The only Viet to ever play or coach in the NFL will not come back as part of the Dallas Cowboys’ coaching staff next season, reports the Dallas Morning News here.
Dat Nguyen has elected not to sign a contract extension after serving as the team’s assistant linebacker/defensive assistant from 2007-2009.
He was not in Fort Lauderdale as the team was getting ready for the Pro Bowl on Sunday. Earlier in the day, the team’s owner Jerry Johnson had offered all assistants the same extension to 2011 that he had agreed with head coach Wade Phillips.
In a later story here, the Morning News reports that Nguyen left to find an opportunity to move up to linebacker coach. The paper quotes coach Phillips: “He just felt like he couldn’t move up the way he wanted to with us. He wants to coach linebackers himself.”
Which makes sense. The current linebacker coach Reggie Herring is doing just fine, and Nguyen is not getting that job any time soon if he’s staying with the Cowboys.
A former standout at Texas A&M, , where he led the Aggies in tackles for four straight seasons, Dat was drafted by the Cowboys in the third round in 1999. He played for 7 years before knee and neck injuries forced him to retire in 2005.
The Morning News is speculating that Nguyen may be heading to Buffalo.
Represent, brada Dat!
Good luck Dat!
May be he sees no future in the Cowboy Dallas who is also known as the choke-team. LOL
On my visit to New Orleans in 1988, a friend of mine, who was the Saints’ fan, told me that one the Saints football player at that time was African-Vietnamese.
My friend told me that his father was a black soldier in VN who met his Vietnamese wife over there.
Anyone hear of the same thing ? I searched the Net for “Afro-Asian football players” and saw a few Black-Korean, or Black-Japanese but didn’t see any listed as Black-VNmese.
word is he’s going to coach at usc!
Viets have some of best gangsta-gangsta names:
Loc
Dat
Thang
Ho
…and best of all, they don’t Americanize it. Keep it real…