The number of U.S. senators with a past history of working with Jimmy Johnson could double this month. Johnson, the long-time NFL and NCAA coach turned Fox NFL Sunday analyst (from 1994 to 1995, and again since 2000), was the Miami Hurricanes‘ head coach from 1984-88, and current U.S. senator Tommy Tuberville (R-Alabama) was an assistant for him for the last three years of that tenure. And now, Tuesday’s election will determine if controversial current candidate Herschel Walker (R-Georgia) will join Tuberville in the Senate, and Johnson and others who worked with Walker with the Dallas Cowboys offered some thoughts on that to Jarrett Bell of USA Today Sports:
Did former Cowboys coach and Hall of Famer Jimmy Johnson see a potential U.S. senator in his midst during Herschel Walker's time in Dallas?
Johnson laughed.
“Absolutely not,” he said. “It’s something else.” https://t.co/hcOME1SzSE
— USA TODAY Sports (@usatodaysports) November 5, 2022
Johnson (seen above during Fox Sports’ Super Bowl media day in 2020) left the Hurricanes to take over as head coach of the Cowboys in 1989. One of his biggest moves there was trading star running back Walker to the Minnesota Vikings in October 1989 in the largest deal in NFL history (which wound up including 18 players and draft picks). Johnson told Bell Walker seems okay with him despite that move, though, and they’ve been cordial to each other recently. But Johnson also had quite the thoughts on Tuberville and Walker potentially being in the Senate together:
“I actually saw him a few months ago for the first time since the trade,” Johnson said. The two shared a stage as speakers at a trade show in Dallas in February. “He was very complimentary. He said if he ever started a football team, the first person he’d hire would be Jimmy Johnson. Evidently, there’s no hard feelings.”
Did you see a potential senator in your midst during Walker’s stint with the Cowboys?
Johnson laughed at the question.
“Absolutely not,” Johnson said. “It’s something else. Tommy Tuberville was an assistant for me. Now Herschel is running. I don’t know what the requirements are. Some of the people we have in there …”
The perspectives in that piece on Walker’s Senate run vary. Some former teammates are very supportive of Walker’s run for office despite their own differing political views. Some say they keep in touch with him, but only under agreements not to talk politics. And some are outright opposed to Walker’s run. But the largest overlap is from those, including Johnson, who seem somewhat stunned that this is where he’s wound up.
[USA Today; photo from Jasen Vinlove/USA Today Sports]
