Boys Will Be Boys

by Jeff Pearlman

  Despite the charred upbringing, Holmes rose above. He touched neither alcohol, cigarettes, nor drugs, and after two years of junior college earned a scholarship to Carson-Newman College in Jefferson City, Tennessee. “My dad used to drink and smoke marijuana,” says Holmes. “He called me in the den one day and said, ‘You see what I’m doing? I better not ever hear of you drinking or smoking. When you’re a man making his own money you’re welcome to it. But not until then.’”

  When Holmes arrived in Dallas in 1992, he was a wide-eyed, small-town bumpkin who had never written a check or opened a bank account. Uncommonly shy and thin-skinned, Holmes was humiliated when, while waiting on line to meet President Clinton at the White House after the Super Bowl XXVII triumph, Jimmy Johnson yelled, “Clayton, get your ass in the back where it belongs!” Holmes severely injured his right knee early in the 1993 season, and free time invited trouble. Haunted by a victimized past, he sought an escape. “That’s when I started drinking and going to the strip clubs,” he says. “I was hurt, and I found that Vicodin and Tanqueray Tom Collins helped ease the pain.” Following a couple of lap dances one night at the Dallas Gentleman’s Club, a bouncer handed Holmes a box containing a plump joint. “First time I ever smoked one,” he says. “I dug it.”

  The cocaine didn’t come until 1994, when the team’s disciplinary infrastructure was nonexistent and Holmes, like Fleming, was coaxed into trying something new. He hardly resisted. Holmes felt eight thousand pounds of pressure. From the sexual abuse. From fathering a son, Dominique, at age seventeen. From his wife, Lisa, whom he wed out of guilt. From his white in-laws, who temporarily disowned their daughter for marrying a black man. From Cowboy coaches disappointed by his performance. “I was with a whole bunch of guys, and they gave me a primo,” says Holmes, referring to a blunt sprinkled with cocaine. “Two or three months later I was with some guys and I said, ‘I wanna go get me some coke!’” It was the first time Holmes had initiated the outreach toward drugs. There was no turning back. “I love sex, but I love sex on coke,” says Holmes. “So did a lot of the guys. It’s more intense. More intimate.” From that point, Holmes was hooked. He would seek out cocaine whenever a vacant block of time presented itself. He dabbled with Ecstasy as well. Parties that began on a Friday would stretch through the weekend. One night his wife, Lisa, entered a Dallas club and spotted her husband in the VIP section, lounging in a chair as a woman performed myriad sexual acts. “He was wigged out on Ecstasy, lost in the moment, just not the same person he used to be,” says Lisa, whose marriage to Clayton ended in divorce. “When he spotted me he came running, but I didn’t have any use for him. The drugs and the fame had turned him into a man I no longer knew.”

  Oddly, the Cowboy players who used drugs seemed largely unaffected come Sundays. Irvin was a five-time Pro Bowler. Leon Lett was a two-time Pro Bowler. Mark Stepnoski was the NFL’s best center (and an unabashed stoner). Mark Tuinei was as powerful as any NFL offensive lineman. Fleming says drugs never took away from his skills. Holmes, in fact, says the best practice of his life came the day after that initial joint. “I was so relaxed and free,” says Holmes. “I picked off Troy three times that day, and he was looking at me like, ‘Damn, what’s up with this dude?’ Of course, that only convinced me that I needed to smoke even more.”

  Holmes agrees drugs were prevalent in the lives of too many Cowboys. So, for that matter, was alcohol, which under Jones’s and Switzer’s new no-holds-barred approach flowed with the ferocity of Victoria Falls. If you were a Cowboy who didn’t get in at least one embarrassing brouhaha, you were either an outcast, a Troy Aikman follower, or a purveyor of the extreme straight and narrow (like Bill Bates, Jim Jeffcoat, and Chad Hennings). One of the most memorable rowdy moments of the ’94 season took place on a Friday night at Randy White’s Grill and Bar, owned by the legendary Dallas defensive lineman. With the scent of alcohol wafting from his pores, Charles Haley rode his Harley-Davidson through the front door and into the eatery’s lobby. Just days earlier Haley had thrown a world-class tantrum in the Valley Ranch training room after someone had tossed his dominoes into the garbage. That was nothing compared with an incident from the previous training camp, when Haley approached the Pathfinder belonging to rookie linebacker Anthony McClanahan, grabbed its underbelly, and single-handedly flipped the vehicle upside down. “Charles could snap at any given moment,” says Robert Jones. “You never knew when that volcano would erupt.”

  Now here he was, on a motorcycle in the middle of the lobby, revving the engine to ear-numbing decibels. Staring on in shock were Jerry Jones and Tuinei, who happened to be dining. An aghast Jones approached Randy White. “Whatever you do,” he whispered, “don’t let Charles ride that thing out of here.” White wrapped his arm around Haley and said, “Listen, don’t worry about driving home tonight. We’ll get a car, a limo—whatever it takes.” Haley shoved the restaurateur in the chest and drew back his fist. “And Randy White is the only person crazier than Charles,” says Jody Dean, the Cowboys’ entertainment coordinator and a witness to the altercation. “He just coldcocked Charles. I mean, knocked him right out. Then they loaded Charles in the car and took him home.” Dean laughs. “Typical stuff.”

  Fortunately for Dallas, the debauchery had little on-field impact. Though Irvin was correct in his assessment that the team lacked the crispness of prior years, the Cowboys’ talent overwhelmed. They followed the Detroit loss by pounding Washington 34–7 and Arizona 38–3, then outclassed the Eagles, 24–13. On October 23 the Cowboys visited the Cardinals and, under a relentless Tempe sun, defeated Arizona again, 28–21. Despite the woeful Cardinals’ 2–4 record, the game was a brutal affair that opened with linebacker Wilber Marshall flying through the air and slamming Aikman in the head. As he was carted to the sideline with the fourth concussion of his professional career, the star quarterback was asked by team doctors to recite the day, date, and year. “Sunday,” he groggily moaned.

  New backup Rodney Peete entered and saved the day, throwing for 186 yards and 2 touchdowns. But by the time the Cowboys’ plane landed in Dallas early Monday morning, the players—more battered than usual—needed a release. Several of the team’s stars, including Michael Irvin, Emmitt Smith, Kenny Gant, and Erik Williams, jumped into their vehicles and headed for a club, Iguana Mirage, where they spent a couple of hours pounding drinks and recapping the game. At approximately 3 A.M. Williams, the Pro Bowl right tackle, rose from his seat, hollered “I’m gone, fellas,” exited the front door, and climbed into his Mercedes-Benz. Though Williams had downed his fair share of alcohol, nobody was especially concerned. The Cowboys drank hard. It was how they lived.

  Minutes after Williams’s departure Gant followed, steering his car onto Interstate 635. Upon approaching the exit for the Dallas North Tollway, Gant spotted a twisted pretzel of metal and tire steaming by the guardrail. “That looks like some accident,” he thought before realizing—Oh my God!—it was Williams’s Benz. Gant skidded to a halt and ran toward the wreckage. Slumped onto the passenger’s seat, Williams was breathing softly. Blood covered his body. Gant grabbed his arm. “Man, don’t you die on me, motherfucker!” he screamed. “Don’t you die on me!” Williams weighed 324 pounds, far too heavy for the 189-pound Gant to carry from the car. “Kenny?” Williams gasped, his eyes half opened. “Kenny?” Gant began to weep.

  When the ambulance arrived, Gant removed Williams’s bloodied Rolex and jewelry and drove to Parkland Memorial Hospital. Several of the Cowboys met Gant in the waiting room, where they sat and prayed until eight o’clock Monday morning. Williams, doctors told them, would live—but his body was decimated. He’d suffered a broken rib, multiple cuts on his face, a torn ligament in his left thumb, and a sprained right knee. Known to teammates as a voracious drinker, an obsessive collector of firearms, and an unpredictably moody man, Williams was a harrowing sight as he lay listless.

  “The thing I remember most is his face,” says Derek Kennard, the offensive lineman. “The skin was torn from his hai
rline all the way down to his nose.”

  Police later determined that Williams was driving 75 mph with a blood alcohol level of .17—well above the legal limit of .10. He would return the following season, but not as the same dominant player.

  In the immediate aftermath of the accident, the Cowboys’ PR machine did its all to keep the media at bay. First, the wreck never happened. Then, it wasn’t serious. Finally, when it became clear that Williams had nearly died, the team could no longer hide the information. “They tried to keep it quiet,” says Rob Geiger, a reporter for KRLD in Dallas. “That’s how the organization operated. Very secretively.”

  After the Cowboys returned from Cincinnati the following Sunday, a reporter from the Fort Worth Star-Telegram camped out at the Iguana Mirage, curious as to whether the supposedly still-grieving players would return. They did, and the reporter—notebook hidden—sat by and kept count of the tab. “He wrote that Nate Newton had like twenty drinks, and asked why anyone would need that much booze,” says Geiger. “The next day Nate decided I was the one who wrote the story. Later on I go to the Cowboys Café, and Nate walks in with a group of guys, and he comes over and is staring at me. I’m thinking, ‘This guy can pound me.’ He came over and stood at the table and said, ‘I just got a beer…you better write that down.’”

  Geiger gulped. “OK, Nate,” he said. “I got it.”

  If anyone believed the Williams tragedy would serve as a sedative for the Cowboys, they were badly mistaken. Dallas’s players were as arrogant as ever, and after they improved to 7–1 on October 30 with a too-close-for-comfort 23–20 victory overly the lowly Bengals (poorly coached by David Shula, the former Dallas offensive coordinator), there was little doubt that a third straight Super Bowl was headed their way.

  Wherever Cowboy players went they were saluted as conquering heroes. Free food. Free drinks. Free drugs. Free sex. The Cowboys Café had taken on a living, breathing, groupie-centered life of its own. “The ego boost is amazing—and unhealthy,” says Holmes. “You start thinking you’re this holier-than-thou god who can do no wrong. It’s fun, I guess. But it leads to some really bad errors in judgment.”

  On November 7 the New York Giants came to Texas Stadium for Monday Night Football. On the final play of the first half, Aikman launched a Hail Mary into the end zone. As Alvin Harper leapt for the ball he was slammed in the chest by safety Tito Wooten. Harper crumpled to the ground with a sprained left knee. When the play ended Hubbard Alexander, the Dallas receivers coach, charged into the end zone and screamed obscenely at Giants safety Jarvis Williams, who shoved him aside. Irvin popped Williams, then removed his helmet and swung it at the Giants. As the elbowing turned to punching, a group of child musicians readying to perform at halftime scrambled away. That’s when James Washington, the Cowboys’ safety, yanked a camera and monopod from photographer David Leeson of the Dallas Morning News and pointed it, swordlike, near the heads of opposing players. “C’mon, motherfuckers!” he yelled. “Bring it the fuck on!”

  Dallas won the game (a 38–10 romp) and the brawl, but came off looking silly and out of control. Irvin was fined $12,000 by the NFL, Washington $10,000. It hardly helped that two days after the game Harper crashed Irvin’s Mercedes—the third Cowboy-related automobile accident in a month.

  From afar, Jimmy Johnson followed his old organization and refused to hold his tongue. Now working as an analyst for Fox Sports, Johnson took sadistic pleasure in watching the Cowboys unravel. Yes, they were 8–1 and the class of the NFL. But Johnson saw the lack of discipline; the defensive breakdowns; guys taking a play off here, another play off there. Mostly, he saw Switzer wearing his headphones, standing in his spot on the sidelines, giving his pregame pep talks and postgame interviews. In Johnson’s mind, Switzer coaching the Cowboys was Dan Quayle taking over the presidency. “The problem with Jimmy and Barry was that they had this old, long history of just acting crazy together when they were young coaches,” says Michael Silver, the former Sports Illustrated football writer. “After Barry came and replaced Jimmy, Jimmy got all holier than thou and acted like Barry was this lunatic and that Barry and Jerry were out of control, while Jimmy was the respectable one. And Jerry and Barry were like, ‘Jimmy, it’s us! You can’t fucking bullshit us!’ But to Jimmy, Barry became the symbol of anyone being able to coach this team. And Barry didn’t like Jimmy because he was sensing this crazy condescension that he thought was so disingenuous, given that Jimmy was as bad as he was.”

  In the shadow of the Detroit loss earlier in the season, Johnson struck the opening salvo, telling USA Today, “A couple of players have told me they better not be criticized for not focusing when their coach doesn’t focus.” By “a couple,” Johnson actually meant Aikman, who—despite Switzer’s protestations—spoke with his old coach on a near-weekly basis. The discussions fueled both men’s opinions that Switzer was ruining the Cowboys. “I inherited Jimmy’s staff, took over a team that won two Super Bowls in a row—that is not easy,” says Switzer. “For him to rip me wasn’t right.”

  From Jerry Jones’s standpoint, the lowest of blows came in the week after the Giants game, when the Cowboys were preparing for an encounter with the 7–2 49ers. Not only did Johnson continue to dump on Switzer, but he actually picked San Francisco to win. “As much as I like the Cowboys,” Johnson said, “the 49ers are at home and they’ve been thinking about this game for a long time.”

  Unfortunately for the Cowboys, Johnson was right—the 49ers were ready. Having lost the last two NFC title games to Dallas, San Francisco played with an urgency the Cowboys lacked. In the days leading up to the matchup Dallas’s players talked a good game. “We’ve beaten them three times in a row,” said Haley. “This is probably their Super Bowl. The pressure is on them…It’s time to put up or shut up.” But when the showdown arrived, Dallas played listlessly. In winning 21–14 before a record 69,014 spectators at Candlestick Park, the 49ers—to quote San Jose Mercury News writer Clark Judge—“exorcised a past that had them renting Avises for their annual drive to the Super Bowl.”

  In five years under Johnson there had been enough so-called big games that players knew dropping one wasn’t the end of the world. Dallas bounced back to win its next three contests, hightlighted by a 42–31 Thanksgiving Day triumph over Green Bay that Switzer wrapped up with one of the shortest postgame speeches in Cowboy lore. “I’ve never been any damn good,” said Switzer, “but I could always get the best damn players. Happy fuckin’ Thanksgiving!”

  “We just had so much confidence inside of us, nobody ever thought we’d lose again,” says Darren Woodson, the safety. “But if you look closely, we weren’t that good. We had a bunch of injuries, our coach was inexperienced, we lacked a little fire. It was the worst team since I’d been there. Success can do that.”

  Dallas concluded the regular season with a 12–4 record and a home playoff game against the Packers. Yet no matter what Switzer accomplished, he was damned. Had he led the team to a 16–0 mark, writers would have complained that a Johnson-coached club could have scored more points. Had he revolutionized offensive football in the NFL, writers would have said he was messing with a good thing. Having spent his first season leaving well enough alone, he was ripped for being passive and indifferent. “Barry was probably lacking when it came to discipline,” says Peete, the reserve quarterback. “But it was a can’t-win. He wasn’t coaching against other teams—he was coaching against the legend who had preceded him.”

  Switzer made his playoff debut on Sunday, January 8, 1995, and Dallas routed Green Bay, 35–9, behind Aikman (337 passing yards), Jay Novacek (11 catches, 104 yards), Alvin Harper (a magnificent 94-yard touchdown catch), and halfback Blair Thomas.

  Yes, that Blair Thomas.

  The No. 2 pick in the 1990 NFL Draft, the Penn State all-America was selected by the Jets fifteen spots before Dallas landed Emmitt Smith. The decision remains one of the most egregious in New York sports history. Thomas ran for 2,009 undistinguished yards in four years with the J
ets before being allowed to walk. When the Cowboys came calling in November 1994, they offered $10,125 per game and a chance to carry Smith’s dirty laundry. “Bottom line,” says Thomas, “was that I needed work.”

  He was added strictly as a backup, but Thomas seized the opportunity late in the first quarter of the Green Bay contest when Smith went down with a hamstring injury. Despite his delusions of grandeur (“If I had been given the same opportunities Emmitt had, I’d be in the Hall of Fame right now”), Thomas was no Emmitt. Yet against the Packers, he carried 23 times for a solid 70 yards and a touchdown as Smith cheered from the sidelines. “My career didn’t turn out like I’d expected,” says Thomas. “But I’ll always have that afternoon.”

  With the victory, the Cowboys would travel to San Francisco on January 15, 1995, and face the 49ers for the third straight NFC Championship Game. Having posted a 13–3 regular season mark, San Francisco was a well-deserved 7-point favorite. Not only had it stolen linebacker Ken Norton, Jr., from the Cowboys, but its new starting cornerback was Deion Sanders, the one man capable of eliminating Irvin or Harper from a game plan. Most important, the 49ers were led by quarterback Steve Young, who at age thirty-three was the league MVP, with 3,969 passing yards and 35 touchdowns.