The profession, in his words, was "too insecure." He accepted the challenge with the Dallas Cowboys nearly four decades ago with the idea he would one day fall back on a degree in engineering to provide for his family.

	AP
	Tom Landry gets a victory ride after the Cowboys beat the Broncos, 27-10, in Super Bowl XII.

Along the way, this blueprint was altered. Landry spent 29 years as the only coach the Cowboys had ever known. He finished with 13 division titles, five trips to the Super Bowl and a legacy that will endure beyond his death.

There was more to Tom Landry than his long and fruitful association with the Cowboys. There were his days at the University of Texas and the New York Giants. A devoted Christian, Landry was active in the Fellowship of Christian Athletes. He flew 30 missions during World War II as a B-17 pilot with the Eighth Air Force. He was a caring family man who invested time in the community.

All were part of what made Landry special. But it was his career with the Cowboys that defined his public persona, carved a national identity and established him as a Texas treasure.

It was Landry who took over an expansion team and helped build it into one of the most successful and visible franchises in all of sports. He was an innovator, devising the 4-3 defense that became the NFL standard and later mutating that into the Flex. He was ahead of his time in the use of multiple sets and motion on offense.

In an era when preparation and specialization often demanded that a coach focus on one side of the ball, Landry continued to preside over offense and defense. The three Super Bowl defeats by less than a touchdown somehow made Landry seem more human. The two Super Bowl victories set him apart.

If success is measured by the number of Super Bowls won, the Landry era was not the most productive in club history. The Cowboys won three trophies in the seven years after his departure.

But just as Landry's faith served as the rock on which his success was built, his presence helped lay a foundation that would benefit his successors.

The Cowboys never belonged to Landry. The team hasn't carried his stamp for years. But even in death, Landry and the Cowboys are inseparable.

Growing pains

Landry was in charge of the New York Giants defense in the late 1950s. Head coach Jim Lee Howell called his assistant "the greatest football coach in the game today."

Bud Adams had his eye on Landry for the American Football League franchise he wanted to put in Houston. The offer was intriguing. Landry ran an insurance business in Dallas during the off-season, and this would be a way for him to move closer to home.

Before Landry could accept, a Dallas group headed by owner Clint Murchison Jr. and general manager Tex Schramm emerged. The group was bidding on an NFL expansion franchise and wanted Landry to coach. Landry signed to a personal services contract on Dec. 27, 1959, more than a month before the franchise was awarded.

The five-year deal paid him $34,000 a season.

The Cowboys started off with 36 players acquired in an expansion pool and no draft picks. Dallas failed to win a game in its inaugural season of 1960. Only a 31-31 tie with New York in the next-to-last week of the season averted the humiliation of losing every game.

"Our guys were afraid to touch the football, it was so dangerous," Landry later remembered. "Eddie LeBaron [the quarterback] used to raise his hand for a fair catch before taking the snap from the center."

The team didn't pick up its first win until the start of the '61 season. It would be five more years before the Cowboys enjoyed their first winning season.

There was tension. Landry conceded he was impatient early in his career, that he expected his players to perform at their best each time out although he knew that was unrealistic. Some of the players, meanwhile, cynically referred to their coach as Pope Landry I.

Schramm sensed that what they were trying to build could be undermined. He suggested that Murchison do something to bolster Landry's position.

On Feb. 5, 1964, Murchison held a news conference to announce he had signed Landry to a 10-year contract. It was an unprecedented show of support for a coach with a 13-38-3 record.

In later years, when Landry reflected on the start of his head coaching career, he acknowledged "it wasn't an intelligent decision" to come to Dallas to form an expansion team. But he was enticed by the challenge of building a team from scratch. He intended to tackle that chore for a few years, then go into business.

That all changed after he received the 10-year commitment from Murchison.

"I re-evaluated what my life purpose was," Landry said. "Being in God's plan, I felt like it was a calling for me to coach."

Next year's champions

The Cowboys burst onto the winning scene with a 10-3-1 record in 1966. Landry was named the NFL's Coach of the Year. It would be 20 years before the franchise would have to endure another losing season.

Still, this was a period characterized by struggle and frustration. Green Bay intercepted quarterback Don Meredith in the end zone in the final minute of the '66 NFL championship game, sealing a 34-27 victory. The Packers went on to pound Kansas City in the first Super Bowl.

Enduring a game-time temperature of 13 below zero, the Cowboys and Packers met again in the '67 NFL championship game at frozen Lambeau Field. In what came to be known as the Ice Bowl, Green Bay's Bart Starr scored on a quarterback sneak in the final seconds for a 21-17 victory. The Packers then drilled Oakland for their second Super Bowl title.

"The world doesn't stop when you lose," Landry said during those years. "You must think about the good things that happened to you. You must look ahead.

"The only way a person can really become strong is to have setbacks."

The setbacks continued. Cleveland beat Dallas, 31-20, in the Eastern Conference title game in '68. Landry held that team in higher esteem than the one that had lost to Green Bay in the previous two seasons. This represented the franchise's first step back.

Cleveland came back the next year and eliminated the Cowboys again in the first round.

Landry would later say that the '68 and '69 seasons "were the most miserable, toughest coaching years I had. When you take a good team demoralized by defeat in big games and have to turn them around, it's the toughest coaching job you can face."

Dallas advanced to the Super Bowl for the first time during the 1970 season. Still, the Cowboys couldn't win the big one. Jim O'Brien's field goal lifted Baltimore to a 16-13 victory.

Defensive tackle Bob Lilly responded by hurling his helmet 30 yards. Landry was asked if the loss hurt worse than the ones inflicted by Green Bay several years earlier.

"You don't measure disappointment," Landry said.

Glory days

The Cowboys shed their lovable losers label in the '70s and established themselves as "America's Team."

The make-over began in Super Bowl VI. The Cowboys beat Don Shula and the Miami Dolphins, 24-3. Landry, referred to as "Stoneface" by some for his unemotional demeanor, was seen smiling as players lifted him on their shoulder pads and carried him off the field. In the locker room, the Cowboys coach received a congratulatory call from President Nixon.

"I don't think I'm really conscious of my feelings yet," Landry said during the celebration. "This is certainly my biggest thrill."

The title validated Landry's status and the Cowboys' claim as one of the league's elite teams. It forever altered the perception of the franchise.

Landry would say winning that first Super Bowl relieved the criticism and pressure that had built up through the years. It also helped turn Landry and his players into celebrities.

Lilly. Roger Staubach. Tony Dorsett. Drew Pearson. Harvey Martin. Ed "Too Tall" Jones. Randy White. Lee Roy Jordan. Cliff Harris. Charlie Waters. Rayfield Wright. All saw their stars rise in the '70s.

On and off the field, the Cowboys were pure entertainment. That era produced the Dirty Dozen, the 12 rookies who made the team in 1975; the 50-yard Hail Mary from Staubach to Pearson that climaxed a 17-14 playoff victory over Minnesota later that season; troubled running back Duane Thomas, who called Landry "a plastic man, no man at all"; and the brilliant performance and bizarre behavior of linebacker Thomas "Hollywood" Henderson, whom Landry tearfully released during the '79 season.

Pittsburgh, which got the best of Dallas in Super Bowl X and XIII, went on to be known as the team of the decade. But the Cowboys picked up another title with their 27-10 victory over Denver in Super Bowl XII.

Dallas won the Super Bowl two times, six years apart, with different rosters. It was a feat no other coach had accomplished. The one constant was Landry's unflappable approach.

"Leadership is a matter of having people look at you and gain confidence, seeing how you react," Landry said. "If you're in control, they're in control . . .

"If you were to see me as a cheerleader, that would mean I was only watching, instead of thinking."

The slow decline

Dallas averaged 11.75 victories in the four full seasons after its loss to the Steelers in Super Bowl XIII. It appeared in the NFC Championship Game three times.

Yet symbolically, the Cowboys' loss to San Francisco on The Catch by Dwight Clark in the '81 NFC Championship Game signaled a decline. Three years later, Dallas finished 9-7 and failed to make the playoffs for the first time since the early '60s.

The '84 season proved to be one of Landry's most difficult. He contemplated retirement, telling the players in training camp, "I don't know how much longer I'll be coaching you guys." He wrestled with the question of whether to start Danny White or Gary Hogeboom at quarterback, and bungled the announcement of his decision at the annual kickoff luncheon by saying, "at quarterback, I think we'll go with Phil Pozderac . . . I mean, Hogebloom."

In November, with the team struggling, Landry signed a three-year extension with new owner H.R. "Bum" Bright. But some cracks had begun to appear in the facade.

The next year, local papers began to run polls asking if Landry should be fired. For the first time, Schramm asserted his control over the makeup of Landry's staff, hiring Paul Hackett as offensive coordinator.

In '86, the Cowboys fell to 7-9, their first losing season in 22 years. A death threat during a December loss to the Los Angeles Rams prompted Landry to leave the field and return wearing a protective vest.

"I'm not important enough for someone to shoot at me," Landry said after the team's 29-10 loss.

Another three-year contract was extended in '87, as Landry talked of how he relished the challenge of returning the Cowboys to their former glory. It proved to be the beginning of the end.

In November 1987, after a loss to Detroit, Schramm criticized Landry on his radio show, saying, "If the teacher doesn't teach, the student doesn't learn." One month later, after a 21-10 loss to Atlanta, Bright said he was "horrified by the play-calling. It doesn't seem like we've got anybody in charge that knows what they're doing, other than Tex."

One year later, in the midst of a 3-13 season, Landry admitted he had lost track of where the ball was late in the game, resulting in a call that led to the team's 24-23 loss to Philadelphia.

The final chapter

Landry didn't buckle from the weight of three consecutive losing seasons. If fact, it strengthened his resolve.

On Feb. 13, 1989, Landry shocked Schramm and the rest of the organization by declaring he intended to coach into the '90s and right the ship unless he was fired. He reassigned his two top assistants, Hackett and Ernie Stautner, to lesser roles and once again took charge.

"After all the seasons he's had, he deserves the chance to end his career in the manner he chooses," Schramm said. "But of course, I'll have to weigh that against what's best for the Cowboys."

Schramm never got the chance. Landry was gone before the month ended. He was the first casualty of new owner Jerry Jones, who installed Jimmy Johnson as his coach.

The date was Feb. 25. Jones and Schramm flew to Austin to inform Landry of the decision while he was playing golf. One day earlier, Jones had been photographed celebrating with Johnson at one of Landry's favorite restaurants.

Reaction was swift and supportive.

"This is like [Vince] Lombardi's death," commissioner Pete Rozelle said. "There are relatively few coaches whose careers compare with Tom. No question he's a Hall of Famer, in my opinion. He's not only been an outstanding coach but a tremendous role model for kids and our fans. He has contributed a tremendous amount to the league."

Said Staubach: "Tom Landry is the finest coach to ever coach in professional football. I think he'll be looked at as far as the history of the Cowboys and not last year's 3-13. It's just sad that he had to go out in this type of situation."

Landry said his dismissal should have been handled differently, but he insisted he wasn't bitter. When he met with his players two days later, to tell them how much he would miss them, he began to cry. The players responded with a standing ovation.

Eight minutes later, Landry walked out of the Cowboys locker room for the last time.

"Tom told us we will forget him in two weeks," cornerback Everson Walls recalled. "But that won't happen."


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