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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.”

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Sa Thi Nguyen, the grandmother of former Dallas Cowboys star Dat Nguyen, turned 100 on December 28 and had a celebration with her family, reports the Corpus Christi Caller-Times here.

Dat Nguyen, born in Fort Chaffee, Arkansas a few months after his family landed in the U.S. in 1975, is the first Vietnamese American to play pro football. After a stellar career at Texas A&M where he won the Lombardi award and led the Aggies to a Cotton Bowl championship (back when there was no BCS and the Cotton was a powerhouse bowl), he played middle linebacker for the Cowboys for five seasons. Dat Nguyen is now their assistant linebacker coach.

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The Dallas Morning News yesterday ran this interesting story about Dat Nguyen (pictured from his days as player) in his job as the assistant linebackers coach, a job that requires him to be teach the more experienced and very successful Zach Thomas what to do.

The situation is something of a role reversal.

Excerpts:
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