Tom Landy

Landry built the 4-3 defense around me. It revolutionized defense and opened the door for all the variations of zones and man-to-man coverage, which are used in conjunction with it today. —Sam Huff

Born in Mission, Texas, to Ray (an auto mechanic and volunteer fireman) and Ruth (Coffman) Landry, Tom was the second of four children (Robert, Tom, Ruthie, and Jack). Landry's father had suffered from rheumatism, and relocated to the warmer climate of Texas from Illinois. Ray Landry was an athlete, making his mark locally as a pitcher and football player. Tom played quarterback and punter for Mission High School, where he led his team to a 12–0 record in his senior season. The Mission High School football stadium is named Tom Landry Stadium and is home to the Mission Eagles and Mission Patriots which also bears the Pro Football Hall of Fame logo.

Landry died on February 12, 2000, after battling leukemia. Landry's funeral service was held at Highland Park United Methodist Church, where he was an active and committed member for 43 years. He was interred in the Sparkman-Hillcrest Memorial Park Cemetery in Dallas. A cenotaph dedicated to Landry, complete with a depiction of his fedora, was placed in the official Texas State Cemetery in Austin at the family's request.

By 1993, however, relations between Jones and Landry had improved, and Landry was inducted into the "Ring of Honor" at Texas Stadium.

Landry's last work in professional football was as a "limited partner" of the San Antonio Riders of the World League in 1992.

Soon after the season, Bright put the Cowboys up for sale. Bright had suffered major losses in his banking, real estate, and oil businesses in the last three years; during the savings and loan crisis, Bright's Savings and Loan was taken over by the FSLIC. With most of the rest of his fortune tied up in the Cowboys, Bright was forced to put the Cowboys on the market. It has been argued that in a more solid economic climate, Bright possibly could have held on and Landry may have remained as coach. However, in 1990, Bright said he wanted to fire Landry himself as early as 1987, but Schramm told him that there was not a replacement ready to take over yet. Bright ultimately sold the team to Jerry Jones. One day after Jones closed on the purchase, he fired Landry. Jones hired Jimmy Johnson, his former teammate at the University of Arkansas, who had been serving as coach of University of Miami football team. Schramm was in tears at the press conference which announced the coaching change, and he was forced out as general manager shortly afterwards; Schramm and Landry had been together for 29 years since the Cowboys' inception in 1960. When Landry met with his players two days later to tell them how much he would miss them, he began to cry, and the players responded with a standing ovation.

Landry's Cowboys finished the 1988 season 3-13, which earned the no. 1 pick in the draft with the worst record in the NFL, taking his personal record to 270-178-6. It was the fourth time in five years that they missed the playoffs, as well as their third consecutive losing season. Nonetheless, in February 1989, before the start of the 1989 season, Landry remained determined to coach into the 1990s "unless I get fired", as he dismissed or reassigned his assistants. Landry had one year left on his contract which paid $1 million a season.

Landry had signed a three-year contract in the summer of 1987. However, general manager Tex Schramm brought in Paul Hackett as the new offensive coach in 1986, and in 1987, he hired offensive line coach Jim Erkenbeck and special-teams coach Mike Solari. Some suggested that Schramm's moves divided the coaching staff, a plan to first undermine and then dismiss Landry. Bright, who usually stayed behind the scenes, publicly criticized Landry after an embarrassing home loss to the Atlanta Falcons in 1987, saying that he was "horrified" at the play-calling and complaining, "It doesn't seem like we've got anybody in charge who knows what he's doing, other than Tex". Bright was also upset at how top draft pick, defensive tackle Danny Noonan and running back Herschel Walker were not being used enough. Two weeks later, one day after the Cowboys' 27-17 loss to the Detroit Lions, a team that had come into the game tied with the Chiefs, Giants, and Rams for the worst record in the NFL, Schramm said on his radio show, "There's an old saying, 'If the teacher doesn't teach, the student doesn't learn'." Nonetheless, Bright maintained his hands-off approach on the team while Schramm retained his confidence in Landry.

Landry produced a very large coaching tree. In 1986, five NFL head coaches were former Landry assistants: Mike Ditka, Dan Reeves, John Mackovic, Gene Stallings, and Raymond Berry.

In 1984, Dallas businessman Bum Bright bought the team from Murchison. As the Cowboys suffered through progressively poorer seasons (from 10–6 in 1985 to 7–9 in 1986, 7–8 in 1987, and 3–13 in 1988), Bright became disenchanted with the team. Landry's game strategies and single-mindedness during these few seasons left him open to public criticism.

In the 1980s, the Cowboys won two Division Championships, and made five playoff appearances which included reaching the NFC Championship Game three consecutive seasons (1980–1982), but failed to reach the Super Bowl. The last of those games came in the 1982 season, when the Cowboys lost to the Washington Redskins. Landry would never make the NFC Championship game again, nor win another playoff game.

In addition to his record 20 consecutive winning seasons from 1966 to 1985, Landry won two Super Bowl titles (in Super Bowl VI and XII), five NFC titles, and 13 divisional titles. He compiled a 270–178–6 record, the fourth-most wins all-time for an NFL coach, and his 20 career playoff victories are the second most of any coach in NFL history. Landry was also named the NFL Coach of the Year in 1966 and the NFC Coach of the Year in 1975.

When he came to Dallas, Landry refined the 4-3 even further, specifically to counter Lombardi's "run to daylight" strategy. Lombardi's offense was built around sending the running back through any open space, rather than a specific assigned hole. Landry reasoned that the best counter was a defense that blotted out the daylight. The result was the "Flex Defense," which assigned the defenders specific areas of the field to cover. When Landry first implemented it in 1964, fans were initially mystified when they saw the Cowboys defense not swarming to the ball. However, the skeptics were won over when ball carriers invariably ran right into the arms of one of Landry's defenders. The Flex Defense worked so well that Landry had to create an offense to score on it, one which disguised an otherwise simple play with multiple formations.

In 1960, he became the first head coach of the Dallas Cowboys and stayed for 29 seasons (1960–88). The Cowboys started with difficulties, recording an 0–11–1 record during their first season, with five or fewer wins in each of their next four. Despite this early futility, in 1964, Landry was given a 10-year extension by owner Clint Murchison Jr. It would prove to be a wise move, as Landry's hard work and determination paid off, and the Cowboys improved to a 7–7 record in 1965. In 1966, they surprised the NFL by posting 10 wins and making it all the way to the NFL championship game. Dallas lost the game to Lombardi's Green Bay Packers, but this season was but a modest display of what lay ahead.

For the 1954 football season, Landry became the defensive coordinator for the Giants, opposite Vince Lombardi, who was the offensive coordinator. Landry led one of the best defensive teams in the league from 1956 to 1959. The two coaches created a fanatical loyalty within the unit they coached that drove the Giants to three appearances in the NFL championship game in four years. The Giants beat the Paddy Driscoll-led Chicago Bears 47–7 in 1956, but lost to the Baltimore Colts in 1958 and 1959.

After the 1949 season, the AAFC folded, and the Yankees were not among the teams absorbed by the NFL. The New York Giants exercised their territorial rights and selected Landry in a dispersal draft. Under the guidance of Giants head coach Steve Owen, Landry got his first taste of coaching. Instead of explaining the 6-1-4 defense to the players, Owen called Landry up to the front, and asked him to explain the defense to his teammates. Landry got up, and explained what the defense would do to counter the offense, and this became Landry's first coaching experience. The 1953 season would be a season to forget, with the lowest point coming in a 62-10 loss at the hands of the Cleveland Browns. This loss would ultimately cost Coach Steve Owen his job, and would again have Landry pondering his future. In 1954, he was selected as an All-Pro. He played through the 1955 season, and acted as a player-assistant coach the last two years, 1954 through 1955, under the guidance of new Giants head coach Jim Lee Howell. Landry ended his playing career with 32 interceptions in only 80 games, which he returned for 404 yards and three touchdowns. He also recovered 10 fumbles (seven defensive), returning them for 67 yards and two touchdowns.

Landry was selected in the 19th round (128th overall) of the 1948 AAFC Draft. He played one season in the All-America Football Conference for the New York Yankees, then moved in 1950 across town to the New York Giants.

Landry was also selected by the New York Giants in the 20th round (184th overall) of the 1947 NFL Draft.

He returned to his studies at the University of Texas in the fall of 1946. On the football team, he played fullback and defensive back on the Texas Longhorns' bowl game winners on New Year's Day of 1948 and 1949. At UT, he was a member of the Texas Cowboys and Delta Kappa Epsilon fraternity (Omega Chi chapter). He received his bachelor's degree from UT in 1949. In 1952, he earned a master's degree in industrial engineering from the University of Houston.

He interrupted his education after a semester to serve in the United States Army Air Corps during World War II. Landry was inspired to join the armed forces in honor of his brother Robert Landry, who had enlisted in the Army Air Corps after the attack on Pearl Harbor. While ferrying a B-17 over to England, Robert Landry's plane had gone down over the North Atlantic, close to Iceland. Several weeks passed before the Army was able to officially declare Robert Landry dead. Tom Landry began his basic training at Sheppard Field near Wichita Falls, Texas (now Sheppard AFB), and his preflight training at Kelly Field (now Kelly Field Annex), located near San Antonio, Texas. Landry's first experience as a bomber was a tough one. A few minutes after takeoff, Landry realized that the pilot seemed to be working furiously, and Landry had realized the plane's engine had died. Despite this experience, Landry was committed to flying. At the age of 19, Landry was transferred to Sioux City, Iowa, where he trained as a copilot for flying a B-17. In 1944, Landry got his orders, and from Sioux City he went to Liverpool, England, where he was assigned to the Eighth Air Force, 493rd Squadron in Ipswich. Landry earned his wings and a commission as a Second Lieutenant at Lubbock Army Air Field, and was assigned to the 493d Bombardment Group at RAF Debach, England, as a B-17 Flying Fortress bomber copilot in the 860th Bombardment Squadron. From November 1944 to April 1945, he completed a combat tour of 30 missions, and survived a crash landing in Belgium after his bomber ran out of fuel.

Thomas Wade Landry (September 11, 1924 – February 12, 2000) was an American professional football player and coach. He was the first head coach of the Dallas Cowboys in the National Football League (NFL), a position he held for 29 seasons. During his coaching career, he created many new formations and methods, such as the now popular 4–3 defense, and the "flex defense" system made famous by the Doomsday Defense squads he built during his tenure with the Cowboys. His 29 consecutive years from 1960 to 1988 as the coach of one team is an NFL record, along with his 20 consecutive winning seasons, which is considered to be his most impressive professional accomplishment.