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through. I believe that…through all of this…that we’ll all learn.But what…makes me sad is…that I…had a lot…of plans for…next season, and my…dreams have…been dashed. I love…you all, and…”
    Landry paused. He dabbed his moist eyes with a sleeve, took a deep breath, wiped away more tears. The assembled Cowboys were shocked. “He kept trying to talk, basically about handing the command over to Jimmy, and he tried to talk a little more, and he cracked a little more,” says Garry Cobb, the linebacker. “Then he just started crying. And crying. He never finished the speech. He collapsed on the floor and the other coaches came and tried to console him. And he was done. Everyone filed out.”
    For some players, Landry’s departure was a gleeful case of what-goes-around-comes-around. A handful of Cowboys even celebrated with drinks at a nearby pub. How many athletes had Landry cut during his years leading the Cowboys? Now he was getting his. “Tom probably fired ten thousand football players without ceremony,” says Crawford Ker, the longtime Cowboys offensive lineman. “Every dog has his day.”
    For most, however, Landry’s demise proved heart-wrenching. Here was a decent man who embodied a life of rectitude. “He wanted you to be a great football player,” says Jeff Rohrer, a Cowboys linebacker from 1982 to 1989. “But he really wanted you to be a great person.
    “The way they did him at the end, it just wasn’t right. You don’t treat a legend that way. Jerry Jones and Jimmy Johnson had a lot to prove. Not to me and not to the players, but to all of Dallas.”

Chapter 3
THE RIGHT MAN
    Jimmy didn’t know any of the damn plays, but you could break your arm and that dude would make you believe it didn’t hurt.
    —Kevin Gogan, Cowboys offensive guard
    W HEN JOURNALISTS FIRST learned that Jerry Jones would be hiring Jimmy Johnson to coach the Dallas Cowboys, they all but attacked their keyboards in an effort to paint the portrait of a pair of lifelong best friends triumphantly taking the reins of America’s Team.
    The story line was irresistible—teammates and roommates at the University of Arkansas who had learned at the knee of legendary coach Frank Broyles and were now, nearly thirty years later, making good. Jones was the studious financial whiz who would go on to earn millions, Johnson the gridiron guru destined to pace the sidelines of the nation’s elite football powerhouses. Wrote William Oscar Johnson in Sports Illustrated: “The Jones-Johnson friendship is a heartwarming thing, to be sure, going back a quarter of a century to their college days. They used to lie in bed at night talking about how much they wanted football always to be a part of their lives.”
    Indeed, Jones and Johnson were friendly at Arkansas, and—based on the alphabetical proximity of their surnames—roomed together on road trips. They may well have even discussed their futures once ortwice. But the stereotypes were, at best, far-fetched. Boasting a 149 IQ and a degree in industrial psychology, Johnson stood out as Jones’s intellectual superior. He was the forward thinker. The deeper thinker. The one who would likely go on to a successful career as an industrial psychologist. As for the kinship, Johnson found Jones to be an arrogant braggadocio. Jones considered Johnson aloof and dismissive. “We haven’t done half a dozen things socially since we’ve known each other,” Johnson once said. There was “like” between the two. Just not strong like.
    Well schooled in Jones’s Madonna-esque need for attention, Johnson—drawn by the prospect of an NFL dream job—went along for the ride. He’d drink beers with Jones, pose shoulder to shoulder, hug and laugh and guffaw. He would put up with Jones’s antics because this was the Dallas Cowboys.
    To Jones’s credit, he was bringing in the ideal man to deal with the scrutiny of replacing a legend. Born on August 14, 1943, Johnson was raised in the Texas