When Johnson took his place among the elites of the NFL this past weekend, the experience brought back many memories for people all across the region. Although many of them knew his story, hearing it again caused many a heart to swell in the chests of area residents.
Johnson graduated from Thomas Jefferson High School back in 1960. Instead of going into the refineries like so many of his classmates, Johnson had bigger dreams. He headed for the University of Arkansas, where he made the Razorbacks’ football team with another undersized lineman named Jerry Jones. Because players were housed then on road trips in alphabetical order, Johnson and Jones found themselves together a lot and became friends.
Jones went into the oil and gas business, where he had his own success. Johnson pursued football coaching — and he started at the bottom, as an assistant at a high school in Arkansas. But his talent as a motivator and leader stood out, and he started climbing the ranks of collegiate coaching. Again, he reached a peak that few others have seen, winning a national championship with the University of Miami in 1987 — going undefeated, no less.
That might have been enough for some men, but not Johnson. Jones famously picked him to replace Tom Landry as head coach of the Dallas Cowboys, where he turned around a 1-15 team and won two Super Bowls — back to back.
It was an amazing run, and Johnson clearly deserved enshrinement along with the great players and coaches of the NFL. But despite all the success he had, he never forgot his roots, returning often to Port Arthur. Johnson is also memorialized in Port Arthur’s Museum of the Gulf Coast, where director Tom Neal perfectly summarized Johnson’s career and how others can aim high too.
“This area is a launch pad, not a dead end,” Neal said. “What can be can come alive in the eyes of young lives.”
Indeed it can, and Jimmy Johnson is living proof. We congratulate him on this well-deserved honor, and encourage other Southeast Texans to see that his success could be a model for their own in any field they choose.