Tag Archives: Vince Lombardi

Sports news

Cowboys find a winner to replace Garrett

First, I’ll declare this: I didn’t always hate the Dallas Cowboys.

Those of us of a certain age remember when the then-upstart Cowboys sought to knock off the Vince Lombardi-coached Green Bay Packers while fighting for the NFL championship. The Ice Bowl of 1967? I remember it well. My home boy Mel Renfro, the Hall of Fame Cowboys safety, suffered frostbite in that classic contest at Lambeau Field in Green Bay.

So, then the Cowboys started to win and got too big for their britches.

But they had that history with the Packers … which brings me to my point. The Cowboys have hired a good guy to coach them in the wake of the demise of the Jason Garrett era. Mike McCarthy has won a Super Bowl — which coaching the Packers.

Do I want them to win it all? Am I now going to cheer myself hoarse rooting for the Cowboys? Hah! Not even!

I just want to declare that the Cowboys owner/general manager Jerry Jones has made a good hire.

Now the owner ought to take the next step. He ought to just sit up there in the owner’s box during the games and not get involved in football matters. He should hire a real GM, someone with actual football knowledge and let the GM deal with the nuts and bolts of whether Coach McCarthy is doing a credible job calling plays.

The rest of the scenario isn’t likely to occur, given the owner’s monumental ego, but I believe he has made a good call in hiring Mike McCarthy.

Sports news

‘Act like you’ve done it before’

I must be in a fuddy-duddy mood today. I’ve already posted something that suggests that awards ceremonies aren’t the place for political speeches.

Now this: I am not a fan of those elaborate touchdown celebrations we see when National Football League players score points for their team. The picture above is of a Seattle Seahawks player doing some kind of dance in the end zone after scoring a touchdown.

Accordingly, I am glad college football has decided to prohibit that kind of show-boating; players who prance and preen after scoring a touchdown draw penalties levied against their teams.

The NFL ought to ponder a similar rule, although I doubt it will. Pro football fans think it’s entertaining and that players have some kind of “right” to express their sheer joy at scoring a touchdown. I do admit to liking the Lambeau Leap, where Green Bay Packers jump into the stands to get some “love” from their adoring fans.

However, I still prefer the Earl Campbell, Walter Payton, Bo Jackson, Jim Brown approach to scoring TDs: Cross the goal line, flip the ball to the nearest official and then run back to the sidelines and get the pats on the rear end from your teammates.

It might have been the late great coach Vince Lombardi who said it. Whoever it was, he gave some good advice: When you score a touchdown, act like you’ve done it before.