Boys Will Be Boys (14 page)

“During Darren’s senior year of college he’d line up for two games at defensive end, then the next week he’d be out in space on man coverage, then he’d be an inside linebacker,” says Jeff Smith, a Dallas scout. “He was a marvelous athlete—a physical freak of nature—whom a lot of teams probably didn’t know what to do with. But we believed he was worth a shot.”

Smith and Jones would start immediately, and within three years Woodson—a product of the Phoenix projects who was raised by a single mother working two jobs—would emerge as the best safety in the NFL.

The Cowboys were loaded.

And Johnson was miserable.

Not just miserable. Tyrannical. Not one veteran could recall a more vicious Jimmy Johnson than the one who stalked the sidelines in Austin during training camp. For Irvin, whose relations with the coach dated back to Miami, the behavior was predictable. Johnson was often his most laid-back and nurturing when he knew he had a team that wasn’t up to snuff. At Oklahoma State, for example, many recall Johnson the teacher and my-door-is-always-open communicator.

But the 1992 Cowboys were built to win, and Johnson felt the pressure of meeting his own high expectations. His philosophy was simple:
I beat the crap out of you, I humiliate you, I dehumanize you—and you turn into a cold, hard gridiron machine.
“That was Jimmy in a nutshell,” says Maurice Crum, a free-agent linebacker who had played for Johnson at Miami. “When I was a freshman in college I’d had a root canal, and I was hurting pretty bad. I asked Jimmy if I could sit out a practice—I mean, I could barely talk. He said, ‘Well, do you wanna play for this team?’ I said, ‘Yes.’ So he says, ‘See you at practice.’”

In the summer of ’92, Johnson screamed at every mishap, error, and (oddly) good play that rubbed him wrongly. During a team meeting he hollered “Harold Heath!” and demanded the rookie tight end from Jackson State report to the front of the room. “He cut me right there,” says Heath. “In front of everybody. It was just wrong.”

Johnson made it clear to his players that some (Aikman, Emmitt Smith, Irvin) would be treated with greater dignity than others—and if you didn’t like it, you could find another line of work. A glaring example of this fanaticism came during the second week of August, when Kevin Smith, the first-round pick, snuck out of his dorm room after curfew and didn’t return until 7 the following morning. Accompanying Smith was a rookie free-agent cornerback named Michael James. When Johnson learned of the misadventure, he called the two into his office. “I know I can’t cut you,” he said, pointing toward Smith. Then he turned to James. “But you,” he growled, “better play your ass off this weekend, because you might not be here Monday morning.” That
Saturday James was the Cowboys’ best defensive back in a 34–23 loss to the Houston Oilers. He was active. He was aggressive. He was fast.

He was cut two days later.

“Jimmy liked to fuck with your head,” says Stepnoski. “He wanted the mental edge.”

Ever since arriving in Dallas as a third-round pick out of Pittsburgh in 1989, Stepnoski had felt unloved by his coach. The feelings were on point—Johnson didn’t like Stepnoski’s long hair and casual demeanor and it’s-all-a-load-of-garbage approach to gridiron discipline. “I’m a nonconformist when it comes to football,” Stepnoski says. “I believe in hard work, but I don’t like being treated like a child. That’s what happens in a football setting—you’re treated like a five-year-old.” In their first three years together, Johnson and Stepnoski were like Arafat and Netanyahu. Stepnoski refused to move to Dallas for offseason conditioning; Johnson refused to pay him well-earned fitness bonuses. During the ’91 preseason, Stepnoski suffered a severe bruise in his right calf and had to miss several days of practice. Johnson responded by accusing Stepnoski in front of the entire team of faking the injury, then making him
walk
a 100-yard sprint—“just to fucking embarrass me,” the center says. For the entire year, the head coach and starting center failed to exchange a single pleasant word to one another.

Stepnoski had hoped to return in 1992 with a fresh start, but when Jerry Jones refused to meet his contract demands he held out and missed the entire preseason. Johnson coolly greeted his center upon his eventual return and did not activate him for the first two games. Other veterans—notably James Washington, Tony Tolbert, Michael Irvin, and Jay Novacek—had also held out, but none faced such hostility. “He insisted on punishing me for the audacity of challenging his authority,” says Stepnoski. “It was typical bullshit.”

Despite Stepnoski’s feelings, the Cowboys were primed for big things. Not only did the ’92 edition look to be significantly more talented than past editions, but there was also a camaraderie that had not existed before. In late June a whopping eighty-eight players attended
the team’s
optional
quarterback school—a showing unprecedented in the history of the franchise. The cohesion carried over into training camp. In contrast to past years, dozens of players would remain at the practice facility long after workouts had ended to study films over pizza and Gatorade, then hit the Austin nightlife for beers, shots, long legs, big breasts, and lap dances galore at Sugar’s Uptown Cabaret or the Yellow Rose or another of the city’s better strip clubs. With the Cowboys often drawing 15,000 to 20,000 fans for workouts, they didn’t have to do much to receive special treatment. Sure, thirty-something veterans like Jim Jeffcoat and Bill Bates avoided the party scene. But for the young, cocky, on-the-verge Cowboys, Texas was theirs for the taking.

H
ERE ARE TWO
things you should know about the 1992 Dallas Cowboys:

• A.
  Nearly everybody had a nickname.
  
• B.
  They weren’t especially flattering.
  

Emmitt Smith was “Bushwick” because of his (apparent) physical resemblance to Bushwick Bill, the 3-foot, 8-inch Geto Boys rapper who had recently shot himself while drunk. (He lived.)

Offensive lineman Kevin Gogan was “Red Bone,” a colloquial term for a light-skinned black woman. “He was a white dude who loved those sisters,” says cornerback Kenny Gant. “He had a cute little white girlfriend, but it didn’t matter to him.” Wide receiver Alvin Harper was “Freaky Harp” because of the freaky women he’d do freaky things with in freaky places at freaky times. Defensive lineman Tony Casillas was “Pretty Tony” because of his belly-button ring and girlish mannerisms. Safety James Washington was “Drive-By” because of his street upbring
ing and thuggish disposition. Offensive lineman Nate Newton was “The Kitchen” because of his 340-plus-pound girth and mounds upon mounds of Jell-O-firm fat. Wide receiver Tyrone Williams was “Big Bird” because of his gawky 6-foot, 4-inch frame.

“We all were called something,” says Kevin “Pup” Smith. “If you were a Cowboy you had a nickname.”

Some had two.

Cornerback Larry Brown was initially dubbed “Bone Brown” because of his high cheekbones but, says one teammate, “it was actually meant to be a joke, because on the field Larry was soft like a pussy, not hard like a bone.” Soon enough Brown’s moniker was changed to “Phyllis Diller” because of the facial similarities between the African-American football player and the wrinkly, unfunny white comedienne.

Rookie cornerback Clayton Holmes was first anointed “Chip Head” by veteran defensive back Ike Holt, who thought the dent in Holmes’s high-top fade (hey, it was the ’90s) looked like a chip. When that lost steam, Holmes was anointed “Half Man, Half Horse.”

“Clayton walked with his ass sticking way out,” laughs Gant. “Sorta like a horse, sorta like a man.” He pauses. “Really more like a horse.”

Of all the nicknames, the most original was bequeathed upon Ken Norton, Jr., the fifth-year linebacker out of UCLA. Best known as the son of the former world heavyweight champion, Norton was fast, strong, engaging—and possessor of a Jay Leno–esque chin. Just how elastic was Norton’s mandible? During one game he was preparing to rush the quarterback when Charles Haley screamed from the sideline, “Kenny, back the fuck up! Your chin is offsides!” The laughter could be heard from Texas Stadium’s highest seats. Teammates took one glance at Norton and came up with every imaginable insult (“Big Chin,” “Face Boner,” etc.) before tagging him “Mac Tonight” after the McDonald’s commercial featuring a long-chinned moon crooning “It’s Mac Tonight.”

The Cowboys were funny. Personable. Engaging. Tight-knit. Though players had initially bonded in their antagonism toward Johnson’s devilish workouts, a brotherhood had evolved. Many still laugh at
the time Mark Tuinei, the Pro Bowl offensive lineman, used tweezers to remove the slip of paper from a coach’s fortune cookie and inserted one reading, CONFUCIUS SAY YOU WILL BE BALD, FAT, AND UGLY. With a roster chock-full of wannabe models, there were unofficial fashion shows after every game. Players would stroll through the locker room in their purple and green and orange suits and elicit cheers or catcalls from the peanut gallery. “Yo, Barney,” someone would yell when Irvin dared break out the purple Armani, “go back to Happy Land!” In surviving the 1–15 debacle together, many of the Cowboys knew an unusual sort of kinship. Anything could be said. Absolutely anything. “Hey,” Washington would bellow to any teammate within earshot, “how’s your wife and my kids?”

Now, with golden days on the horizon, the cohesion was immeasurable. Players would report to Valley Ranch and find their lockers outfitted with bottles of wine or backpacks or leather jackets or digital cameras—courtesy of “Mr. Jones.” Free cars for the season were available to any player in need. Gift certificates floated from the sky. Those who wanted to play golf after practice could walk into a supply closet and grab anything from spikes to visors to khaki shorts. “Dallas was all about class and treating players like royalty,” says Kenny Gant. “You were a king.” As a result, in a sport ruled by pain and turmoil, Dallas players were downright giddy. “If you were black or white, offense or defense, a partyer or a family guy, you were one of us,” says Newton. “There was no division in that locker room. We were one.”

Veteran Cowboys took special pleasure in torturing first-year players. The hazing began during training camp, when rookies were forced to take the veterans out for a $250-per-head dinner at Papadeaux’s Restaurant. (In anticipation of the feast, players would chant, “Run those hos to the Papadeaux’s!”) Holmes still gets chills when he thinks about the time he was sitting on a toilet in the locker room when—
WHOOSH!
—the Great Flood arrived. “A huge bucket of ice water comes raining down upon my head,” says Holmes. “Boy, was I pissed. But what could I do? I was a rookie.”

That was nothing compared to the day Kevin Smith forgot to pick
up the defensive players’ sandwiches for Wednesday morning practice. As soon as the workout ended, Newton, Jim Jeffcoat, and a handful of others bum-rushed the unsuspecting rookie, stripped off his entire uniform (save for his helmet and jockstrap), carried him to a practice field, and used rolls upon rolls of ankle tape to affix him to the goalpost. Newton turned to Holmes and his fellow plebes and barked, “If any of you remove even one piece of fucking tape from his fucking body, you’ll get yours!” For the next hour, Smith wiggled and tugged, yanked and pivoted, until he finally escaped. “It was cold as hell out there,” says Holmes. “Pup came back into the locker room and half the hair on his body was torn off by that tape.”

To officially become a Cowboy, a player had to run at least once with Michael Irvin, who was equal parts big brother, party host, and torture administrator. Though he missed the preseason in a contract holdout, Irvin deemed it his duty to welcome new players into the fold, be they first-round draft picks or unknown rookie free agents. At bars, all drinks were on The Playmaker. At strip clubs, Irvin would unroll a wad of one-and five-dollar bills and dish them out like cookies on a Camp Kiwi field trip. To the Cowboys who longed to live on the wild side, Irvin was a model ringmaster. First, he paid for everything. Secondly, he stayed out late without condemnation from Johnson, who was familiar with the cravings of his star wideout.

Most important, Irvin was a Hall of Fame hoochie magnet. “I was Mike’s right-hand man when it came to picking up the women,” says Anthony Montoya, a team employee who ran errands for Irvin and several other players. “We’d have a practice and then we’d go straight to the titty bar—the limo driver, Michael, and myself. Mike would pick out who he wanted and then tell me what time to come back and pick him up. Happened hundreds of times.” Though he was “happily” (in his words) married to Sandy, a former cosmetologist and Miami Dolphins cheerleader whom he had met on a McDonald’s line while at the University of Miami, Irvin never thought twice about slipping off the ol’ wedding band and hitting the clubs. It was who he was; what he did. “There was a lot of I, I, I, me, me, me,” Sandy said. “Because he
was The Man. Just because of how easy it came—the women, the drugs—it was available wherever they turned.”

Irvin took great pleasure in removing his clothes, standing before a mirror, and saying “How can I allow only one woman to have a body this good?” or parading nude before rookies and lecturing, “This is the body you will aspire to have. This is the body you will aspire to achieve. You will not achieve it, but this is what you will strive to achieve.” Boasting a Magic Johnson smile and the uncanny ability to make anyone feel important, Irvin bedded all whom he coveted. “Man, Mike was something,” says one Cowboy teammate. “He was incredibly cocky. Before a game he’d have the people from Versace enter the locker room and measure him for a suit. He wanted to pick a feather from some exotic animal and put it in his derby hat. He wanted crocodile shoes with the tongue raised. Mostly, it was the women. Mike literally had a swarm of women at his beck and call in every NFL city. And I’m not talking about eights or nines. These girls were twelves.”

For younger Cowboys like Gant, Holmes, Harper, and Erik Williams, Irvin was a god. He would take them out, buy them dinner, point to a girl at the bar, and say, “I’m gonna give her to you.” Moments later Irvin would be whispering in her ear, one hand cupping his mouth, the other placed gently on her thigh. He’d eventually nod toward an awaiting teammate and—
BAM!
—game over. “Mike got more Cowboys laid than touchdown catches,” says one reporter who covered the team. “It was his present to teammates.”

“Truthfully, I never drank in high school or college, never even cursed in high school or college,” says Gant, who was raised in tiny Lakeland, Florida. “So when I got to Dallas and met guys like Mike it was ‘
Whoooooooooosh!
’ Women? Drinking? Parties? Everything for free? I’ll take it all!”

Irvin would load young teammates up on shots and mixed drinks until they were throwing up in an alley. They’d report to practice the next morning with bloodshot eyes, dizzy minds, and a greenish tint to their skin. “What the fuck!” Irvin would yell so all could hear. “Pussy can’t handle a little water?”

Amazingly, even players like Troy Aikman and Jay Novacek, white country-and-western lovers with all the sparkle of Tulsa parking meters, considered Irvin an exemplary teammate. For one thing, he might have stayed out until 4
A.M.,
but come 8:30, Irvin was in the weight room, outlifting half the offensive line. “His drive and determination was second to none,” says Tim Daniel, a Dallas receiver. “Sometimes you see somebody and say, ‘That guy’s super-fast’ or ‘That guy’s super-strong,’ and it explains everything. But Mike wasn’t super-fast, and his strength came from working out. He was just the one who wanted it worse than anyone else in the league.”

These were the Cowboys of ’92—loose but intense, wild but dedicated, unproven but convinced the Vince Lombardi Trophy was theirs for the taking.

That confidence soared on Thursday, September 3, when—just four days before the Monday night opener against the Redskins—Irvin agreed to a two-year, $2.75 million contract to rejoin the Cowboys. When Stepnoski signed shortly thereafter, the Cowboys were whole again. But were they as good as advertised? One week earlier
Sports Illustrated
picked Dallas to win the Super Bowl. When Johnson saw the magazine, he neither smiled nor frowned. What had
SI
said that he didn’t already believe? Damn right the Cowboys would win the Super Bowl.

Despite reigning as defending Super Bowl champions, Washington came to Dallas in less-than-jovial spirits. They were furious that the NFL’s story du jour was not the possibility of a Redskin repeat, but rather the up-and-coming Cowboys. Having been burned repeatedly in his last matchup against Irvin, cornerback Darrell Green summed up his teammates’ agitations, guaranteeing that “somebody is going to pay.”

The Redskins paid dearly.

Six hours before game time, Emmitt Smith snuck into an empty Cowboys locker room, opened up his duffel bag, and placed $7,500 Rolexes in the locker of every offensive lineman. On the back of the jewelry was an inscription: THANKS FOR THE 1,563 RUSHING
YARDS: NFL RUSHING TITLE. EMMITT SMITH. “Talk about a way to start the season,” says Alan Veingrad, an offensive tackle. “I won’t speak for the other guys, but I was pumped.”

On Washington’s opening offensive play, nine Cowboys stormed Redskin quarterback Mark Rypien, who pedaled backward before falling beneath the weight of linebacker Vinson Smith. Of the two thousand or so plays that take place in a typical NFL season, 98 percent are immediately forgotten. This one wasn’t. With a singular rampage through Washington’s vaunted offensive line, Johnson had issued an unambiguous statement to the rest of the league:
Fear us—we’re coming.

As Vinson Smith rose from atop Rypien’s battered body, a new sound overtook Texas Stadium. During Landry’s best days, the place could get loud. But there was always a certain respect-thy-neighbor restraint. This was different. These Cowboy fans—now loyal to the Jones-Johnson way—were wild boars in search of prey. Their roars were of the throaty, blood-in-the-esophagus ilk.

The game was never close. On the second play, Redskins running back Earnest Byner was thrown for a 3-yard loss. On third down, Charles Haley charged past tackle Jim Lachey and forced Rypien into a rushed incompletion. On fourth down, Ike Holt blocked Kelly Goodburn’s punt for a safety.

The ensuing noise was deafening—a fleet of Amtraks meets
Frampton Comes Alive!
With Emmitt Smith rushing for 140 yards and Irvin catching 5 passes for 89 yards, the Cowboys rolled to a 23–10 triumph. Here was a landmark win for the new-era Cowboys, proof that they could stare down the antagonists from Washington and not flinch. As the season progressed, players would look back at this game as a turning point. No longer would the Cowboys be bullied. “I just remember Jimmy having this fire in his eyes,” says Clayton Holmes, the rookie defensive back. “He looked at me and I knew, ‘Whoa. We’re not losing.’”

Though he ended the game with a modest 216 passing yards, Aikman had officially arrived. With a ferocious Washington defensive
line blitzing frequently, Dallas’s quarterback hung in the pocket until the last possible second while firing one pinpoint bullet after another. Having long boasted one of the league’s most powerful cannons, Aikman was now armed with something even more vital than physical gifts—his coach’s confidence. By season’s end he would rank near the top on the league’s leaderboards with 3,445 passing yards and 23 touchdowns.

“Troy,” said a giddy Johnson, “is coming of age.”

While the city of Dallas celebrated one of the biggest wins of the post–Landry Era, the two men who had facilitated the turnaround were beginning to drift apart.