Irvin Gives Cowboys New Life

The way Nate Newton was telling the story, he couldn’t wait to greet Michael Irvin in the Dallas Cowboys’ locker room last week.

“When I saw Mike, I walked over and hugged him,” Newton said. “Then I told him, ‘You helped us dig this hole we’re in. Now you have to help dig us out.’

“He said, ‘I know I messed up by not being there for you guys.’ We started crying, got a Kleenex and everything was all right.”

So, was this the new, more humble Irvin?

“No,” Newton said. “He was flashy about it. It was a gold Kleenex.”

Nobody expected Irvin to be a changed man because of his off-season ordeal, and he wasn’t.

“He’s the same flamboyant, loving guy. He’s not going to change that,” quarterback Troy Aikman said.

The NFL suspended Irvin for the first five regular-season games as a result of his no-contest plea to a felony cocaine possession charge in July. When the suspension ended Monday night at the conclusion of the Cowboys’ victory over the Philadelphia Eagles, he wasted no time returning to the team’s Valley Ranch.

“I was over here as soon as the game ended,” Irvin said. “I listened to the last bit of it on the radio right up the street. When the gun sounded, I was pulling up a few seconds after that. I got a chance to sit at my locker once again. I even read everybody’s notes in their lockers. I was kind of being nosy, but I wanted to know what was going on around here.

“Then I went out and did some running on the soft grass. The grass I’ve been running on at these high schools - and I appreciate all of them - has been like running on turf. It felt good to be working.”

When he met with reporters in the players’ parking lot Thursday after his first practice, he was somber but happy to be back.

“No doubt the guys were happy to see me,” he said. “I was more happy to see them. We did some laughing and joking, but the great thing about this team is that we aren’t pointing any fingers at anybody and we aren’t putting the blame on anybody.

“We have a nice challenge ahead of us, but the great thing about this team is that we have an opportunity to do something that’s never been done before in the history of the game (win four Super Bowls in five years).”

There’s no doubt that the Cowboys are a special and complex team.

Nobody on the team is more complex than Irvin. In the off-season, he became a symbol of everything that’s wrong with today’s athletes.

His memorable comment to police when they arrived at the hotel door where he allegedly was having a drug party - “Do you know who I am?” - summed up the attitude of today’s athletes that they can get away with anything. The rules of society don’t apply to them.

The Dallas legal system showed Irvin that some of the rules do apply to him, sentencing him to 800 hours of community service. Bam Morris, who reports to the Baltimore Ravens’ headquarters Monday, got only 200, and he was found with 6 pounds of marijuana.

Yet there’s another side to Irvin. When Sterling Sharpe departed the Green Bay Packers with a career-ending injury, quarterback Brett Favre all but said the team was better off without him.

Aikman, on the other hand, is fond of Irvin, the man they call “The Playmaker.”

“Michael is a loving and caring guy that I have grown to care for myself,” Aikman said.

With Irvin back on the field, the 2-3 Cowboys are genuine Super Bowl threats again.

But life on the field was never a problem for Irvin. It’s off the field that’s a challenge for him.

He will be tested for drugs three times a week and, if he tests positive, he not only will be suspended again, but he also could be heading to jail.