DALLAS — John Niland, a three-time All-Pro guard who helped the Dallas Cowboys win their first Super Bowl championship, has died. He was 82.
Niland’s daughter, Haven, said he died Saturday morning in McKinney, a Dallas suburb.
“He was the best dad,” Haven told the Dallas Morning News. “He was so wonderful. I mean, he was really bigger than life. He taught me so many amazing things. I was talking to my sister [Saturday]. He taught me nothing is that serious. The things that really matter are family and your faith and just being kind to other people. I think that’s really exemplified.”
Niland made 111 starts in 124 games over nine seasons with Dallas. He played for Philadelphia for one year before retiring after the 1975 season.
Niland made the Pro Bowl for six straight years from 1968 to 1973. He was a first-team All-Pro selection in 1969, 1971 and 1972.
He helped protect Roger Staubach when Dallas beat the Miami Dolphins 24-3 in the Super Bowl on Jan. 16, 1972.
Niland, a Massachusetts native, starred at Iowa before he was taken by the Cowboys with the fifth overall selection in the 1966 draft. He was inducted into the Hawkeyes’ Athletics Hall of Fame in 2006.
Niland dealt with a number of health issues after his retirement, including dementia and mouth cancers, according to the Dallas Morning News.
Niland’s family plans to donate his brain to Boston University’s CTE Center to help further research into the football-linked disease.
“I can’t remember a time when it didn’t impact our life,” Haven told the Morning News. “It was a continuous discussion of dad’s got doctor’s appointments. He had a double knee replacement, and then later a double shoulder replacement, which led to staph in his spine.
“So his body was beat up and bruised and he broke his nose six times. We were always talking about it. We experienced a lot of hardships as a family. He was often confused later in life or angry for reasons he didn’t understand. We knew it was the CTE. We know it. We don’t need a test to tell us, but we know that he was. He knew himself he was so heavily impacted by that.”
He is survived by Shaughn, his wife of more than 30 years, and daughters, Jordan and Haven.
