Other book reviews:
Swagger: Super Bowls, Brass Balls, and Football – A Memoir
Jimmy Johnson and Dave Hyde
Copyright 2022
Scribner
A few highlights from Coach Johnson’s story:
- A problem that Johnson shared with Bill Belichik, drafting players who would not be good enough to make their roster. This led to the technique shared by both coaches of trading down and into next year when new talent would be needed.
- In 1970, while he was a defensive line coach at Oklahoma, Johnson takes credit for developing the philosophy of “speed beats size” strategy where you move safeties to linebacker and linebackers to linemen to create mismatches.
- 1984 was Jimmy’s first season as the Miami Hurricane’s head coach and he was on the losing end of Doug Flutie’s “Hail Mary” pass that won him the Heisman.
- In the 1987 Fiesta Bowl, Johnson attributes Vinny Testaverde’s poor play to being in a scooter accident that caused him to miss a game and several practices. Further, after winning the Heisman, he missed additional practices because of obligations that came with winning.
- Johnson had five characteristics when looking for talent. Ranked by importance they were: intelligence, works hard, playmaker, gym rat/loves to compete, and character.
- Johnson, along with Mike McCoy, created the “Draft Value Chart” to calculate the relative value of draft picks to weigh trade options.
- On his Super Bowl winning teams, Johnson’s Offensive Coordinator was Norv Turner and Defensive Coordinator was Dave Wannstedt.
- Johnson’s famous line, “How ‘bout them Cowboys!” was shouted in the locker room after they beat San Francisco in the 1993 NFC Championship Game.
- Johnson’s assessment of what led to the demise of his relationship with Jerry Jones was his statement, “I want to have some of that fun.”
A quote for college football fans:
Even our long regular-season loss in three years to Notre Dame came with such a swirl of rivalry and controversy it spawned an ESPN 30 for 30 documentary called Catholics vs. Convicts.
I got a kick out of that phrase. I also got a kick out of the holier-than-thou school of Touchdown Jesus allowing students to depict us as convicts on T-shirts sold for weeks out of campus dorms. Is hypocrisy worse than dancing in the end zone?
It all added to the fun on some level. It told of the heights we reached that people didn’t attack our talent or methods anymore. They attacked us. Another Notre Dame T-shirt depicted me as “Pork-faced Satan,” evidently because calling me plain ol’ “Satan” wasn’t strong enough.What were we guilty of?
Of winning too much? And gloating all the way?
A quote for Ohio State fans:
In my first summer in Miami, veteran Keith Byars took a pay cut to help get our salary cap situation under control. He wasn’t happy. Then, as we rose to 3 – 0 in beating the New York Jets, 36 – 27, he was the starting tight end and threw a tantrum because his streak of catching a pass in 130 consecutive games ended. I never knew such a streak existed. I was just thinking of winning. Byars was so unhappy, I cut him a couple of weeks later. Then he signed with New England.
Now here we were going to New England for a playoff game. We had just played them the week before, too, and something was obvious.
“They have our audibles,” I told Gary Stevens. “We’ve got to do something about it.”
New England knew [our audibles] thanks to Byars, as we suspected, and they admitted it after the game.
My Review:
The opening salvo of Jimmy Johnson’s memoir is tantalizing, “They [Belichick, et. al.] come [to his personal residence] for ideas formed over four decades that were mixed with hard work and perseverance that built champions in Miami and Dallas. These visitors don’t fly into Miami, drive through the Everglades, and visit the Keys just to see me. The come to hear what I learned.”
Wow. Tell me what you’ve learned.
Football coaches, successful ones at least, have a philosophy that guides how they live and coach. They also have a system that structures how they operate each facet of their program. The insights into a coach’s philosophy, beliefs and operational system that others crave to know.
This is what everyone wants to learn from Jimmy’s memoir.
Unfortunately, Dave Hyde is not able to extract these insights, at any new ones, in such a way that reveals why Jimmy was so good at what he did. There is an occasional principle buried in an anecdote, but nothing that would cause you to drive to Keys to hear more. There is one chapter on the “Pygmalion Effect” and another on his principles of finding talent, which are mostly perfunctory and certainly not why billionaire Tom Benson is paying a visit.
One gets the sense that author Dave Hyde is trying to capture the mercurial coaching career of a man who succeeded in following three coaching legends – Howard Schnellenberger (University of Miami), Tom Landry (Dallas Cowboys), and Don Shula (Miami Dolphins) – between the coach’s Heinekens and fishing trips.
When your light burns as bright as Jimmy’s it’s going to impact relationships, either positively or negatively. Four relationships that were severely damaged, two of which appear to be beyond repair, were his first wife Linda Kay, Jerry Jones and his two sons. More patience was needed with these delicate topics that ultimately defined Jimmy as much as his wins.
Jimmy’s journey finds comparison to another burnt out coach, Urban Meyer.
“We [Johnson and Meyer] discussed balancing football and family, a subject we both struggled over with our addictive football DNA. I failed with that struggle at time. It contributed to some dark times.”
After winning back-to-back Super Bowls, he says of himself, “Fabricating some new goal wouldn’t solve the essential problem: I didn’t like who I’d become. I wasn’t happy even on the day I should be the happiest.
Part of it was that playing the role of dictator coach had rubbed me raw. I know knew what winning two Super Bowls required. I would have to wear that dark mask even more the following season.”
About the Author (from the cover)
Dave Hyde is an award-winning sports columnist for the South Florida Sentinel and is the author of 1968: The Year That Saved Ohio State Football.
