On the death of Don Meredith, a football hero, national celebrity and American icon.
View full sizeFor the decade of the 1970s, no television personalities were more in the spotlight than the ABC broadcast team for Monday Night Football -- (from left) Don Meredith, Howard Cosell and Frank Gifford. Meredith died on Sunday of a brain hemorrhage at age 72.CLEVELAND, Ohio -- Turn out the lights, the party's over. Don Meredith died at the age of 72 Monday of a brain hemorrhage in Santa Fe, N.M.
Nobody else will ever take such a beating behind an expansion team's makeshift offensive line, give us so many laughs as a national telvision celebrity, and yet leave us as such an enigma.
To those of a certain age, who grew up where the Dallas Cowboys were either a religion or a way of life, he was a boyhood hero. To the entire country, he was the light-hearted, home-spun counterpart to the pompous Howard Cosell (pronounced "Hahrd" in Meredith's native Texan) on Monday Night Football.
Yet at the end of his life, Meredith rarely gave interviews or attended Cowboys reunions.
Early in his career, the nervous young quarterback, bundled in a heavy cape on the bench in inclement weather, would bum cigarettes from back-up quarterback Don Heinrich, who kept a pack in his socks. A heavy smoker, Meredith suffered from emphysema late in life. Rumors surfaced that he also had early stages of Alzheimer's Disease. Maybe that was why he shunned reunions and interviews.
There was a time when people all over America thought they knew Meredith. One day, my college friend Chip walked into the living room of his family's home in Dallas and saw Joseph Don Meredith sitting there, discussing a business deal with his father. Immediately, Chip blurted out, to a man he had never met, "Don!"
Meredith, after all, came right into our living rooms on TV. Many thought they knew him, but few did.
During the MNF years, Meredith would warble during one-sided games, "Turn out the lights, the party's over." The country-music catch-phrase became, at least in part, his life story.
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He was beloved and famous, and little boys sought his autograph after games. But he also was booed as viciously as anyone ever, becoming a focal point for the fans' frustrations as the team came so close so often with him, only to lose.
He once said on MNF when Dallas fans directed "We want Meredith" chants at the broadcast booth during a 38-0 loss, "No way you're getting me down there."
He took savage beatings early in his career, but became the wise-cracking, swashbuckling quarterback of the Cowboys' championship near-misses. By then, Meredith was "Dandy Don" -- glib, personable, charismatic, and the complete opposite of coach Tom Landry.
His teammates loved him for his impudence and unpredictability. With the Cowboys trailing, 14-0, before they had run a single play from scrimmage in their first NFL title game against Green Bay in the mid-1960s, Meredith leaned into the huddle and put every teammate at ease by drawling, "Folks, we are in a heap of [crap]."
Relaxed by Meredith's joke enough to tie the score, 14-14, by the end of the first quarter, the Cowboys nonetheless lost. In the final seconds. Meredith threw an interception at the goal-line when Dallas was on the brink of forcing overtime.
The next season, Green Bay's Bart Starr scored on a quarterback sneak in 13-below zero weather to beat Dallas in the last seconds.
History decided that Starr was a winner and Meredith a loser. Landry piled on later, saying Meredith "was so talented, he could get by without tremendous dedication." It became an unfortunate part of his image. He wasn't easy-going at all. He was too casual in his approach.
In the days of newspaper typesetters, who occasionally could garble reporters' prose, a feature story, describing him as "the irrepressible Don Meredith," landed on the front steps of Dallas homes, reading instead, "the irresponsible Don Meredith." Aghast, the reporter called Meredith to apologize personally.
"With me, they're interchangeable," he said, laughing loudly.
He was, finally, a genuine American icon, chuckling at catastrophe, irrepressible even when it seemed the end was in sight.
One day, as the team left New York on their chartered jet, the huge 747 suddenly lurched downward, bucking turbulently. Flight attendants screamed it was going to crash. Linebacker D.D. Lewis, in the next seat, grabbed Meredith's arm, fearfully.
"Aw, hell, D.D.," said Meredith, a Scotch and a smoke at hand, looking out the window at the sprawling city and its unextinguished lights below. "It's been a good one."