Boys Will Be Boys by Jeff Pearlman Read Free Book Online Page B

top-flight coach. But with mounting attention came trouble. While Johnson blamed his program’s negative reputation to a media unwilling to credit inner-city black kids (for the record, Johnson graduated 75 percent of his players), the Hurricanes did tolerate a fair share of lawlessness. In the course of one season one player was arrested and charged with possession of cocaine and a handgun; another was arrested and charged with possession of steroids; Brown accidentally left a handgun in a shopping cart; defensive endDaniel Stubbs was charged with a misdemeanor offense after he was caught siphoning gas from a nearby car; Highsmith accepted money from an agent; and rapper Luther “Luke” Campbell of 2 Live Crew allegedly paid players for good performances.
    “Not really true,” Campbell now says. “The football team had a lot of bad things going on around campus at the time—shooting guns, breaking into dorms. So I became something of a mentor. Kept the kids out of strip clubs and shit like that.”
    Wrote Sports Illustrated ’s Rick Reilly: “Miami may be the only squad in America that has its team picture taken from the front and from the side.”
    Come season’s end, the lone team standing between an undefeated season and the top-ranked Hurricanes was No. 2 Penn State. The two legendary programs would meet in the Fiesta Bowl in Arizona for the national championship. For the media, this was perfect. Penn State was professional, Miami thuggish. Penn State was Joe Paterno, the grandfatherly head coach who had just been named Sports Illustrated ’s Sportsman of the Year. Miami was Johnson, advanced professor of hooliganism. Penn State won with dignity, Miami with lawlessness. In the lead-up to the game, the Fiesta Bowl hosted a steak fry for the two schools. With three thousand fans in attendance, Penn State’s players arrived in suits and ties, while Miami’s representatives were decked out in black sweat suits and, following a swift wardrobe change, army fatigues. Both teams were asked to perform a comedy sketch. Penn State went first, and all was fine until Nittany Lion punter John Bruno, Jr., cracked, “We even let the black guys eat with us at the training table once a week.” When Bruno followed up by mocking Johnson’s famously helmet-shaped hair, Miami’s players had had enough. “We didn’t sit down with the Japanese the night before Pearl Harbor,” Brown announced, “and we’re not going to get up here and act like a bunch of monkeys to entertain you people.” With that, Brown and his teammates walked out.
    Because the majority of media representatives didn’t arrive in Tempe until the following afternoon, reports of the steak fry omittedvital details. Included in most stories were the fatigues and the “classless” walkout. Excluded were the racist joke and the overtly hostile reactions to Miami’s players from the 99.9 percent white attendees. Once again, Johnson was pegged as the leader of a band of disrespectful anarchists. When Penn State shocked Miami 14–10, a nation smiled. Miami had received what it deserved.
    Johnson coached two more years at Miami, leading the school to the 1987 national championship. Yet there was always that image. Johnson clashed with the school’s president; recruited players with cocky demeanors and seedy backgrounds; turned a university that had worked hard to enhance its academic reputation into a place that seemed to invite bad apples.
    When Jones came calling with an offer to leap to the NFL in 1989, Johnson was ready. “I like guys willing to walk the line,” says Jones. “I brought Jimmy to Dallas because he’s been through tough situations and he handled them better than anyone else could. He was the right man for a hard job.”

Chapter 4
THE ASTHMA FIELD
    I’m not saying we were naïve to the NFL. But I didn’t know what division we played in.
    —Dave Campo, Cowboys secondary coach
    H E WAS A free-agent kicker.
    That’s the first thing