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From 1966 to 1982, a span of 17 years, Dallas played in 12 NFL or NFC Championship games. Furthermore, the Cowboys appeared in 10 NFC Championship games in the 13-year span from 1970 to 1982. Leading the Cowboys to three Super Bowl appearances in four years between 1975 and 1978, and five in nine years between 1970 and 1978, along with being on television more than any other NFL team, resulted in the Cowboys receiving the label of "America's Team", a title Landry did not appreciate because he felt it would bring on extra motivation from the rest of the league to compete with the Cowboys. He was inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 1990 as a head coach.
Landry attended the University of Texas at Austin as an industrial engineering major. Landry had given thought to enrolling at Mississippi State University, where his friend John Tripson was an All-American, but did not want to be far away from his friends and family in Texas. The main driving force in keeping him from enrolling at Mississippi State University was the notion that it would be too long a travel for his parents to see him play college football.[5]
He interrupted his education after a semester to serve in the United States Army Air Corps during World War II. Landry was inspired to join the armed forces in honor of his brother Robert Landry, who had enlisted in the Army Air Corps after the attack on Pearl Harbor. While ferrying a B-17 over to England, Robert Landry's plane had gone down over the North Atlantic, close to Iceland. Several weeks passed before the Army was able to officially declare Robert Landry dead.[5] Landry began his basic training at Sheppard Field near Wichita Falls, Texas (now Sheppard AFB), and his preflight training at Kelly Field (now Kelly Field), located near San Antonio, Texas. Landry's first experience as a bomber was a tough one. A few minutes after takeoff, Landry noticed that the pilot seemed to be working furiously, causing him to realize that the plane's engine had died. Despite this experience, Landry was committed to flying. At the age of 19, Landry was transferred to Sioux City, Iowa, where he trained as a copilot for flying a B-17. In 1944, Landry got his orders, and from Sioux City he went to Liverpool, England, where he was assigned to the Eighth Air Force, 493rd Squadron in Ipswich.[5] Landry earned his wings and a commission as a Second Lieutenant at Lubbock Army Air Field, and was assigned to the 493d Bombardment Group at RAF Debach, England, as a B-17 Flying Fortress bomber copilot in the 860th Bombardment Squadron. From November 1944 to April 1945, he completed a combat tour of 30 missions, and survived a crash landing in Belgium after his bomber ran out of fuel.[6]
He returned to his studies at the University of Texas in the fall of 1946.[6] On the football team, he played fullback and defensive back on the Texas Longhorns' bowl game winners on New Year's Day of 1948 and 1949. At UT, he was a member of the Texas Cowboys and Delta Kappa Epsilon fraternity (Omega Chi chapter). He received his bachelor's degree from UT in 1949. In 1952, he earned a master's degree in industrial engineering from the University of Houston.[7]
Landry was selected in the 19th round (128th overall) of the 1948 AAFC Draft. He played one season in the All-America Football Conference for the New York Yankees, then moved in 1950 across town to the New York Giants.
Landry did not always search inside the traditional college football pipeline for talent. For example, he recruited several soccer players from Latin America, such as Efren Herrera and Rafael Septin, to compete for the job of placekicker for the Cowboys. Landry looked to the world of track and field for speedy skill-position players. For example, Bob Hayes, once considered the fastest man in the world, was drafted by and played wide receiver for the Cowboys under Landry.[14]
Landry signed a three-year contract in the summer of 1987. However, general manager Tex Schramm brought in Paul Hackett as a new offensive coach in 1986, and in 1987, he hired offensive line coach Jim Erkenbeck and special-teams coach Mike Solari. Some[who?] suggested that Schramm's moves divided the coaching staff, a plan to first undermine and then dismiss Landry. Bright, who usually stayed behind the scenes, publicly criticized Landry after a home loss to the Atlanta Falcons in 1987, saying that he was "horrified" at the play-calling and complaining, "It doesn't seem like we've got anybody in charge who knows what he's doing, other than Tex."[16] Bright's belief that former first-round draft picks Danny Noonan and Herschel Walker were not being used enough further put him at odds with the coaching staff.[17] On the day after the Cowboys lost to the Detroit Lions, a team that had entered the game tied for the worst record in the NFL, Schramm said on his radio show, "There's an old saying, 'If the teacher doesn't teach, the student doesn't learn.'"[16] Nonetheless, Bright maintained his hands-off approach on the team while Schramm retained his confidence in Landry.[16]
Jones received immediate backlash for his decision to fire Landry, while the former coach received an outpouring of public support.[20][21][22] Despite Landry's recent poor performance, Cowboys fans felt disillusioned that the only coach in the team's history had been removed so unceremoniously.[20] NFL commissioner Pete Rozelle compared the firing to the death of former Green Bay Packers coach Vince Lombardi.[18] President George H.W. Bush, who had previously represented Texas in the House of Representatives, called Landry "an inspiration to all who ever watched or played the game of football."[22]
Jones stated he never considered retaining Landry and that he would not have purchased the team unless he could hire Johnson as coach.[18] In 1990, Bright said that he regretted the backlash that Jones had faced for firing Landry. Bright recounted that he had been willing to fire Landry himself as early as 1987, but that Schramm had told him that there was no suitable replacement who was ready to assume the job.[19] By 1993, relations between Jones and Landry had improved, and Landry was inducted into the Ring of Honor at Texas Stadium.[23]
Landry married Alicia Wiggs on January 28, 1949. They had a son and two daughters.[31] He was a Christian.[32] On January 22, 2021, the Dallas Cowboys announced that Alicia had died the previous day at the age of 91.[33]
Landry died on February 12, 2000, after battling leukemia. Landry's funeral service was held at Highland Park United Methodist Church, where he was an active and committed member for 43 years. He was interred in the Sparkman-Hillcrest Memorial Park Cemetery in Dallas. A cenotaph dedicated to Landry, complete with a depiction of his fedora, was placed in the official Texas State Cemetery in Austin at the family's request.[35]
The Cowboys wore a patch on their uniforms during the 2000 season depicting Landry's trademark fedora. A bronze statue of Landry stood outside of Texas Stadium, and now stands in front of AT&T Stadium since the Cowboys relocated in 2009. The section of Interstate 30 between Dallas and Fort Worth was named the Tom Landry Highway by the Texas Legislature in 2001. The football stadium in Landry's hometown of Mission, Texas, was named Tom Landry Stadium to honor one of the city's most famous former residents.[36] Similarly, Trinity Christian Academy's stadium in Addison, Texas, is named Tom Landry Stadium in honor of Landry's extensive involvement and support of the school.[37][38] An elementary school in the Carrollton-Farmers Branch Independent School district, very near the Cowboys former training facility in Valley Ranch, is also named in honor of Landry.[39] The Tom Landry Welcome Center at Dallas Baptist University, where he was a frequent chapel speaker and award recipient, was posthumously dedicated to him in 2002.[40]
Hello. My name is Chris Kluwe, and for eight years I was the punter for the Minnesota Vikings. In May 2013, the Vikings released me from the team. At the time, quite a few people asked me if I thought it was because of my recent activism for same-sex marriage rights, and I was very careful in how I answered the question. My answer, verbatim, was always, "I honestly don't know, because I'm not in those meetings with the coaches and administrative people."
Allow myself to tell you a story about ... myself. The following is a record of what happened to me during my 2012 season with the Minnesota Vikings, written down immediately after the 2013 draft in April, when I realized what was happening, and revised recently only for clarity. I tried to keep things as objective as possible, and anything you see in quotes are words that I directly recall being said to me.
Today, April 30, 2013, I am writing an account of events that transpired during my time with the Minnesota Vikings during the 2012 NFL season and leading into the 2013 season (so I don't forget them in case it is necessary to recall what happened).
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