Cowboys' flight makes emergency landing

[Kansas State 2000]

CHARLOTTE, N.C. - This Dallas Cowboys' season, filled with the strangest twists and turns, and we're not even halfway through, took the most erratic U-turn yet here early Monday morning.

 

See, this should have been all about the frivolity following the Cowboys' 35-14 victory over the Carolina Panthers on a cool Sunday night at Bank of America Stadium in Charlotte, N.C.

 

This should have been all about young Tony Romo's NFL coming out party, how the 26-year-old quarterback in his first NFL start completed 24 of 36 passes for 270 yards, one touchdown, one two-point conversion completion and one interception.

 

This should have been about the Cowboys maybe - maybe now - finally finding that young quarterback to march into the future, and even me saying I just could be wrong about the young quarterback who is darn tired of reading he was an undrafted player from Division I-AA Eastern Illinois University who last started a regulation football game against Western Illinois University.

 

This should have been about a defense, much maligned after that disheartening and sickening 36-22 loss to the New York Giants last Monday night, about how this unit stonewalled the Panthers, holding them to but 204 yards, all-everything wide receiver Steve Smith to just 55 receiving yards and Keyshawn Johnson to just one catch, not to mention quarterback Jake Delhomme to just 149 yards passing.

 

This should have been how the Cowboys "hadn't been having a lot of fun around here," as Cowboys head coach Bill Parcells said after his club inched above .500 to 4-3 and into second place in the NFC East, just one game behind the New York Giants (5-2), but bounded off the field slapping high-fives and, of all things, the head coaching kissing guys on the cheek.

 

And you know on the charter flight home, with a little more chatter than the norm, the players played a prank on wide receivers coach Todd Haley, who has been in the news the past couple of days for filing suit against McDonalds after his wife found a roof rat in her salad. The guys - Terence Newman, Mike Vanderjagt, Terrell Owens - escorted a meal tray up to first class for Haley with a couple of McDonalds' bags and a faux salad, complete with a couple of plastic mice sticking out of the bags and one laying in the salad.

 

But somehow, the very life that seemed pumped into this team after the victory got in the way. The Cowboys' American Airlines charter flight, an hour after takeoff from Charlotte, N.C., had to make an emergency landing here in Nashville, Tenn., at 1:30 a.m. (CST) Monday because of apparent heart problems suffered by Tony Ollison, the team's assistant strength and conditioning coach.

 

Ollison was taken to Southern Hills Medical Center here, and was to be hospitalized at least on overnight. Ollison's heart rate had stabilized and his pulse was closer to normal as the team's medical staff, with the help of the American Airlines flight crew, assisted him off the plane. Cowboys trainer Jim Maurer said the medical staff had not determined if Ollison had suffered a heart attack.

 

Accompanying Ollison to Southern Hills was Dr. Robert Fowler, one of the team physicians who travels with the team, along with Blair Prince, assistant strength and conditioning coach.

 

The Cowboys' charter remained on the ground 1 hour, 45 minutes, having to refuel and not departing again until 3:15 a.m., ironically the time the flight was originally scheduled to land back at DFW International Airport.

 

The flight eventually landed at 4:55 a.m., but fortunately Parcells already had given the players Monday off, telling them they did not have to report back to The Ranch until Wednesday when preparation will begin for next Sunday's game at Washington.

 

Ollison first complained of being ill to one of the flight attendants, his head down in his hands and sweating heavily. Fortunately, the Cowboys have three doctors and three trainers traveling with the team, and they quickly hooked up Ollison with oxygen and then applied an AED (Automatic External Difibulator) to monitor his heart that would have applied shock treatment if needed.

 

The mood on the flight immediately changed, especially seeing a man of Ollison's size - probably in the range of 6-5, 270 pounds - stretched out on the three seats across the aisle from me, knees up, shirt unbuttoned and the doctors working to stabilize his heart rate that had dropped significantly.

 

The young players sitting in the rows immediately behind watched in stunned silence, but if eyes can scream, they were doing so with concern.

 

This was real. This was serious, far more serious than this disturbingly frustrating roller-coaster ride the year has been just eight weeks into the season.

 

At the time, not knowing how this was going to turn out, suddenly the problems the Cowboys' offensive line had been having seemed trivial. Suddenly the five 40-plus-yard plays this defense had given up in losses to Philadelphia and the Giants were a mere raindrop.

 

And the quarterback change which would have dominated our discussion Monday, Parcells making the tough decision to go with Romo and bench 14th-year veteran Drew Bledsoe, paled by comparison.

 

While there has been concern with the Cowboys fighting for a win, here lay this man, no more than five feet away from me, struggling. And I had written a few days ago how terrifying it must be for the Cowboys going to Romo, knowing that if he's not the guy at quarterback, then what.

 

Talk about terrifying. You should have been sitting next to me looking across the aisle.

 

About the only comforting thought to race through my mind was that if something like this was going to happen to you, how fortunate for this to happen with a team of doctors and trainers onboard, along with the necessary medical equipment on the plane to deal with such an emergency.

 

This is not the first time a Cowboys charter flight returning from a road game has made an emergency landing for medical reasons. As I remember, in the late 1980's, just before Jerry Jones bought the team, Cowboys minority owner Ed Smith of Houston suffered heart problems returning from a game against the Washington Redskins, and the team charter was forced to land in Philadelphia, where Smith was taken to a hospital. He returned home soon afterward.

 

Somehow this all overshadowed what should have been. Not more than two hours earlier, Jones was doing his best to temper his reactions to Romo's performance. But that must have been hard.

 

After all, the Cowboys got off to the worst start possible, and not just because they fell behind 14-0 by the end of the first quarter. Once again they were missing toes from having shot themselves in the foot so much over their first three possessions, a conglomeration of a chop block, sack, 48-yard field goal banging off the right upright, a hold and a lost instant replay challenge costing them nearly 50 total yards.

 

At the time, maybe even the season, especially if they had lost this game and fallen to 3-4 with two more road games up next.

 

How bad would this have been if Romo didn't give the Cowboys what Parcells was looking for when he decided this team just needed some sort of spark.

 

Now this was just one game, just one performance. But the least anyone can say is, maybe this is a start.

 

Jones measured his comments afterward. He talked of Romo's instincts, saying, "He just played beyond my expectations."

 

The scary thing about Romo making his first start nearly 3½ seasons into his NFL career was not that he wouldn't make plays, but that he would not control those impulse throws that have dotted his preseason performances and then again the second half against the Giants when he was intercepted three times.

 

"I don't think that one game says a lot," Jones said, "other than everybody can see for their own eyes his instincts, and we have won a big game now. That's a long way from where we were with (Troy) Aikman, but that's a step."

 

A much needed one in the right direction, no matter how tempered this all became in the end.

[jetsfan]

Does this guy get paid by the word?