Wednesday, October 23, 1996

This is a different J.J. from one who came to UM
By Edwin Pope
Knight-Ridder Newspapers
(Oct. 23, 1996)

(KRT) - Did you think you would see the day when Dan Marino would be coming back from four weeks out, and most of the talk would be about Jimmy Johnson?

I didn't. But it is.

Do you believe Johnson when he says he would rather beat the Buffalo Bills than the Dallas Cowboys?

You probably don't. But I do.

I'm not (quite) such a fool as to suggest Johnson could be more of a factor than Marino when the Dolphins play the Cowboys. It's just that J.J. has been the lead story since he walked in.

People who hollered, "How can we lose with Jimmy?" now occasionally amend that to say, "Think Jimmy's gonna make it?"

Bottom line, J.J. is the conversation piece.

Maybe it's because we know Marino so well, or at least as well as we are going to get to know such a private man after 13 years.

Johnson, we are just beginning to know. I mean the J.J. of today, more confident from three blockbuster championships, made more ebullient by the happiness in his personal life. He is markedly changed from the Johnson of University of Miami days.

Sure, he has an emotional stake in beating both Jerry Jones and Barry Switzer. Yet the ultimate pragmatist in J.J. says AFC East games are his bread and butter. His goal is the playoffs, and the fastest way there is beating divisional opponents. Beating the Patriots and New York Jets and Indianapolis Colts is every bit as important to him as beating the Bills - and more important than beating the Cowboys.

The Johnson who checked in here in '84 was smart enough. This Johnson is smarter, and still couldn't have figured how tough it would be.

"Had I known prior to the season that we would be starting six rookies and we were going to miss Dan Marino in four of our first seven games," he says, "I would have said I'd be pleased to be 4-3. ... I have never been around a team as adversely affected as ours was by Dan's injury."

Tough times make J.J. tougher. He was so upset after losing the 1987 Fiesta Bowl to Penn State, only then-athletic director Sam Jankovich's pleadings dissuaded him from resigning. Yet J.J. won the national title the next year, and was confidence personified in stepping in for icon Tom Landry.
Then, two Super Bowl championships later, he just as boldly replaced another icon, Don Shula.

In a Tuesday telephone conference J.J. took pains to avoid sliming Jones and Switzer. He also took pains to say he probably wouldn't have come back to coaching except for Dolphins owner Wayne Huizenga. Draw your own conclusions.

You might say, well, J.J. should be happy, making twice what he made in Dallas - if you didn't know that money isn't that big a deal to Johnson. Somehow he has avoided the compulsion that so many rich people have, to keep piling it up the same way they got it. His rise to a degree of wealth has been a byproduct of his achievements, never the principal ambition.

Yes, Johnson is altogether bouncier, cheerier, even more positive than he was at UM.

Part of the change is the certain knowledge that the world knows how good he is. He isn't the unknown from Stillwater anymore.

And he is all football, which is why J.J. would absotively, posilutely enjoy busting an AFC East opponent more than sending the Cowboys home horseless.

(c) 1996, The Miami Herald. Distributed by Knight-Ridder/Tribune Information Services.

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