Mostly disliked, but respected, Cowboys great Haley enters Hall of Fame

Having finally gotten getting into the Pro Football Hall of Fame after an elongated wait, largely because of his reputation as a bad guy, there is no telling what Charles Haley might do or say when he takes the podium Saturday in Canton, Ohio.

This is Haley we are talking about.

You know, the guy who allegedly urinated on a teammate’s convertible in San Francisco, an accusation he vehemently disputes despite the many reports supporting it.

He doesn’t dispute walking into a Cowboys defensive meeting room naked or bullying teammates so badly they wanted to fight him.

He forced coaches from the West Coast to the Southwest to throw up their hands at the sight of him.

One thing is for certain: Haley is going to do what he pleases with no regrets.

Don’t count on Haley, who can be profane at times, to have a tearjerker speech. His eyes might well up with emotion when recounting a journey that began with him trying to escape the tobacco fields and factory silos of Gladys, Va., a city of 4,000, and ended with him becoming the greatest champion the NFL has ever known.

Haley, 51, is the only player in the history of the NFL with five Super Bowl rings, two with the 49ers and three with the Dallas Cowboys.

“Cry? Cry for what?” Haley said. “Nothing has changed about me. I’m still Charles. It’s just three words in front of my name.

“I have been preparing to go up there for five years. I don’t know what I’m going do when I start talking about my journey and what people have done for me and my family. But you know it ain’t going to make me no less of a man if I do or if I don’t. Hey, I was born with that speech. When I was a kid, my daddy said greatness is not born, it’s made. So I have been making greatness all of my life. It’s easy for me to talk about. Hello.”

His 12-year NFL career personified greatness, as Haley had 100 1/2 sacks, made five Pro Bowls to match his five Super Bowl rings. He twice was named All-Pro.

More important, Haley was a winner and his career was defined by championships.

His teams went 153-66, including 19-6 in the postseason, winning 10 division titles, playing in seven NFC Championship games and five Super Bowls. Only twice did Haley play on teams that didn’t make the playoffs and only once did he play on a team that finished with a losing record.

His winner’s mentality and impact, which is at the root of his Hall of Fame résumé, was most evident during his a five-year stint with the Cowboys. Dallas fashioned a 59-21 record, won three Super Bowls, four conference title games and five divisional championships.

Haley joins the famed Triplets of quarterback Troy Aikman, receiver Michael Irvin and running back Emmitt Smith from the Cowboys’ title teams of the 1990s in the Hall of Fame. (Two other Hall of Famers, cornerback Deion Sanders and offensive lineman Larry Allen, were on the 1995 team.)

Owner Jerry Jones admits the Cowboys didn’t sniff the Super Bowl even with those great offensive players until Haley arrived in 1992 in a trade from the 49ers.

“The fact is the Super Bowls appeared when Charles appeared,” Jones said. “They appeared in both franchises when he appeared. But none more obvious than when he joined the Cowboys, and the Super Bowls appeared here. He was the difference with his ability to apply pressure and his winning attitude. We didn’t have that on defense.”

Power-shifting trade

Haley will tell you he got run out of San Francisco because he was upset with the team’s decision to cut Hall of Fame safety Ronnie Lott, his mentor.

Haley didn’t understand the game and that everyone’s time was going to end. He has never been one easy to reason with, so he took it out on 49ers coach George Seifert.

“I just picked on him,” Haley said. “I couldn’t let it go. That ended up with me getting out of there. I didn’t realize that we all get cut at some point. My vision was short term. All I could see was my best friend hurting, and I wanted to take the anger out on the people that made it.”

Everybody across the league knew Haley had worn out his welcome in San Francisco and that the team was looking to trade him.

The upstart Cowboys had gone 11-5 in 1991 before losing 38-6 to the Detroit Lions in the NFC divisional playoffs.

They had the aforementioned stars on offense as well as what was becoming the league’s best offensive line. But the defense was lacking in terms of a difference-making pass rusher as well as a feisty, win-at-all-cost mentality.

“I was keenly aware that Charles had issues in San Francisco,” Jones said. “Most were. I called [49ers general manager] Carmen Policy and asked him what it would take to get Haley. The dynamics that was going on is that there was no question that Charles Haley was a difference maker. It was something that was known throughout the league.

“The question was getting him. No one would have thought we could have made the trade with San Francisco, a competitor and a rival. I was sure happy they let us make the trade with him. [Oakland Raiders owner] Al Davis called me after it was announced and said you know you just won the Super Bowl.”

The Cowboys traded second- and third-round picks to get Haley.

The Cowboys’ defense went from 17th in 1991 to first in 1992, and won three of the next four Super Bowls.

“We still would have been good, but without Charles, we wouldn’t have been great,” former Cowboys coach Jimmy Johnson said. “That was a key trade, because he was what we were missing. The pendulum swung when Charles went from the 49ers to the Cowboys.”

Former 49ers owner Eddie DeBartolo still has regrets about the trade that swung the balance of power in the NFL in the 1990s, believing the 49ers would have won at least one more Super Bowl.

“As an owner, the worst and biggest mistake that I ever made — ever made! — was to go ahead and agree to trade Charles,” said DeBartolo, Haley’s presenter. “It was a fiasco. I knew it was going to come back to haunt us … It was just a horrible trade. They talk about the trade that made Dallas a contender, when they made that big trade with Minnesota for Herschel Walker. I don’t think that’s anything compared to when they stole Charles Haley from us. It still haunts me to this day.”

Winning madness

The Cowboys acquired Haley with their eyes wide open.

They had heard the stories about him being tough to deal with in San Francisco. The supposed incident where he urinated in the convertible of teammate Tim Harris was talked about. The trouble with Seifert and the confrontation with quarterback Steve Young.

Johnson had his players call members of the 49ers and inquire about Haley before the trade. He also had his coaches call their counterparts for information.

Along with reports of Haley being hard to deal with, Johnson also heard that Haley was smart as a whip, and that was enough to convince him that he could handle him in the locker room.

While Haley’s surly attitude was loathed in San Francisco, the Cowboys welcomed it.

“I thought it was a positive,” Jones said. “I thought his makeup was a positive. We needed that on our team. We had the makeup, but for the most part it was over on the offense with Michael. But over on the defense, we didn’t have that makeup and he brought that.

“First of all, he had something that we didn’t have, and that was he had won a championship. He felt like a champion. He could talk about a championship.”

Haley talked from his first day with the Cowboys. He needled. He bullied. He provoked. He cajoled. He poked and he prodded almost every member of the team from Aikman on down.

“He was needed,” said former safety Darren Woodson, who was a rookie in 1992 and will be inducted into the team’s Ring of Honor in November. “A lot of people don’t understand that Charles came from a winning culture in San Francisco and knew what it took to win and the attitude it took to win and work ethic it took.

“He was relentless right when he got here. He was a guy you didn’t like. I didn’t like him as a rookie. I will be the first one to tell you. But as I got to know him, I understood what really drove him. Mediocrity was not a part of him. He wouldn’t accept it. That’s what he brought. It was a crazy attitude. It was win at all costs. It’s the reason I have three rings.”

Haley helped as many players or more than he supposedly tore down. He always stayed after practice, working on his technique and helping other players with theirs on both sides of the ball.

Former guard Nate Newton credits the acquisition of Haley and his lessons for him going to six consecutive Pro Bowls.

“He brought attitude. He brought accountability,” Newton said. “He could tell an offensive lineman within four or five plays what is your strength and weaknesses. That is what he brought to me. That is what he brought to a lot of guys around our team.

“He started with Troy Aikman on his assessment of what he thought of people. When he got to me, he would say ‘Hey, Nate, you fat [butt]. What happened to you? You look great the first eight games and the last eight games your [butt] was out of shape.

“‘As the season goes on, you’ve got good feet, but you lose it because you get heavy. You need to have your [butt] over here every day after practice so we can work out to keep your weight the same as the first eight games.’ That’s when I took off with my first six Pro Bowls.”

Defensive tackle Tony Casillas says the constructive chaos and edge that Haley brought to the Cowboys locker room was needed.

“He was not a nice guy,” Casillas said. “He was hard on people. I think some people took that personally. There were times he pushed the envelope too much. And you were like ‘Charles, I had enough of your [butt] today.’ And he would keep poking you and poking you. I would be the first to tell you there were a lot of guys who didn’t like him, but everybody respected him.

“There were times I would see the guy, and he could barely walk in the locker room before the game. And literally be the last guy to get dressed. You had to respect that. He played injured. He played hurt a lot.”

Bad reputation

Not universally liked, but respected, Haley said he never urinated in Harris’ car in San Francisco.

“Me and Tim Harris were best friends,” Haley said. “He will tell you it didn’t happen. We would go drinking every day after practice. They thought I was mad because they brought Tim Harris in. I like challenges. I don’t care who you brought in. I won’t worry about that. That’s was just a character assassination on me. They said I did everything in the world.”

Haley doesn’t deny coming naked into the Cowboys’ defensive-line meeting room.

“I stayed outside working with the defensive linemen,” Haley recalled with a chuckle. “I did that every day. I came in, and I’m taking a shower and [defensive line coach] Butch Davis told me to get my [butt] in the meeting room. So guess what? I came in there. And then he got mad. He ran up out of there.”

Haley regrets how he treated Seifert, who he said taught him everything he knows about defense. He said he regrets that he didn’t take criticism from the coaches well in Dallas, as it made him come off selfish.

“Jimmy let me play,” Haley said. “And then when I needed it, he would say something. My thing is, I couldn’t keep my mouth closed when he did. Jimmy was doing it for the betterment of the team. I was being selfish when it came to that. Everything else I did was about team. But when people attack me, I was always in a reactionary mode.”

When it came to how he treated his teammates, Haley only had winning on his mind.

“I had one standard in my life to be great,” Haley said. “I had one standard to be the hardest working player on the team. I had one standard when I stepped on the field: I kick butt, and I never turn that standard down. I’m going to step on toes. I’m going to step on feet.

“I will step on your neck if I have to. If you look like Tarzan and play like Jane, I’m going to tell you. When you step on people’s toes and you push them, either they are going to fight or they are going to cower. You are going to see what you are dealing with. I only want warriors around me. I was trying to win.”

Haley won like nobody in NFL history, and now he is a Hall of Famer, allowing him to take his place among the all-time greats of the game.

“I like to put the ring on and show it to guys so they can kiss the ring,” Haley said. “Champions, they respect champions. They mean a ton to me. They’re probably more for my kids. I don’t enjoy wearing them. I just enjoy knowing that I have them, that I’ve earned them, and that nobody else can say that they have what I have. For me, that’s priceless.”

This story was originally published August 7, 2015 at 1:51 PM with the headline "Mostly disliked, but respected, Cowboys great Haley enters Hall of Fame."