Wednesday, February 25, 2009

Finding Jimmy Johnson in Miami 20-years ago

by George Riba

I was at Spring Training for the Texas Rangers in Port Charlotte, Florida 20 years ago when the news broke that Jerry Jones had bought the Dallas Cowboys. Photographer Arnold Payne and I drove across Alligator Alley to Miami that morning to see what we could learn about Jimmy Johnson, the coach.

We arrived there, trying to figure out if Johnson was still in town when he suddenly popped out of the Miami Hurricanes football offices. He was as shocked to see us climbing out of our cars as we were to see him heading our way. He immediately went into sprint mode to get to his car.

By the time we got our gear out, we were able to get a great shot of him hauling buns out of the parking lot in his car. The next time we laid eyes on him again, he was having dinner with Jones at Mia's on Lemmon Avenue in Dallas, the night before he was introduced as the man who would replace Tom Landry.

Timing is everything and, for us, our timing was about 60 seconds off that day.