There is no one who consistently epitomized winning in Dallas pro sports more than Tom Landry.
On Aug. 3, 1990, the Pro Football Hall of Fame inducted the first-ever coach in Dallas Cowboys history and in his first year of eligibility. After 29 seasons coaching the Cowboys, new owner Jerry Jones fired the two-time Super Bowl winning coach.
With Landry's career summarily over, Hall of Fame voters had no problem giving the coach an up-vote on the first ballot.
Landry was part of a seven-man class that included Buck Buchanan, Bob Griese, Franco Harris, Ted Hendricks, Jack Lambert, and Bob St. Clair. Even though it was a Pittsburgh Steelers type of year with Harris and Lambert going in, there was a strong showing of former Cowboys and fans of America's Team in Canton, Ohio.
Bob Lilly, class of '80, and Roger Staubach, class of '85, gave the induction speech. Former Cowboys in the audience included Bob Breunig, Ed Jones, Robert Newhouse, Drew Pearson, and Jethro Pugh.
"I never thought much about how to be remembered," Landry said via Tim Cowlishaw of the Dallas Morning News. "I think the greatest reward for a coach is when players who have gone through your system and who maybe didn't agree with you all the time come back after they're out of football and tell you, 'Yeah, I understand what you were talking about.' Those are the special moments."
For Cowboys fans, they got to see a generation of special moments. After finishing 0-11-1 in the expansion team's inaugural season of 1960, the Cowboys turned in a 7-7 record in 1965.
The next year, the Cowboys finished 10-3-1 and hosted the Green Bay Packers in the NFL Championship Game. Though Dallas fell 34-27 in the Cotton Bowl, Landry proved his Flex 4-3 wasn't a fad and the Cowboys' success wasn't a fluke. 1966 was the first of 20 consecutive winning seasons, a feat that has never been duplicated in NFL history since.
Unlike the Minnesota Vikings, who started a year after the Cowboys and similarly rose to contention by the end of the decade, Dallas transformed into a near-instant dynasty under Landry.
By the start of the 1978 season, the Cowboys were tied with the Packers and Miami Dolphins for the second-most Super Bowl wins with two. Only the Steelers had more, and certainly no NFC team had more than Dallas.
While the NFC Championship trophy is named for George Halas, it can be argued it ought to be named for Landry. By 1989, Landry had led the Cowboys to 10 NFC Championship Game appearances, winning five of them. George Seifert, Joe Gibbs, and Andy Reid are each tied for the second-most appearances with five, and Gibbs has the second-most wins with four.
Landry's 418 regular-season games coached is the third-most in league history. Only George Halas with 497 and Don Shula with 490 have more. Landry's 250 wins are still the fourth-most in NFL history.
Though Bill Belichick has 273 for third all-time, Reid is the only active coach who could surpass Landry with 207.
The best example of how much Landry poured into preparing the Cowboys for success can be found in the club's 17 consecutive Opening Day wins from 1965-81.
Landry had all offseason to prepare for the Week 1 opponent once the schedule was announced, and the Cowboys always came out sharp and ready for perfection. Just as they had done in the 1970s in two of Landry's three Super Bowl losses, it was the Steelers who broke the streak on Monday Night Football in 1982 at Texas Stadium.
The head coaches employed by the Cowboys since Landry have not stayed anywhere near as long as Landry did in Dallas.
The average tenure for a coach in the Jones era has been a little under four seasons, kind of like a presidential term. Even though the Cowboys are on their ninth coach in franchise history in Mike McCarthy, the impact of Landry is still felt to this day. There is a reason the bronze statue of "man in the funny hat" was moved from Texas Stadium to AT&T Stadium in 2009.
Landry was very wounded after Jones fired him in 1989 and replaced him with Jimmy Johnson.
"I didn't realize that I would become, when I came into town, Darth Vader for making the change from Coach Landry to Jimmy," Jones told 105.3 "The Fan" on Dec. 5, 2017.
It took years, and Staubach playing the role of peacemaker and diplomat, to bridge the gulf between Landry and Jones. Though he was a Hall-of-Famer, the rift was gone when Landry finally accepted Jones' invitation to be inducted into the Ring of Honor on Nov. 7, 1993, amid a 31-9 beat down of the New York Giants, the team where Landry got his first assistant coaching gig.
With Johnson's induction, though delayed by COVID-19, the Cowboys will have two coaches in the Hall of Fame. Even though Johnson matched Landry's Super Bowl wins for the franchise, when one thinks of the Cowboys coaching job, they won't be thinking of Johnson.
They'll always be thinking of Coach Landry.
Is Tom Landry still the best coach in DFW sports history? Share your thoughts and Landry memories with Mark Lane on Twitter @therealmarklane.
