A year to the day after selling the Dallas Cowboys, H.R. "Bum" Bright said his one lingering regret is that he didn't fire Tom Landry himself.
New owner Jerry Jones installed longtime friend Jimmy Johnson as the Cowboys coach and continues to suffer a public relations problem because of how Landry, the only head coach the team had ever had, was let go.Jones has gotten a bad rap over Landry's release, Bright said, adding that he tried to talk General Manager Tex Schramm into firing Landry in 1987, but Schramm refused, saying he didn't have a replacement ready.
"If I had known there would have been this much heat over Tom, I'd have taken it myself," Bright told The Dallas Morning News.
"I know that Jerry doesn't deserve all this stuff. It wouldn't have been as hard for me as it has been for Jerry, because he was the one continuing. I just didn't realize."
Schramm had realized for some time, Bright said, that the Cowboys were "in trouble, skidding downhill fast."
Bright called Schramm "a born promoter" who was responsible for making the Cowboys the No. 1 team in the NFL.
"But one thing he's not is a hard-nosed businessman. Something needed to be done. A new direction was needed on the coaching staff from Tom on down. But despite the fact he appears gruff at times, Tex is a sentimentalist. He didn't have the stomach to do what needed to be done."
Bright also adamantly challenged the public perception that Jones dealt with Landry in a cold-hearted manner.
"For two days before the press conference (when the new ownership and coaching regime was announced), Jerry insisted there would be no deal until he personally talked to Tom."
The day before the deal was finalized, Schramm joined Bright and Jones at Bright's offices, and Schramm called Landry to inform him that Jones was bringing in his own head coach, Bright said.
Jones wanted to meet with Landry personally that afternoon, and when the meetings broke up late and Landry was already gone from the Cowboys practice facilities, "we decided we would get together with Tom first thing the next morning," Bright said.
After several hours of trying to locate Landry on Saturday morning, they discovered Landry and his wife had gone to Austin for the weekend, Bright said. With several loose ends still to tie up, Bright said he urged Jones to send only Schramm to Austin.
"Jerry would absolutely have none of it. He kept telling me, `I have to face him. I can't do this until I face him personally.' He was going to Austin, and nobody was stopping him."