The 1991 season proved to be Irvin's break-out year. The following year the team started off 6-5 before winning the last five games of the season and earning a spot in the playoffs. Returning to play in the fifth game of the 1990 season, Irvin led the team in yards-per-carry, but the Cowboys still finished with a losing record of 7-9. Irvin, who tore an anterior cruciate ligament in his left knee in the sixth game of the 1989 season, missed the remainder of the season.
In his second year, Irvin was reunited with his college coach when the Cowboys' new owner, Jerry Jones, fired long-time coach Tom Landry and hired Jimmy Johnson. He used his $1.8 million contract to buy his mother a four-bedroom house with a swimming pool in Fort Lauderdale and supplied her with the first credit card she had ever carried. Despite Irvin's reputation as an egomaniacal trash talker who was potentially trouble off the field, Dallas was desperate for an influx of fresh talent.Īs a rookie Irvin became the team's starting wide receiver. The Cowboys had been struggling, finishing the previous season just 3-13.
He was selected as the eleventh overall pick in the 1988 NFL draft by the Dallas Cowboys. But Johnson and the Miami coaching staff gave Irvin a wide berth, knowing his background and correctly assuming that his ability and enthusiasm could lead the team to a national championship.ĭuring his three years as a starting receiver for the University of Miami, Irvin, who had become known by the nickname "Playmaker," set Miami records for most career catches (143), receiving yards (2423), and touchdown receptions (26). As Irvin began receiving attention for his outstanding athletic abilities, he also began being noticed for his mouth and his ego. Staying close to home, Irvin attended the University of Miami, playing for the Hurricanes under head coach Jimmy Johnson. However, his senior year was marred by the death of his beloved father from cancer. His football team went undefeated and won the state championship when he was a senior. Irvin lettered in football and basketball at St. Thomas but would be required to sit out of athletics his junior year because Piper had refused to sign a waiver allowing him to participate. A court ruling determined that Irvin could attend St. Piper High, which didn't want to lose the school's star athlete, protested the transfer. Thomas Aquinas, a private Catholic school. After he was suspended at the end of his sophomore year at Piper High School, his father decided his son needed a more positive environment and in 1982 enrolled He began hanging out with a rough crowd and, by his own admission, made some poor choices. By the time he was a teenager, he was determined to make things better for both himself and his family. When there was nothing else, he would eat mayonnaise or ketchup sandwiches.Ĭhristmases often passed with no presents, and Irvin dreamed of an easier life. He would often wait until everyone went to sleep and then sneak into the kitchen to polish off a whole box of cereal, usually softened with tap water as milk was often not to be found in the refrigerator. With little food in the house, Irvin would scheme to fill his rumbling stomach. Irvin's main problem as a growing boy was getting enough to eat. Irvin's family was poor, and he was often without shoes that fit, but his father refused to allow his children to complain.
Irvin's mother took care of the house full of children. Irvin's father was a hardworking roofer who worked long hours six days a week. Still, Irvin never had his own bed until he went to college. Irvin's house on 27th Avenue in Fort Lauderdale only had two bedrooms until his father converted the porch and the garage into extra living space. His father brought two children from a previous marriage and his mother had six together they added nine more. He was the fifteenth of seventeen children. Michael Irvin was born on March 5, 1966, in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, to Walter and Pearl Irvin. His is a see-saw story of rising fame, falling from grace, and searching for redemption. Flashy both on and off the field, Irvin, often weighed down with diamonds and gold, led a free-for-all life of drugs and sex that resulted in his arrest on cocaine possession in 1996. Blessed with lightening speed and soft hands, he helped lead the Cowboys to three Super Bowl titles in a four-year span. During his twelve-year career as a wide receiver for the Dallas Cowboys, Michael Irvin was one of the National Football League's (NFL) most flamboyant players.