Early returns for the Cowboys are raves about how the younger Schottenheimer has uplifted spirits and endeared himself to players.
It’s very much a like-father-like-son scenario in his eyes.
Marty Schottenheimer’s 200 regular-season wins are seventh all time, but that he fell short of a Super Bowl berth was a stigma that followed him. In his son’s eyes, though, the impact he left on his players and the reverence they have for him is the legacy.
“Legacy to me, you know I think it starts with people,” Schottenheimer said. “To this day I go out on the field for a game, and I will have two or three different individuals come up to me and say, ‘Excuse me, Coach, you have a second?’ And I know exactly where they’re going, and I of course drop what I’m doing because I want to hear it. And they say, ‘Your father changed my life,’ and it’s former players. And so, he never won a Super Bowl, he won over 200 games in the NFL, but I would put his legacy up against anybody who’s ever coached in the National Football League.”
From 1975 through 2006, Marty Schottenheimer was a fixture on the NFL sidelines, with 26 as a head coach. Following a battle with Alzheimer’s, he died at the age of 77. Through the years he had Bill Cowher, Tony Dungy, Herm Edwards, Art Shell and Bruce Arians among his assistants. Mike McCarthy, Brian’s predecessor in Dallas, was also an assistant. And now, his son Brian adds to the long list of NFL head coaches who spent time as a member of Marty Schottenheimer’s staff at one time or another.
To this day, Brian relies on his father’s wisdom and his father’s friends to help him through his NFL odyssey, which enters uncharted seas in 2025.
“I actually lean on some of his friends now, you know guys like Bill Cowher that he coached with,” Brian said. “But Father’s Day will be a special day. I’m obviously a father of two amazing kids, and I’ll talk to my mom, and I know he’s looking down on me.”