WOO-HOO!

When Jerry Jones bought the Dallas Cowboys all those years ago and as his first act fired the legendary Tom Landry, it was a shock to the system for true blue Cowboy fans like me. Having grown up in the Tex Schramm/Landry/Roger Staubach era, the Cowboys were like no other team around. They had some class, some dignity and they had been winners year in and year out for nearly two decades. They had only had one coach, and he had built them into a perennial powerhouse, America's Team. They were a good team and a class act, the gold standard of pro sports.

Years passed. The Cowboys won a string of Super Bowls, and put the glint back on that star on their helmets. Landry got inducted into the Hall of Fame, and the Texas Stadium Ring of Honor, and class acts like Troy Aikman and Emmitt Smith led the team on the field. That team kicked tail like no other Cowboy team ever had. All that winning made us accept Jimmy Johnson, but to be honest we never have warmed up to the snake oil salesman who owns the team. Jones was at best tolerated, and at worst openly loathed, by the team's most ardent fans.

Then things fell apart, and Johnson left, or rather Johnson left and then things fell apart. Jones put his spin on things, and Johnson his, and then Jones had to go out and hire the one coach universally despised across the entire state of Texas--Barry Switzer. Switzer had been the coach of the Oklahoma Sooners, and it's hard to put that into perspective for non-Texans. I'll put it like this--when the University of Texas Longhorns and the Sooners meet in their annual Texas-OU shootout, you can't play the games in either team's home stadium because of the riots that are virtually guaranteed to ensue afterward. It's the bitterest of bitter rivalries. You have to find a neutral location, so they always play in the Cotton Bowl. In Dallas. Where an entire state, led by the host city, gathers to boo and jeer the team from north of the Red River. It ain't pretty. To bring down the coach of that team to coach our favorite team was an abomination. And Switzer had been a particularly loathesome Sooner coach for some reason, so that made things even worse.

Well, his tenure was thankfully brief, and there followed after him a couple of coaches who'll be quickly forgotten though nicer and better men than Switzer they were. The team has suffered its worst string of seasons since the early 60s, and the fan base that remains has begun to curse the day that Jones bought the team. Three Super Bowl rings or not, his insistence on running the team personally, or letting his snot-nosed kid run it, has driven the team into the dirt and scared away any coach with serious credentials from even thinking about taking the reins.

Until now. History records things too literally, and according to it the Cowboys have had five head coaches. That's wrong, though. They have had two real coaches, in Tom Landry and Jimmy Johnson. Bill Parcells will now be the team's third true head coach. Jerry Jones has finally seen the light apparently, as Parcells would not accept the job without guarantees that he would get a great deal of control over the team's personnel matters. Jones blundered in talking with Parcells with two games to go in the season, but has made good on the mistake by landing his quarry. The Tuna is coming to Big D.

Parcells likely won't last long with Jones--the two are control freaks with gigantic egos and gigantic mouths, and they'll annoy each before long. But both want to win, and Jones' deep pockets combined with Parcells' big brain will make that happen. Parcells will probably last long enough to make the Cowboys a winner again, and that will be good enough.

Now if we could just get Jones to sell the team, we'd really be in business.