The Dandy One

The Sporting Life:

The Public Professor’s

Saturday Sports Column

The Party’s over.

“Dandy” Don Meredith, the first good quarterback the Dallas Cowboys ever had, and better known as one-third of the legendary Monday Night Football broadcast booth, along with Howard Cossell and Frank Gifford from 1970-73 and 1977-84, passed away last Sunday at the age of 72.

While Gifford was the straight man supplying play by play, Meredith and Cossell formed a formidable pair, analysts who took center stage.  A Texas native, Meredith was a veritable quote machine, spinning folksy yarns by the dozen.  A Jewish New Yorker, Cossell countered Meredith by being unapologetically urbane and sophisticated, introducing middle America to snarkiness before hipsters were born or gays had been allowed into the popular culture (insert three finger snaps and a sigh here, please).  And the two of them played off of each other masterfully.  As they dissected the night’s game, the Country Mouse and the City Mouse joked and sparred with each other, and in the process they made MNF an absolute sensation and one of the nation’s highest rated shows throughout the decade.

If Cossell was the pushy, loud-mouthed “ethnic type” who drove most Americans to apoplectic rage, a guy they loved to hate, then Meredith was the grinning scamp of an uncle at the barbeque, the guy they wanted to have a beer and watch the game with.  He was down to earth, had a sense of humor, and spoke his mind.  And he was sly, with a streak of impishness.  Such as when MNF came to Denver for the first time ever, and he opened by saying “Welcome to the Mile High City . . . and I really am.”  Or the time he was lampooning his former coach, Tom Landry: “He’s a perfectionist.  If he were married to Raquel Welch, he’d expect her to cook.”

But Meredith wasn’t just a whimsical football announcer, he was a headliner on one of America’s most successful television programs.  And with his charm, his drawl, and his piercing blue eyes, he soon became a celebrity.  In addition to Monday Night Football, he also appeared as a guest on some of the most popular shows of the day, including Police Story, McCloud, Police Woman, and the randy game show Match Game.

However, there was more to Meredith than just a wise-cracking good `ole boy.  Of course that part came naturally to someone who’d never played a home football game outside of north Texas: high school in Mount Vernon, Texas, college at Southern Methodist University, and then onto the Cowboys.  But there was a real depth to the man whom the press playfully called “Dandy” Don.   Hardly a dumb jock, this was a guy whose great regret in life was that he hadn’t grown up in a house with more books.  Meredith was smart as a whip.  And when you put it all together, you ended up with a charming rapscallion who also had something to say.

When Richard Nixon came to the booth (yes, Monday Night Football was that big), Meredith actually called him “Tricky Dick.”  And when Vice President Spiro Agnew showed up, Meredith opined: “I didn’t vote for you but that’s sure a nice suit you got on.”

You’ll have to search the blogosphere high and low before finding critical political commentary that smooth.

But the irony is that in the long run, commentary on televised sporting events took a turn for the worse, in part, because Meredith was so damn good at what he did and because he made it look so easy.  It’s almost as if TV producers thought to themselves, See, that Texas rube Meredith can do this, how hard could it be? Before Meredith, it wasn’t the norm to have former athletes in the booth.  Now it’s an absolute given.  And most of them are at best mediocre.  At best.

There are no more Howard Cossells.  No one even bothers trying.  He seemed impossible to replicate even then.  MNF made a half-hearted effort many years later with Dennis Miller, and his failure to catch on only further illustrated how one-of-a-kind Cossell was.  But Meredith didn’t seem unique or difficult to duplicate.  Hell, he was the every man.  And now every broadcast has a pale imitation of him, a cardboard cutout of an ex-jock droning on and on.

But most of the former athletes analyzing today’s games can’t hold a candle to Meredith.  Instead of speaking in a folksy vernacular, most of them are just inarticulate stumblebums.  Instead of offering wry humor, they guffaw.  Instead of well-timed banter, they just talk and talk and talk.

Meredith understood that silence could be golden, that as much fun as it was to go at it with Cossell, there had be to some back for there to be some forth.  He knew there was a time for play by play, a time for analysis, a time for joking, and a time to let the game speak for itself.  And when it came time to pack it in, he kept quiet.

Meredith had had a wonderful life in the spotlight, and by the late 1980s he was ready for a wonderful life out of it.  In many ways, he was the essence of 1970s America, but unlike many of his contemporaries, he showed no signs of overstaying his welcome, of grasping and clawing at fame.  Instead, he let it go, left it all behind, and moved to New Mexico, where he went about his business and shied away from being called “Dandy Don.”  That was a persona he had played successfully in the past.  He didn’t want it to be an excuse for others to caricaturize him afterward.  There were no excuses when it was time for him to suit up for the Cowboys in the infamous Ice Bowl game at Green Bay in 1968, there were no excuses when Cossell zinged him in the booth, and there were no excuses back in New Mexico.

Meredith had put it like this one night during a game:  “If ifs and buts were candy and nuts, wouldn’t it be a merry Christmas?”

Merry Christmas everyone, and thanks for the memories Mr. Meredith.

You can also find me every Saturday at Meet the Matts.