over in the Hall of Fame that people go through during the day, they look at everything. At night there is a time when they all leave. All fans and all visitors leave the Hall of Fame. Then there are only the workers. Then the workers start to leave. It depends that there is only one person left. That person turns off the light, locks the door.
“I think the busts are talking to each other. I can’t wait for this conversation, I really can’t. Vince Lombardi … Reggie (White), Walter Payton, all of my ex-players. We’ll be there.” forever and ever and always talk about whatever. I believe in that. I think this will happen and no one will ever talk me out of it. “
And now these three cowboys can speak. Perhaps you are even telling a few of those stories right here that you are now privy to.
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