Lee Roy Jordan: My Story of Faith, Family and Football

Crimson Tide and Cowboys great, Lee Roy Jordan tells his life story of faith, family and football in his autobiography Lee Roy.

Growing up in the small farming community of Excel, Alabama, Jordan started working before he ever attended school, helping in the fields. His family’s work ethic and unyielding Christian beliefs ingrained in Jordan a will to succeed without forgetting the core values of his formative years.

When he was in junior high, he was watching a high school football practice, but the Excel team only had 21 players, so the coach asked Lee Roy if he would stand in where a safety was supposed to be defense.

Even though he didn’t have on a uniform much less a helmet, he instinctively tackled a running back when he broke open. It would be the first of many during his remarkable career at Excel, the University of Alabama and the Dallas Cowboys.

In his memoirs, Lee Roy recounts his recruitment to play for Coach Paul “Bear” Bryant, becoming the heart and soul of a defense that dominated college football in the early 1960s and winning a national title in 1961.

Voted the team captain in 1962, Jordan finished his Alabama career with a record 31 tackles against Oklahoma in the Orange Bowl, a game in which he called the coin toss by President John F. Kennedy.

President Kennedy would be one of many legendary figures who Jordan would meet during his football years, including his two childhood idols Elvis Presley and John Wayne.

Drafted in the first round by the Dallas Cowboys, Jordan would go on to play 14 years with the Cowboys, becoming the defensive captain and the undisputed leader of the Doomsday Defense.

During his career, he recounts rooming with Don Meredith and Roger Staubach, playing in the Ice Bowl in Green Bay, helping Dallas overcome the nickname “Choke Boys” and starring in three Super Bowls.

Besides talking about his relationship with his teammates and coaches, Lee Roy talks about how his strong faith in God helped him through difficult times and helped him permanently bond with his wife Biddie and their three children.

A number of Lee Roy’s closest friends, including Joe Namath, Roger Staubach, Bob Lilly, Randy White, Rayfield Wright, Cornell Green, Gil Brandt, Gene Stallings, and Verne Lundquist took time to tell their own memories of their times with Jordan.

Lilly summed up their feelings about Jordan, saying, “If I went to war, I’d want Lee Roy to be my general.”

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