Barry Switzer Returns At The Top -- Untested Coach Believes He Can Win In The NFL

AUSTIN, Texas - Barry Switzer remembers a phone call he got from Bill Parcells in the spring of 1990. Parcells, then the head coach of the New York Giants, was debating whether to quit his job.

Switzer was more than a year into his exile from the University of Oklahoma and Parcells was curious what it was like on the outside.

"I told him I thought he was the kind of guy who had to coach," Switzer said. "I told him I don't. I told him I'm not one of those guys who takes any job, goes anywhere, just so he can coach. I never have been. I was able to walk away from it.

"I had businesses. I had an insurance agency. I had a couple of restaurants. I had a packaging company. I had physical therapy clinics in Oklahoma. I was successful in the business world. I was content and happy."

Switzer still was content and happy last March when Jerry Jones called and asked if he'd be interested in coaching the Dallas Cowboys. He had been out of the game for five years and hadn't given a lot of thought to getting back in. But when somebody offers you the opportunity to coach a team that has just won back-to-back Super Bowls, how do you say no?

"I am so fortunate, so lucky to have the chance to coach the Dallas Cowboys," Switzer said.

Success in pros?

The million-dollar question, though, is whether he is up to the job. Can a man who hasn't coached in a half-decade and whose professional resume doesn't include a single day of NFL experience keep the Cowboys on course for a third straight Super Bowl title?

Switzer thinks he can. "A good coach is successful at any level," said the man who guided the University of Oklahoma to three national championships and 12 Big Eight titles in 16 years. "And I'll be that at this level. Coaching's coaching. You've got 11 players on offense and 11 on defense. There's not many different ways you can line 'em up other than what's been done. And I know all those ways."

The man who hired Switzer also doesn't seem to have any reservations about his ability to lead the Cowboys.

"I don't have any questions about Barry," Jones said. "There is no concern on my part about him. Barry Switzer will successfully and effectively coach the Dallas Cowboys this season and in the future.

"His skills are so appropriate for this team. His ability to engage players and coaches on a personal level is a gift, and it's real. That will be a tremendous asset, one this team did not have before."

Take that, Jimmy Johnson.

Biggest skill

There is no question that the most significant skill the 55-year-old Switzer brought with him to Dallas is his ability to relate to players. It was what made him one of the best recruiters in college football during his 16 years at Oklahoma, and it is what he hopes will help him win over the Cowboys' players.

Many of them were noticeably upset last March when Johnson and Jones parted ways. And it didn't help any when Jones opted to replace Johnson with his longtime pal Switzer, who was last seen leaving the scene of a five-alarm scandal at Oklahoma in 1989 that included a gang rape, a shooting and a cocaine-trafficking quarterback.

But nearly five months later, most of the player resentment toward Switzer seems to have vanished.

"We definitely have to build that trust factor with Barry," said running back Emmitt Smith. "But I don't see that being a problem because he's like one of us. His personality is definitely going to have an effect on the team. You may see us a lot looser than we've ever been."

Switzer was not surprised by the chilly reception he got from the players when he arrived. Johnson had been an extremely popular coach who had led them to two Super Bowl titles.

"When I resigned at Oklahoma in 1989, I had players that believed in me and were very loyal to me and were upset with what had occurred," Switzer said. "And I would've been disappointed had those players who were close to Jimmy not felt the way they did. I told them it was an admirable quality and I had no problem with it. All I asked them to do was give me time."

Johnson has said the smartest thing Switzer can do this season is stay out of the way. For the most part, that's what he is doing.

He has been more of an administrator than a coach. He hasn't changed a thing with the offense or defense and has let his assistants handle most of the nuts-and-bolts coaching.

"It's been different," Smith said. "I see Barry letting his coaches be coaches. Allowing them a lot of freedom. If Jimmy saw something he didn't like, he'd step right in and start a whole new drill over."

Jones and Johnson were 50 pounds of ego in a 40-pound sack. The more success the Cowboys experienced, the more strained their relationship became. Jones is a hands-on owner who felt that Johnson got too much credit for the team's success and that he too little.

With Johnson gone, Jones has taken complete control over personnel decisions. He wants it made clear that this is his team. Switzer says he has no problem with that.

"I've always liked Jerry," said Switzer, who was an assistant at the University of Arkansas when Jones and Johnson were players there. "Through the years, I've always been able to get along with everybody I've worked for. I'm glad he's as involved as he is.

"He'll never step in the huddle or second-guess us. I've talked to people who sat in the box with him back in the 1-15 days. They said Jerry never one time ever second-guessed Jimmy or anyone on his staff or was ever critical of them."

Switzer admits he is in a no-win situation. If the Cowboys manage to win a third straight Super Bowl this season, everyone will still give most of the credit to Johnson. And if the Cowboys stumble, everyone will blame Switzer.

"He's been second-guessed a lot, and he doesn't like that," Smith said. "I don't like that, either. They second-guessed Jimmy when he first got here. Now they're praising him. I think Barry's in a similar situation."

Switzer knows there is a lot of pressure on him. But he said there also was pressure on him at Oklahoma, where the football-crazy fans once ran a sports writer out of town for merely reporting that the football program was being investigated by the NCAA.

"I always had anticipation and expectation of success at Oklahoma," Switzer said. "Every year we were expected to win the Big Eight and contend for a national championship.

"I'm used to high expectations. I'm used to the challenge. I understand this is magnified a hundred times. But it's no different as far as what it demands of the individual and the preparation in preparing to win. The expectations are the same, and hopefully, the results will be the same."

Forced to resign after five of his players were arrested in separate incidents, Switzer was portrayed as an outlaw coach who recruited thugs and let them do as they pleased. But he disputes that.

"What happened is what happened because it's a part of society," he said. "It happens every day. I didn't look at the paper today, but I'm sure some athlete somewhere, collegiate or professional, screwed up Tuesday night or the night before and was arrested.

"It's a national epidemic. The athletes we recruited, hell, if we hadn't gotten them, they would've ended up at Notre Dame, Texas or Texas A&M. I didn't recruit kids out of Joliet or Oklahoma State Penitentiary."