Don Meredith: 1938-2010

[Van_Slyke_CF]

I just saw on TV that 1960s Dallas Cowboys QB Don Meredith passed away yesterday at age 72. The Monday Night games of the '70s provided me with a chance to stay up late for the first time and I remember how much my dad liked to watch the MNF crew of the day.

 

[Borussia]

Sorry to hear this. Meredith was a great player and a part of the golden age of NFL broadcasting...when the NFL took over not only Baseball, but also Church as the de facto American true past time ( early 70s'-early 80s).

RIP Don Meredith. And thanks for all the wonderful memories.

 

[The Hock]

When Meredith was doing MNF, if was an event. On Monday night, of all places. The back and forth between he and Cosell, with straight man Gifford in the middle, has never been matched by any other MNF broadcast team. If anyone could let the air out of Howard, it was Dandy Don, just with the way he could say "Howard" in his Texas drawl.

No matter how hyped or oversold the event might be you got the feeling it was still just a game for Don.

 

[Cassiodorus]

As a kid I actually watched that famous MNF game involving the Oilers who, of course, were being blown off the field. The camera panned to a lone Oilers fan in a sea of empty seats who flipped the bird. Meredith said something like "Yes, folks, he's saying the Oilers are Number One." Classic. I always hated Cosell, btw.

 

[backrow]

haha, that's a good one, Cass.

RIP Mr. Meredith

 

[Don Wassall]

Peter Gent wrote the book North Dallas Forty about his days with the Cowboys. It was technically fiction but it was easy to figure out who some of the characters were. The Cowboys quarterback while Gent played for them was Meredith, and he was portrayed in Gent's book as a wild partier and womanizer who routinely broke team rules, and few were enforced for him anyway.



Meredith always gave off that kind of laid backvibe, that he would do it his way and to hell what anyone else thought or said. He was, as mentioned above, the perfect foil for Howard Cosell.

After he left MNF Meredith became quite reclusive. Sports Illustrated did a story on him about five or six years ago and they really had to go through hoops just to find where he was living. I don't recall if he actually did an interview for the story or not. Maybe he was as fed up with the direction of the NFL as we are here.

 

[white is right]

It was different era of broadcasting. ESPN did a tribute piece on him and it showed he and Cosell smoking in the booth. He also quit when the network still wanted him and was paying him top dollars for the early 80's. That's something you rarely see today. The best tribute to him would be to sing "Good Night the Party's Over".....Edited by: white is right

 

[Colonel_Reb]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a3xsDv6yCnY

Even though I'm not old enough to remember his broadcasting career, I know Don Meredith was an American original. RIP

Edited by: Colonel_Reb

 

[Jack Lambert]

RIP Don Meredith. I wish I was old enough to have watched Don on T.V.

 

[emt1]

RIP Don, he was before my time, but i read some funny stories about his MNF exploits, makes me wish i was around during that time.

 

[sport historian]

I'm old enough to have watched Don Meredith play on TV many times. He was a legend of sorts in his playing days, even without winning a championship.

Meredith had a reputation as one of the best team leaders in pro football. He would order a player off the field for a sub-par effort. Do QBs do that now?

I recall one of the early (of a great many) Dallas Cowboy books by Sam Blair, a longtime Dallas writer. Blair made the point that Meredith had played his college ball at SMU, follwed by 9 years with the Cowboys. The Dallas fans got tired of hearing about Meredith, especially since his teams never won a championship.

The losses to the Packers in the 1966 and 1967 NFL title games were frustrating. The Cowboys were then upset in their first playoff game by Cleveland in 1968. Meredith was pulled by Tom Landry early in the second half after an interception was run back for a TD. There was a lot of time left and Craig Morton didn't do anything in relief.

Meredith did have a tendency to make the big error. In 1964, the Cowboys were leading the Browns (who won the title that year) 16-13 with 9 minutes left. Meredith then threw an interception to Brown DB Bernie Parrish who ran it back for a TD. The next year, the Browns led the Cowboys 24-17 late in the game. The Cowboys had first-and-goal on the Brown 1-yard line. Meredith threw into the end zone and the browns intercepted for a touchback and held on to win.

Meredith received thunderous boos from the Dallas crowd on both occasions.

The Cowboys fans (perhaps in an early example of the DWF syndrome) blamed Meredith for the defeats. Supposedly, Meredith once went to an upscale Dallas restaurant and the entire clientel rose and booed.

He retired from the Cowboys, age 31, before the 1969 season.

Don Meredith was, of course, very popular in his TV role. For three seasons (1974-76), he left the ABC Monday night crew to work for NBC, who gave him a few TV roles in addition to announcing NBC games.

Meredith came back to ABC in 1977. When Howard Cosell would make a pompous remark, Meredith would slap him down.

 

[sport historian]

Peter Gent wrote the book North Dallas Forty about his days with the Cowboys.  It was technically fiction but it was easy to figure out who some of the characters were.  The Cowboys quarterback while Gent played for them was Meredith, and he was portrayed in Gent's book as a wild partier and womanizer who routinely broke team rules, and few were enforced for him anyway. 
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<div>Meredith always gave off that kind of laid back vibe, that he would do it his way and to hell what anyone else thought or said.  He was, as mentioned above, the perfect foil for Howard Cosell.</div>
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<div>After he left MNF Meredith became quite reclusive.  Sports Illustrated did a story on him about five or six years ago and they really had to go through hoops just to find where he was living.  I don't recall if he actually did an interview for the story or not.  Maybe he was as fed up with the direction of the NFL as we are here.</div>

Don raises an interesting question. Was Don Meredith as fed up with the direction of the NFL as we are?

I remember a 1973 Dolphin-Steeler Monday Night game. Joe Gilliam was starting for the Steelers as the other QBs were hurting. Howard Cosell gave Gilliam a big buildup as the man who would shatter the myth that blacks couldn't play QB.

Gilliam went 0 for 7 with 3 interceptions. The Dolphins led 30-3 at the half, but Terry Bradshaw relieved Gilliam and led a late rally to close the gap to a 30-26 Dolphin win.

I recall Meredith saying in a somewhat despairing tone "the black quarterback thing," and "we built this guy up," indicating he wished we judged players by performance only.

While checking pro football reference for the box score, I found that somebody has put this game on youtube. You can find it by googling "1973 Dolphins-Steelers." I haven't watched it yet and relied on my memory for this post.

 

[Colonel_Reb]

sport historian, you and Don may have hit on something there. I wish I could see the whole game and hear all the comments made, but you do get a few of them here in these clips from the first quarter of that 1973 game.

Part 1
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VtAPpc83G9M&amp;feature=related

Part 2
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kqfHYOk4dZ0&amp;feature=related

 

[Cassiodorus]

I don't remember Meredith as a QB, but my uncle had a good take: "He was good, could do everything except beat the Packers."

 

[foreverfree]

I was in grade school/middle school during Danderoo's first go-round on MNF. By the time he returned in 1977 (after 3 years beside Curt Gowdy on NBC) I was in 11th grade. As I was an eastern time zone resident (and always have been, even in college) and Monday night was a school night, I was never able, er, allowed to stick around for Don's song. Later on as an out-of-town college undergrad, I'd sometimes stay up in the dorm (and later on in my off-campus residence) to the end.

I never paid much attention to the Cosell/Meredith banter (or any of Howie's rhetoric). Although watching an ATL/WAS MNF game in 1972, when a turnover (I forget whose) happened early on in the game, Meredith sang "Sometimes you win sometimes you lose/Goodtime Charlie's got the blues" from the Danny O'Keefe song.

While at NBC, Meredith made TV movies and appeared on shows like "Police Story". Pete(r) Gent must've paid attention to that aspect of Meredith's career, too, because in the reunion sequel to ND40, called North Dallas After 40, the Meredith-like character became a TV actor.

No one mentioned the movie version of North Dallas Forty, starring Nick Nolte as the Gent-like character (Phil Elliott) and Mac Davis (who wrote songs like "In the Ghetto", "I Believe in Music", and had a #1 hit with "Baby Don't Get Hooked On Me") as the Meredith-like character (Seth Maxwell).

Meredith must've been one of the thinnest skinned football stars to have quit so young after so much booing.

RIP Don.

John