Jimmy Johnson, 76, a former Super Bowl champion coach of Dallas Cowboys, was probably watching the game Sunday. He was tearing up when he received the news that he had been elected to the Pro Football Hall of Fame. You should also know that Johnson won the national championship at Arkansas as a player and at Miami as a coach on his way into the College Football Hall of Fame. Jimmy Johnson is, in other words, accomplished. What you may not know is that Johnson spent a year coaching at Picayune High School in Mississippi early in his career. It was 1966, and Johnson had a bizarre line on his otherwise stellar coaching resume. A coaching resume that boasts a perfect 12-0 record in Miami and a perfect 13-3 record in Dallas also contains a Picayune record of a perfectly imperfect 0.10 record. Johnson was a one-year graduate of Arkansas, where his career as a star nose guard was exemplary. Johnson had his sights set on college coaching. Picayune, then? Johnson thought he had a job at Florida State, but it was cancelled at the last moment. Johnson and his wife were parents to one child, and another was on the way. Johnson desperately needed a job. Johnny Majors, an assistant coach at Arkansas helped him get a job at Picayune. Picayune was a small school that played in the Big Eight Conference. Picayune was 0-10 for two consecutive seasons, and Johnson would return for a third. Picayune’s football existence at that time seemed to have been to provide homecoming fodder to the likes of Biloxi and Gulfport. Picayune’s Maroon Tide was so bad that the school’s annual didn’t even record football scores. Derwin Bales, a junior defensive linebacker who was probably the best player of that 1966 Picayune team said, “It wasn’t unusual for us to beat 40-something, 50-something, or nothing.” Johnson was voted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame on Sunday. We were all watching. Bales stated that Johnson got quite emotional. He must have felt that it meant a lot. Picayune was the only place I saw him behave like that. He wasn’t teary-eyed back then. Johnson was “just mad.” Bales stated that Johnson had his hair styled in a “flattop” back then. Bales stated that Johnson didn’t have long hair back then, and that he didn’t use hairspray. Bales stated that Bales was “just real hands-on and real fired up all the time.” He was a great coach. He didn’t have much coaching experience. Frank Skipper, the Picayune’s head coach at that time, was able to run backwards faster than most of us. Picayune’s other assistant was Buck Kennedy. He would go on to be a Mississippi High School Coaches Hall of Famer. Although Kennedy and Skipper have both died, they still remember Johnson when they spoke about the Cowboys’ win in 1993. Skipper stated that Jimmy coached our defense. He had a saying that he used all the times back then. He would repeat it 1,000 times if he said it just once. Johnson would say it, “That’s the worst thing I’ve ever heard.” Johnson had many chances to repeat it during that 1966 season. Kennedy, later to become a legend as Noxapater’s head coach, remembers Johnson as being years ahead of his time in high school as an assistant coach. Johnson said that Johnson would spend hours watching film to prepare for a game, and then make an index-card file listing the offensive tendencies of his opponent. The same thing is done by coaches now using computers. Kennedy stated, “Jimmy knew exactly what they were running, depending on down and distance as well as where they were on field.” “Didn’t matter. They couldn’t be stopped.” Kennedy stated, “Jimmy was in the office watching film when we arrived and he was still doing the same thing the night we left. Johnson was not happy with the level of effort that the team’s largest player was putting forth. Bales is still able to recall the incident. Bales stated that Coach Johnson didn’t have any pads or a helmet on, but he sat down in a lineman’s position and ordered the big man to fire at him. “Well, Coach Johnson hit him with the helmet and gave him a forearm shiver. He was knocked out cold. It was cold. Johnson was probably not with the Cowboys. Johnson took a job at Wichita State as an assistant after the 1966 Picayune season. He went on to Iowa State, Oklahoma, and finally to Hollywood.