My personal favorite Lee Roy Jordan story didn’t come up in his funeral mass Friday, which was understandable. Even if his mourners sat shoulder-to-shoulder at Christ the King like the old days at the Cotton Bowl or Texas Stadium, he packed enough into his 84 years to be celebrated for far more than just his status as a Ring of Honor middle linebacker.
Still, even if he hadn’t been a loving husband, father, Papa and friend as well as a civic-minded business leader and man of faith, he’d have been worth remembering.
Same as the grit and glory of his times.
“We hurried up mass,” as Msgr. Milam Joseph told Friday’s crowd, recalling those days, “so we could watch him.”
Cowboys
From Bob Lilly, Mel Renfro, Charlie Waters and Drew Pearson to Babe Laufenberg, Charles Haley and Jerry Jones, Cowboys from one end of the organization’s gilded history to the other turned out to pay their respects to maybe the toughest man ever to wear a star on his helmet.
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“He invited me as his roommate,” Roger Staubach told me outside the church. “The night before the game, I knew we’d be good on defense. I told him we’d be good on offense, too.
“We became great friends. He was one tough guy, but he was a good guy.”
(From left) Jennifer Staubach Gates walks with her parents, Roger Staubach, a two-time Super Bowl champion quarterback for the Dallas Cowboys, and Marianne Staubach, as they head to the funeral mass for former Cowboys linebacker Lee Roy Jordan (55), a member of the team’s Ring of Honor and the dean of the Dallas Cowboys’ fabled Doomsday Defense, at Christ the King Catholic Church in Dallas on Friday, Sept. 19, 2025. Jordan died Saturday at the age 84.
Juan Figueroa / Staff Photographer
The second half of that description might have surprised a few people on the other end of his forearm shiver.
Even at least one who wasn’t.
“When I was a rookie,” Pearson said of his ‘73 season, “I was intimidated by a lot of people in that locker room, but not intimidated by anyone like Lee Roy intimidated.
“And I wasn’t even on defense.”
Lilly had already made a Pro Bowl and was going into his third year on the Cowboys’ defensive line when a no-nonsense rookie from Alabama showed up in Thousand Oaks. Tom Landry’s vision had yet to capture the public imagination. In its first three seasons, Dallas’ expansion franchise had piled up all of nine wins.
Jordan came to the Cowboys in 1963 steeped in his convictions of work ethic, preparation and hard-nosed football, qualities baked in by Bear Bryant. No detail was too trivial. Occasionally Lilly would feel a tap, then hear the admonition to move over a foot. A handful of the veterans resented the audacity of such orders from the new kid.
Not Mr. Cowboy.
Former Dallas Cowboys defensive back Bob Lilly chats after the funeral mass for former Cowboys linebacker Lee Roy Jordan (55), a member of the team’s Ring of Honor and the dean of the Cowboys’ fabled Doomsday Defense, at Christ the King Catholic Church in Dallas on Friday, Sept. 19, 2025. Jordan died Saturday at the age 84.
Juan Figueroa / Staff Photographer
“We needed a guy that was tough and rah-rah and fired us up,” Lilly said Friday.
“He did it.”
Harris, one of six Pro Football Hall of Famers on hand Friday, told the mourners in his eulogy that, five Pro Bowls notwithstanding, Jordan has unjustly been denied his bust in Canton. The safety who led with his head as well as his heart called his old friend “the inspirational leader and motivator” of Landry’s complex Flex defense. The tougher it got, the more he demanded of himself as well as his teammates.
Jordan’s pursuit of excellence meant he might even challenge the authority of Ernie Stautner, Landry’s defensive coordinator.
“One time Lee Roy changed to a different defense than Ernie signalled, and I knew it,” Harris said.
“But it worked better.”
Pause.
“I haven’t told anybody that.”
Dallas Cowboys honor the passing of former player and ring of honor member Lee Roy Jordan before a NFL football game against the New York Giants on Sunday, Sept. 14, 2025, in Arlington, Texas. (AP Photo/Matt Patterson)
Matt Patterson / AP
Harris is among a dwindling few of Jordan’s peers left to tell his story in a public forum. Such a devastating style of play took its toll. Jordan knew what was coming and, as usual, didn’t shy from taking a stand. In 2010, he participated in a UT-Dallas study on the neurological consequences of head trauma in athletes. Besides the Salesmanship Club of Dallas and Leukemia Society, he donated time and resources to the Alzheimer’s Association and the Center for BrainHealth at UTD.
Now, about that story mentioned up top. When the Cowboys took Jordan in the first round of the ‘63 draft, he negotiated his own deal: three years, $55,000, plus a new car, the latter on the counsel of his old coach, Bear Bryant. Gil Brandt, third member of the Cowboys’ Hole-in-the-Roof Trinity, told Jordan he’d drive his new Buick Riviera to Tuscaloosa. Only it never made it. Five miles outside Starkville, Miss., Brandt hit a cow in the road, totaling the $6,200 luxury vehicle.
Brandt hitched a ride back into town and went straight to the courthouse to tell the sheriff. Turns out it was old news. The cow happened to belong to the sheriff’s father, who wanted to know who was paying for the beefsteak.
Eventually the organization settled up, Jordan got his car and the Cowboys got the heart and soul of their Doomsday Defense. Jordan wreaked a lot of havoc over his 14 seasons. But, if you hadn’t seen it firsthand, you never would have believed him capable of such a thing in his life after football. Laufenberg, who visited him in his last days, summed him up neatly as “a gentleman.”
The problem with a long, eventful life is the tendency to outlive your mourners. Such was not the case with Lee Roy. In his remarks, Harris, reining hard on his emotions, said love leaves behind more than death takes away. A full house Friday testified to that.
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Photos: Roger Staubach, other Cowboys legends pay respects to late Lee Roy Jordan
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Photos: A look back at Lee Roy Jordan’s legendary career, from Dallas Cowboys LB to Ring of Honor member
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