Dandy I never saw him play, obviously. I was too young to enjoy his Monday Night Football broadcasting.
In fact, my connections to Meredith are with my father and "King of the Hill."
I never saw Meredith play, but my father did and growing up he was always a big default player for my father. He rooted for the Minnesota Vikings, but you knew he loved Meredith. He was essentially a good ol' boy. And based on everything that is said about the guy, he was actually a good old boy. A good guy. Someone laid back, who played everything cool. Never got too high or too low.
He wanted to win and he was good.
My second reference point was the animated FOX show, "King of the Hill." In one episode, Hank Hill, the main protagonist, is picked to throw a football through a hole in a giant beer can at halftime of a Cowboys game in New Orleans for a large amount of money. Hill had a choice. He could take the throw or he could allow Don Meredith to take the throw.
Hill is perturbed at the game -- after spending hours practicing -- when he opts for Meredith to take the throw and Meredith doesn't even take off his jacket when he misses.
Funny thing, I was just thinking the other day that within the next 10 or 15 years, a bunch of legends closer to my purview are going to start dying. Guys like Roger Staubach, Thomas Henderson or Drew Pearson.
It's macabre as hell, but it's the truth. I have no other connections to those guys than I do Meredith. They all played before my time but I've seen enough film and been in Dallas long enough to feel the influence those guys had on this town and its sports.
Sure enough, I hear yesterday morning that Meredith passed away and it kind of made me sad. Sad to know that I'll be 40 or 50 and I'll hear about Scott Fletcher -- one of my boyhood baseball idols, believe it or not -- struggling with his health. Or maybe I won't. Maybe Fletcher's or Geno Petralli's death makes a small note in the local daily. Still, I once thought I was invincible and I thought my sports heroes were invincible.
This is probably a sad day for all those old-time Cowboys' fans.
Meredith's life -- and death -- should mean a little bit more to all of us in the Metroplex. Meredith was born in Mt. Vernon and grew up in East Texas. He went to SMU, where he passed for 1,200 yards in his senior season -- a number Kyle Padron probably eclipsed in three or four games in 2010.
He was drafted by the Chicago Bears, but he was traded to the Dallas Cowboys. If you read enough about sports in the middle of the century through the 1970s, you come to realize that there was a significance of playing for the hometown team. Meaning, if you lived in Indiana, you probably went to an Indiana college and played for an Indiana team.
Meredith living in Texas, playing for SMU and then winding up on the Cowboys was par for the course. They sought you out in order to drum up attention and interest in their team. In 1970, no way the Houston Texans pass up on Vince Young.
Anyway, the Cowboys were an expansion team in 1960 with the NFL, who was just now getting competition with Lamar Hunt and the AFL.
Dallas had already had one NFL team -- the Texans, broken up in 1952 and turned into the Baltimore Colts. That same year, the AFL's Dallas Texans (owned by Hunt) took the field.
The Cowboys needed Meredith to draw fans. Unfortunately, it was 1960, and the days of throwing your vaunted rookie quarterback into the starting line-up had not come yet. Rookies typically stood on the sideline for years. Nonetheless, seats needed asses. Meredith played, splitting time with Eddie LeBaron.
Judging on his stats, his contemporaries and all, Meredith was pretty good, but never great. He wound up in the top 10 in almost all passing categories, but, then again, there were just 14 teams in 1962.
The Cowboys were 0-11-1 in 1960. By Meredith's fourth full season as quarterback, he'd lead them to a 7-7 record. The next three seasons, Meredith would lead the Cowboys to the first three playoff appearances with an overall record of 31-10-1. The Cowboys lost in the Conference Championship in 1966 and 1967 to the Green Bay Packers (which included The Ice Bowl). The next year, they'd lose to the Cleveland Browns in the divisional round.
Meredith won one playoff game. Matches Tony Romo.
But Meredith started it. The franchise. The playoff appearances. The 10-12 wins a year. The two Super Bowls.
The next season -- 1969 -- Meredith retired and thus began the Craig Morton and Roger Staubach era.
From "King of the Hill":
DON MEREDITH: "Damned if I didn't want to come through for you, Hank. I'm sorry I let you down. But you'll be a lot happier if you let this one go."
HANK: "I'll never have a chance like this again."
DON MEREDITH: "No, you won't. You know, there's something I wanted as much as you wanted that million dollars."
HANK: "Don, you have everything! You were a Cowboy. During the Landry years."
DON MEREDITH: "I wanted to go to the Super Bowl. Came close, but it never happened. It never will. And that's okay. I've never looked back."
HANK: "It is an honor just to be on the field with you, Dandy Don."
