NFL pioneer John Wooten makes a case for Cornell Green’s entry into Cowboys Ring of Honor<\/a><\/p>\nArticle continues below this ad<\/p>\n
Of course, if you know your Cowboys history, you know even all that didn\u2019t cover what he meant to the organization. He arrived at a time when they\u2019d won a total of four games in two years. They were also young and brash and willing to try something new, attributes the old guard found unamusing.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Brandt upped the ante on the Cowboys’ arrogance by declaring the draft \u201coverrated\u201d as a source of talent. Talent could be found anywhere. Size and speed were paramount. He developed a nationwide network of contacts and hit the road, investigating tips.\u00a0<\/p>\n
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Former Dallas Cowboys defensive back Cornell Green speaks after receiving the Tom Landry Memorial Legend Award during the Cowboys Kickoff Luncheon Wednesday, August 28, 2013 at Cowboys Stadium in Arlington. (G.J. McCarthy\/The Dallas Morning News)<\/p>\n
G.J. McCarthy – Staff Photographer<\/p>\n
When Utah State\u2019s basketball coach called in ’62, Brandt didn\u2019t require much persuasion. Besides the fact that, at 6-4, 215 pounds, he would be big for an NFL defensive back, then or now, he was also fast. Came from good athletic stock, too. His oldest brother,\u00a0Pumpsie, was the first African-American to play for the Boston Red Sox. Another brother, Credell, was a member of the first recruiting class at the University of Washington to include Black football players.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Still, even though Tex Schramm had given the former baby photographer plenty of rope in scouting, Brandt knew he was risking his budding reputation.\u00a0<\/p>\n
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\u201cWhen I brought in Green and introduced him as a basketball player,\u201d the Hall of Famer once said, \u201cnobody said anything, but I could tell there were skeptics.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cAfter Cornell made good, it was easy for me.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
Green\u2019s immediate success led to the signing of the World\u2019s Fastest Man (Bob Hayes), another basketball player (Pete Gent) and even a soccer player (Toni Fritsch), not to mention the legions of undrafted free agents who filled out the Cowboys’ Super Bowl rosters and a few Pro Bowl cards.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Hard to question the personnel guy\u2019s whims when, his first swing out of the box, he hits on a guy who starts three games as a rookie and all but one in the 12 years to come. As a cornerback, Green made three Pro Bowls and two first-team All Pro lists. In ’67, he paired with Mel Renfro to form arguably the greatest pair of corners in Cowboys history.\u00a0<\/p>\n
He made two more Pro Bowls after Tom Landry shifted him to strong safety in 1970, Cliff Harris’ rookie season. The free agent out of Ouachita Baptist quickly learned Green was his best friend in the secondary. Unlike some of the other veterans, he was quick to help the kid whenever possible.\u00a0<\/p>\n
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\u201cYou could tell he wasn\u2019t brought up in football,\u201d said Harris, who started next to Green at safety as a rookie, \u201cbecause he had his own technique, which worked very well. He probably could have played all three positions back there.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cI was just a young guy, 21, in the backfield, and here were all these guys\u2026 Cornell was just so helpful to me.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
Green\u2019s 34 interceptions are tied for fifth-most in Cowboys history, well short of Renfro\u2019s team-record 52. Brandt once said if Green had had better hands, he\u2019d have three times as many picks. The personnel man couldn\u2019t understand why a great rebounder had such trouble snagging a football.\u00a0<\/p>\n
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Cornell Green \/ Dallas Cowboys, 1962-1974<\/p>\n
Dallas Cowboys<\/p>\n
Green once offered a simple explanation.\u00a0<\/p>\n
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\u201cA football,\u201d he said, \u201cis not a basketball.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
Green\u2019s oldest son, Randy, who lives in Carrollton, fondly remembers that story and a host of others. Among them was his father\u2019s assertion that, on a good day, he could outrun Hayes, his best friend.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cI don\u2019t think that\u2019s true,\u201d Randy said, chuckling.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Growing up under the roof of a Cowboys star had its perks. Also hardships. Only when the Greens set out to buy a house in Dallas in the ’60s did they discover accommodations weren\u2019t available to Black families north of the Trinity.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Green made his home here, nonetheless, remaining in Dallas long after his career as a player and scout with the Cowboys was over and throughout his 27 years in player personnel with the Denver Broncos. Until February, when the family moved him to California to live with his late wife\u2019s sister, he spent his last six years in assisted living.\u00a0<\/p>\n
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His sons, Randy and Ronney, as well as his five grandchildren, will hold a memorial service in Dallas in January to celebrate a life well-lived.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cYou\u2019d never know my father was a football player,\u201d Randy said. \u201cHe stayed away from the limelight. His friends feel he should be in the Ring of Honor and Hall of Fame. But my dad sat me and my brother down once and said, ‘Listen, I\u2019m not going to go out there and politic for this. If I don\u2019t get in on my own merits, I\u2019m good with that.’\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cWe felt like he should be in. Especially the Ring of Honor.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
Especially given everything he did for the Cowboys and all the outside-the-box notions his success sanctioned afterward. None was ever so unlikely as the first.\u00a0<\/p>\n
One last story about that: His first three days in training camp, he showed signs that he got what they were teaching. But where was the speed Brandt boasted about? So they asked Green straight up. He explained he couldn\u2019t run because of an irritation caused by his hip pads. A subsequent investigation revealed the basketball player had them on backwards. He straightened out things soon enough. \u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Safety Cornell Green (34) of the Dallas Cowboys tackles running back Norm Bulaich (36) of the Baltimore Colts…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":1033645,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2066],"tags":[230,229,257,2461,7,6,115985,128195],"class_list":["post-1033644","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-dallas-cowboys","tag-cowboys","tag-dallas","tag-dallas-cowboys","tag-dallascowboys","tag-football","tag-nfl","tag-tp-dallas-cowboys","tag-tp-obituaries"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nfl\/117481954617338622","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1033644","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1033644"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1033644\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1033645"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1033644"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1033644"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1033644"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}