Wade Old Misery Phillips

When I was in high school, I had an English class where we would compete in contests. This involved dividing the room and asking questions for points. We once named our team “The Camel No Filters,” because we were the brand of choice.
This resulted in the opposing team taking the name “Vous etes les betes stupides.” Obviously, four years of French had taught someone enough to form the sentence “You are stupid animals.” However, since our French courses were more designed to teach us how to count our change at the train station, no one could have known the French words for camel (chameau) or no filter (sans filtre). Scott, a classmate also called Ed Duke, changed our name to “Vous etes les geeks.”
Needless to say, the moniker applied to all. It was an accelerated English course for advanced placement. It was not exactly a bastion of the popular.
This class is where we read The Destructors by Graham Greene. A story which showed me that literature was like art. Sometimes I would get it. Sometimes I would not.

In The Destructors, Greene introduces us to some young teenagers who spend most of their days being good for nothing. We are introduced to four of them by name, T (Trevor), Blackie, Mike, and Summers. The remaining five to nine members are pretty interchangeable. Basically, Blackie is in charge until T shows up. T wants to step up to the next level. The idea for a day activity goes from attempting to ride buses for free to destroying a house from the inside.
The house belongs to an older gentleman with rheumatism named Thomas whose greatest fault is that he offered the boys chocolates on his way home from the store. He also made the mistake of showing the home to T when asked to see the house. This house not only survived the Blitz of London, it was built by Christopher Wren.
So while Thomas, or Old Misery as they call him, goes on holiday, the teens break in and set to what is in modern terms now called a “tear down.” Walls, floors, furniture, staircase, bathroom fixtures, bedding, all destroyed. Then, they turn on the water in the house. The last act is to tie the main support to a truck in a parking lot. When the driver of the truck accelerates, the house collapses.
The story ends with the driver releasing Thomas from the outhouse where he spent the night, courtesy of the teens and laughing at the situation.
This story pretty much ensured I would never read Graham Greene again. It is also proof that just because some committee agreed to put a story in a textbook, you don’t have to make students read garbage. I say this because we were told the theme of this story is that Destruction = Creation. A student in our class announced that he was going to slash our teacher’s tires, break all the windows, and set fire to the interior, just so he could hear our teacher say, “That Jamie is so creative.”

The Dallas Cowboys present this week’s football as literature moment with Wade Phillips playing the role of Old Misery. Wade is cast in this role instead of Jerry because I don’t find it hard to believe that in real life, Wade has offered a football player chocolates out of kindness. Jerry, on the other hand, wouldn’t do anything kind unless he could profit from it.
Playing the role of The Destructors are Keith Brooking, the Cowboys secondary, the Cowboys offense, and David Buehler.

The easiest parallel to make among the destructive is David Buehler as Mike. This is because Mike does some things to the benefit of the group. Just as Buehler executes his one trick and seems to make every tackle on the kicks run out of the end zone, Mike warns them of Thomas’s return and distracts him so he can be trapped in the lavatory. Mike also leaves on occasion, much like Buehler’s ability to make field goals.

In the story, Summers goes from distrusting Old Misery to being the first to recognize T’s leadership and joining the demolition to asking if they hadn’t already done enough. Mike Jenkins thought he had done enough as he watched Johnny Knox sprint pass him on a 3rd and 15. I have news for Mike Jenkins. When players from Abilene Christian University are leaving you in their dust, you need to seriously reevaluate your assessment of your speed. But Orlando Scandrick showed us that he isn’t even Mike Jenkins’s peer, and Mike Hamlin showed he isn’t the peer of most random NFL personnel.

And the role for leader of this debacle is a tie between Keith Brooking and the Cowboys offense. They bear this mantle due to the incredible hype and lack of any substantive return they give you. Actually, Brooking wouldn’t be that bad if he just quieted down. But if you gather a team around you and yell “The stage is set! The lights are on!” you should do something more memorable in a game than be ten yards behind Greg Olsen as he leaves your coverage for an easy touchdown.
The offense is the ultimate destruction. Three headed monsters, first round draft picks, wonderboys, a top 5 tight end, and reformed Backstreet Boy Tony Romo equal turnovers, lack of direction, and an incredible lack of clutch performances. You know what that makes? The antithesis of anything constructive. And it is not creative. It is garbage.