Tom Landry

One of our sons got this genuine official Tom Landry hat for Granpa.  He likes it so much I thought he was gonna sleep in it that night.

Tom Landry was an awesome man, and Granpa has always admired him.  He was a football player and a Pro Football Hall of Fame coach of the Dallas Cowboys.

Landry was born in Mission, Texas in 1924.  Mission is over 500 miles from Dallas, about as far south as you can go in Texas and right on the border with Mexico.  He served in World War II as a B-17 bomber pilot with the United States Army Air Corps.  He flew 30 missions out of England including one that crash landed in Belgium when they ran out of fuel.  When he returned to Texas he finished his interrupted college years.

Tom Landry was a Methodist Sunday school teacher who would not even skip out early on game day.  He would get to the field with only minutes to spare when the Cowboys played in Dallas and had a noon kickoff.  Landry was a quiet man, calm in any storm.  He was active in the FCA (Fellowship of Christian Athletes), and a friend of Reverend Billy Graham, the humble yet larger than life evangelist, who had Landry speak at many of his crusades.  Landry was even featured in a comic book in 1973 promoting Christianity.

Some people think Christians are weak and need to lean on someone or something.  I think Landry proves that there is no truth to that misconception.


Landry's first year as a pro-football player in 1949, was with - of all teams! - the New York Yankees of the All-American Football Conference. (What's a Texan doin' playin' with those Yankees?  Ah!  Texas didn't get it's first pro-football franchise until 1952.)  From 1950 to 1955 he played professional football with the New York Giants.  In 1954, he played AND was a defensive coach for the Giants.  His on-field career ended in 1955, but he stayed on as a coach for another season.  Guess who the offensive coach was at the time... Vince Lombardi.  That's pretty cool.

In 1960 he was appointed as the very first head coach the Dallas Cowboys ever had.  He was pretty good at it, too, taking the Cowboys to - are you ready?  are you sitting down?  not just 20 winning season, but 20 winning seasons in a row (1966 - 1985),  including 13 division titles, 5 NFC titles, and 18 playoff berths!  He also, through his amazing coaching, took them to multiple championship games and five Super Bowls.  He was named NFL Coach of the Year in 1966 and NFC Coach of the Year in 1972.  And you wonder why Granpa admires him...

Only George Halas and Don Shula have more career victories than Landry ( he compiled a 270-178-6 record), and nobody tops his mark of 20 playoff wins in a row.  Landry also mentored two future coaches:  Super Bowl head coaches Dan Reeves and Mike Ditka began their coaching careers on Landry's staff in Dallas.  To be a Super Bowl coach you have to be an "innovator, motivator, tactician, and teacher."  Or so says ESPN, and Landry was certainly all of those things.  Tom Landry died in February, 2000, at the age of 75.

I think all of these things are the reasons Granpa is and always will be a Dallas Cowboys fan, in remembrance of Tom Landry.  I'm certain that when Landry got to heaven the Lord said, "Well done, My good and faithful servant."  (I think He'll say the same to Granpa, too.)