Jason Garrett's greatest gift is gone
This spot was reserved for a column pontificating Jason Garrett’s potential replacement, but he lost something much greater than the job as the head coach of the Dallas Cowboys.
Jason Garrett just lost his dad.
Jim Garrett’s legacy is spread over multiple generations of football players he played with, coached and scouted, but ultimately his greatest impact is on the wife, their eight children and 27 grandchildren he leaves behind.
Jim Garrett died Friday at the age of 87, surrounded by the family he raised, and who loved him so much.
We should all be so lucky.
Sports receives its fair share of well-earned criticism these days, but Jim Garrett’s passing is the reminder that few memories - or experiences - are any better than playing ball with dad or going to a game together.
When done right, sports is an eternal bond unlike any other.
Look at Jason Garrett.
Garrett usually works hard to sound like a programmed robot in public, but when it came to talking about his dad, it was hard for the son not to sound human.
Before Father’s Day in 2016, Garrett was asked about what it meant to him for his father to see him become the head coach of an organization where he spent so many years as a scout.
Jim Garrett was the scout who wrote the franchise’s take on Tony Romo, the original report of Troy Aikman, and pleaded with the Cowboys to draft receiver Randy Moss when he famously said, “This isn’t the Boy Scouts! It’s the NFL!”
Talking about his dad, Garrett struggled to find the words, but his face said it all.
“That’s a hard question for me to answer right now,” Garrett said.
The stoic coach who tries so hard to show nothing used every trick from displaying everything. Namely, tears.
The son routinely had a hard time not crying when the subject was his dad.
Can’t blame him.
“It’s very meaningful. It’s very meaningful to all of us,” Garrett said. “Football has been a big part of our lives. Certainly was a big part of my life growing up. My brother’s lives growing up. My dad, probably more than anything else, instilled a passion for football in all of us, or the people he came in contact with.”
Whatever you think of Garrett the head coach, in these moments it's impossible not to have empathy with Jason Garrett the person.
For those of us who have these feelings, and experiences, about their parents, there are no words. There are just tears of humility, and eternal gratitude.
Thank you is insufficient. Because it is in these moments of reflection, the head coach of America’s Team realizes none of it happens without mom or dad.
None of it happens with out the practice. The routine. The prodding.
At a young age, Jim Garrett introduced Jason, and his whole family, to games that would open the door to the rest of their lives.
Jim Garrett was a football coach, but he was a baseball guy. So is Jason.
They were both just a little better at football.
An obscure piece of football trivia is Jim Garrett was once a steward of one of the most embarrassing records in the game: In 1985, Garrett was the head coach at Columbia University when the Lions were in assembling an NCAA record 47-game winless streak.
On the team were three of his sons – John, Judd and Jason.
The team finished 0-10 that season, and dad was essentially forced to quit.
After his dad “resigned,” the school’s student newspaper, The Columbia Daily Spectator, found Jason Garrett and said of the school’s administration, “That a quality football isn’t primary in their minds. That’s their choice.”
Anyone who has spent 10 minutes listening to Jason Garrett politely say nothing knows such a comment is a Trumpian tweet of rage.
But that was Garrett’s dad.
Jason could never hide, nor did he try, to play down the tremendous respect for his dad, and great admiration.
Jim was an assistant coach with the Cleveland Browns in 1980 when they hosted the Oakland Raiders in the AFC divisional playoff game when the temperature at kickoff was four degrees.
Jason was in the Cleveland Municipal Stadium stands that brutal January '81 afternoon when Browns' quarterback Brian Sipe threw the infamous, "Red Right 88" pass with less than 1 minute remaining that was intercepted in the end zone, and continued Cleveland's inability to win a Super Bowl.
Jim's passion was football, and he handed it to his family. To Jason.
Whatever Jason did at Princeton, or during his NFL career playing for the Cowboys and Giants, and coaching, nothing will ever top the memories with his dad.
Hitting the baseball. Throwing the football. Talking about practice at the dinner table. Sitting next to dad at the game.
There is nothing better than the untainted, innocent purity of the shared sporting experiences between a child and a parent. Because they are forever.
Jim Garrett is gone, but the life he created for himself, for his son Jason, and so many others lives.
We should all be so lucky.
This story was originally published February 10, 2018 at 4:22 PM with the headline "Jason Garrett's greatest gift is gone."