A Dallas Cowboys legend who elevated the play of so many greats has passed | Opinion
What Tom Landry was to coaching, Gil Brandt was to scouting, Tex Schramm was to marketing, Dr. Bob Ward was to strength and conditioning.
Ward just never made it into the Dallas Cowboys’ Ring of Honor, because NFL teams don’t honor their strength coaches that way.
Ward is one of the bigger reasons why the Cowboys of the ‘70s became America’s Team, and there is a good chance you never knew it.
He was a genuine pioneer whose methods and approach to the game were studied and copied. So much of what you see today in terms of weight lifting and emphasizing performance through extensive data, Ward was doing in the mid ‘70s.
“What he brought to the NFL was a combination of track, weight lifting and power lifting,” former Dallas Cowboys receiver Butch Johnson told me. “The CrossFit craze that you see today? That is Bob Ward’s workout. It’s come full circle. This is not new. It’s 40 years old, it originated with Bob Ward.”
Ward died on June 28. The funeral service was July 13 at Prestonwood Baptist Church in Dallas. He was 88 and is survived by his wife, Joyce, their two daughters, their grandchildren and loved ones.
Everyone associated with those Cowboys teams from that era owes him a thank you.
Ward is a big reason why the Cowboys won and reached Super Bowls in the ‘70s, and made it to three straight NFC title games in the ‘80s.
I wrote Ward’s biography, Building the Perfect Star, in 2015. We rammed heads a few (hundred) times over what elements of a strength coach’s existence from that era should or should not be revealed, but I remain in awe of what the man built and who he was.
All of the players he worked with from high school to college to the pros said they improved because of him. To be such a muse is an enviable legacy.
Born in 1933 in California, Ward was from a generation who downplayed pain, even though he experienced a lot of it when he was younger.
Ward’s father was a veteran of World War I, who was exposed to the mustard gas that was used in Western Europe.
Ward barely knew his dad, who was out of his life from a young age.
When Wardwas 6, he and his three siblings stayed in what essentially amounted to an orphanage in Southern California. They were there for three years until their mother was in a better place and could take care of them.
Ward eventually earned a college scholarship to play football at Whitworth University in Washington and served in the military during the Korean War.
He went on to earn his PhD in biomechanics from Indiana University, and then returned to California where he coached track at a high school and Fullerton junior college.
A former decathlete, Ward is one of four men who are credited with revolutionizing the throwing mechanics of the discus and shot put.
In the spring of 1976, the Cowboys wanted someone to be strength coach, which was mostly a foreign concept as a full-time position in pro sports at the time. The guy they wanted was Tom Tellez, but he had accepted a job to be the track and field coach at the University of Houston, where he became one of the most decorated people in his field.
Tellez suggested Ward, who accepted the Cowboys’ position on a trial basis. He stayed through the 1989 season. Ward was one of the few staffers who were retained after Jerry Jones bought the team and hired Jimmy Johnson to replace Landry.
“I never knew where Tom Landry found him,” former Cowboys linebacker Thomas “Hollywood” Henderson told me for that book. “But I knew exactly why they hired him. He was revolutionary. As far as I am concerned, Bob Ward revolutionized training for football.”
To work with the Cowboys, he once brought in a legendary martial arts instructor Dan Inosanto, who previously trained with Bruce Lee and was even once coached in youth football by the man who helped found the sport, Amos Alonzo Stagg.
Ward would try anybody to work with the Cowboys. He hired a yoga instructor before yoga was a thing. He once brought in a juggler thinking it would help with eye-hand coordination. Instead, that one was a disaster.
Ward charted everything the players did in the weight room, and in training, all on computers. He was the one to convince Landry that the team needed water breaks during practice.
In Ward’s second season with the Cowboys, they defeated Denver in Super Bowl XII. They reached the Super Bowl again the next season, but lost to Pittsburgh.
He remained with the team until Jimmy fired him after that 1-15 season in 1989. Jimmy was desperate and had to do something.
The only sad part to Ward’s career is that you could tell he never quite got over being fired, and not joining another NFL team. (That’s one of the cruel elements to the profession. Once you’re off the train, it can be hard to get back on board.)
Despite the bitter ending, the greater takeaway is how Ward achieved so much despite coming from so little.
And while Bob Ward will never have a place in the Dallas Cowboys’ Ring of Honor, there are so many who do because of Bob Ward.
