John Rhodes’ favorite memory of the Cowboys-Vikings playoff game that he shot for The Dallas Morning News in 1975 wasn’t the “Hail Mary” play or the unfettered access or the image of a whiskey bottle somersaulting through the air before plunking a referee on the head. And it certainly wasn’t near-freezing temps.
His favorite takeaway?
The picture he broke a rule to take.
On the team plane in those days, photographers were generally barred from shooting players in such a vulnerable element. No telling what you might expose. But Rhodes, then in his third year with The News, had been a classmate of Harvey Martin’s at East Texas State, and he couldn’t resist.
Cowboys
“I had to shoot Harvey with a Viking hat and one of the horns ripped off,” he said.
“Him and Too Tall.”
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Harvey Martin, left, and Ed “Too Tall” Jones happily ham it up with a one-horned Vikings helmet, on the team’s charter flight back to Dallas, after the playoff football game win in the “Hail Mary Pass” game on December 28, 1975.
John F. Rhodes
Once the plane arrived at DFW, Rhodes was stunned by the reception.
“You would have thought they’d already won the Super Bowl,” he said. “We walked down this long corridor of fans.
“Five thousand drunk people.”
Dallas Cowboy tight end Jackie Smith (81) reacts after dropping a pass in the end zone during Super Bowl XIII at the Orange Bowl in Miami on January 21, 1979. This photo won the Hall of Fame Photo Contest in 1979.
John F. Rhodes
Rhodes shot many big-time sporting events in his long tenure at The News, including five Super Bowls and multiple Texas-OU games. He became Bobby Knight’s photographer of choice after an introduction by the Cowboys’ Gil Brandt, a close friend of the then-Texas Tech coach. Rhodes’ shot of a prostrate, rigid Jackie Smith just after he dropped what would have been a touchdown pass from Roger Staubach in the Cowboys’ 35-31 loss to the Steelers in Super Bowl XIII won a Pro Football Hall of Fame contest.
By the way: Staubach hated it, according to Rhodes. Fortunately, Captain America didn’t have a vote.
But the “Hail Mary” game ranks No. 1 on Rhodes’ all-time list of assignments. On the field, he captured Staubach as he released the game-winning throw, then turned and shot just as Drew Pearson caught it. Only it didn’t look right in the negatives.
“Drew had caught it on his hip and rolled his right hand over it,” Rhodes said. “Part of that was why he got into the thing that he pushed off. Nate Wright fell down, Drew took it into the end zone and threw it out of the stadium.
“Everybody was in shock, because we’d never seen anything like it before.”
Rhodes, 75, still shoots high school football games for The News when not babysitting his grandchildren.
Former Dallas Morning News photographer John F. Rhodes ‘feasts’ on a turkey leg after the Thanksgiving Day game between the Dallas Cowboys and Washington Commanders at AT&T Stadium in Arlington, Nov. 23, 2023. This was Rhodes’ last Cowboys game after photographing the team for 50 consecutive years.
Tom Fox / Staff Photographer
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