"Turn out the lights..." Dandy Don Meredith dead

[Fartacus]

Legendary Cowboys, SMU quarterback Don Meredith dies


10:22 AM CST on Monday, December 6, 2010
By BRAD TOWNSEND/The Dallas Morning News
btownsend@dallasnews.com
Don Meredith, the Dallas Cowboys and SMU quarterback and Monday Night Football icon, died Sunday evening in Santa Fe, N.M. He was 72.

Meredith died at Christus St. Vincent Regional Medical Center, a hospital spokesman confirmed this morning.

Meredith's wife, Susan, told The Associated Press on Monday her husband died in Santa Fe after suffering a brain hemorrhage and lapsing into a coma. She says a private graveside ceremony is being planned and that family members were traveling to Santa Fe.

"He was the best there was," she said, describing him as kind, warm and funny. "We lost a good one."

Meredith had battled emphysema in recent years and suffered a minor stroke in 2004.

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He was the only living Cowboys Ring of Honor member unable to attend the franchise's September 2009 inaugural game at Cowboys Stadium.

Meredith was the original Dallas Cowboy, signing a personal services contract on Nov. 28, 1959, two months before the franchise officially gained admittance into the NFL.

Hailing from Mount Vernon in East Texas, the quarterback nicknamed "Dandy Don" had the unique distinction of playing all of his home high school, college and professional football games within 100 miles of Dallas.

"I'm very thankful," said Meredith, when a reporter from The News visited him in Santa Fe last October for a profile commemorating the 50th anniversary of his signing with the Cowboys. "I'm very thankful about where I'm from and who I am."

He had given few interviews since leaving the Monday Night Football booth in 1984, preferring to remain largely out of the public eye while residing in Santa Fe with Susan, to whom he was married for 38 years.

Meredith was a two-time All-American at SMU and played for the Cowboys from 1960 to 1968. He led the Cowboys to the 1966 and 1967 NFL title games, both defeats to the Green Bay Packers, but he abruptly retired from pro football at age 31.

Already famous in his native Texas, he quickly became a national celebrity through his work on Monday Night Football, starting in 1970. Millions tuned in each week to hear Meredith's quick wit, homespun stories and needling of intellectual booth-mate Howard Cosell.

And, famously, Meredith would croon "The Party's Over" to viewers when he determined that the game was out of reach.

Of his Cowboys career, Meredith once mused, "I don't know how badly I'd feel if I wasn't remembered at all."

Despite being the first quarterback to lead the Cowboys to a winning season, then the two NFL title game appearances, Meredith was often booed by fans who blamed him for not taking the franchise to the top.

"He took too much of the blame, and I think the press blamed him way too much," teammate Lee Roy Jordan said. "I'm disappointed that we – the coaching staff and all of us other players – didn't take a more responsible role in taking on some of that negative press."

Longtime Cowboys president and general manager Tex Schramm once said of Meredith: "He had a wonderful sense of humor and a very laid-back personality. But he was an absolutely intense competitor who could rally a team. He was very charismatic, maybe the most charismatic player we had."

Despite the championship losses to the Green Bay Packers of Vince Lombardi and the awful performance against the New York Giants that deprived him of the passing championship, Meredith is the football player turned folk hero. He was the country kid who left tiny Mount Vernon in East Texas for college stardom at SMU and a celebrated NFL career with the Cowboys, one commemorated with his induction into the team's Ring of Honor in 1976.

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