FRISCO, Texas – When you have been here for 25 years, you have seen a lot and met a lot of people, some still here, some who have moved on.
Made a habit of collecting these funeral memorial handouts over the years, attaching many of them to the walls of my cube. Ones for Larry Lacewell, Bob Ward, Phil Whitfield, Marylyn Love, Gil Brandt, Wade Wilson, Marshawn Kneeland. Others tucked away in folders like Joe Avezzano, Wade Livingston, John Weber, Pat Summerall, Murphy Martin, Dr. Pepe Zamarano, Bill Hitt and Frank Luksa, just to name a few.
But this next one adding to my collection is personal. Real personal, the guy starting his career with the Dallas Cowboys organization about the same time as me. He wasn't a player or a coach. Wasn't an executive. Wasn't a media colleague.
He was a bus driver. The bus driver. Maybe the most popular bus driver ever in the nation, and that is no hyperbole. He was the Dallas Cowboys bus driver. My bus driver as I liked to call him.
Emory Charleston Tyler, born Oct. 7, 1956, passed away on Jan. 17, 2026. But 69 years old. His wake was held this past Wednesday at Peaceful Rest Funeral Home in South Dallas. His funeral church service was Thursday at a small, out of the way Sure Foundation Baptist Church on the southeastern edge of Dallas. Never would have found it without Google Maps.
Maybe 75 people were in attendance, a mere fraction of the thousands of people who knew my man Emory. All those knew him as the Dallas Cowboys bus driver. The majority of those in the church knew him as husband, dad, father-in-law, granddad, brother, uncle and friend. Many a tear was shed. My multiple ones, too, over the past two days.
See, Emory saved my life. His own life. The lives of Cowboys TV department colleagues Foster Naylor and Jacob Walraven. By all accounts, when riding to training camp in Oxnard, Calif., and involved in a fatal crash when the Cowboys bus was knocked off the road by a van failing to yield the right of way 10 years ago this coming July 24, the bus should have turned over and thrown the four of us around like ragdolls. Emory would not allow that.
I digress.
See, Emory and I spent countless hours on the bus together, the majority of those driving cross-country to Cowboys training camps in Oxnard. Once, just the two of us crisscrossed the state of Texas on a roundabout way to training camp in San Antonio, turning what could have been like a four-hour trip into a three-day, two-night drive going through the likes of Mineral Wells, a stop at Fort Hood in Killeen, The Hill Country, the tiny town of Bandera, Laredo, Kingsville, Corpus Christi and finally Austin. You get the idea.
For sure, people along the way recognized the Cowboys custom tour bus, the blue star plastered on the side. But somehow, all new who was driving the bus. Emory. See, Emory spent a 22-year career driving the Jones family around. He drove first-round draft choices from the airport to the Cowboys' facilities. He drove the Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders to appearances. He drove front office executives during training camps out to evening dinners. The bus is omnipresent.
And Emory used to drive solo out to training camps. Until 2008, when Jon Ingham in the TV department came up with this idea of myself and videographer Bill Curruthers riding along to document the trip to California, making stops along the way on the old Route 66 path at the Amarillo 72-ounce steakhouse, to Grants, N.M., to standing on the corner in Winslow, Ariz., to standing on the edge of the Grand Canyon, to spending a night in Las Vegas. Emory driving. Bill shooting. Me writing,
Then after that trip to San Antonio, we expanded our excursion going out west to making stops at Cowboys Pro Shops and cities with Cowboys fan clubs along the way. We made stops to greet fans in cities such as Abilene, Amarillo, Lubbock, Midland, El Paso, Tucson, Phoenix and Los Angeles before ending with touching the Pacific Ocean waters on the shores of Ventura.
Just Emory, myself, Foster, who doubled as Rowdy during the appearances, and Jacob, our camera guy. Just us. And fans knew as much. Just us.
Nevertheless, hundreds would show up at our stops, and at every one Emory was the star of the show. The fans wanted his autograph. He had pictures of himself standing an arm's length from the bus he would sign. At one shopping-mall stop at a new Cowboys Pro Shop in El Paso, we started signing the same items together to save time. A policeman told us they estimated 400 people coming through. Got a picture of Emory and I signing a guy's two $1 bills. Another guy his recently, as of that morning, casted arm. Parents brought little girls dressed as Cowboys cheerleaders along. You name it, we signed it. Rowdy, too, was a hit.
Remember on one of the trips we were pulled over by a sheriff's patrolman just north of Vernon, Texas. Said we were "weaving." In reality, he was just nosy. Wanted to know if there were any players on the bus. Nope, just us. Were there any coaches on the bus? Nope, just us. Was Jerry Jones on the bus? Nope, just us. Cheerleaders? Nope, just us.
Emory was used to such inquisitions. Happened repeatedly. And before I knew it that afternoon, there was Emory, handing out T-shirts, hats and a cheerleader calendar to the patrolman, the middle-aged man asking to have his picture taken with Emory, arm in arm. That was Emory, America's bus driver, a true Cowboys goodwill ambassador. All fun and games.
Until that Sunday afternoon, as I documented back then.
The only four of us on the bus heading to our next appearance with Cowboys fans in Las Vegas on that gosh-awful Sunday, July 24 day, riding up Highway 93 between Kingman, Ariz., and Vegas – eventually told one of the most dangerous highways in America – when the bus got involved in a vicious accident, regrettably claiming the lives of the four people in a minivan that, according to the Arizona Highway Patrol, failed to yield the right of way while trying to cross two lanes of the highway and onto Pierce Ferry Road, the one that leads to the Grand Canyon.
This all has come flooding back to me, sitting there at the visitation, talking to Emory's son Edward on Wednesday. He knew some of the details his dad told him afterward, but not all of it. Sometimes traumatic events are too hard to recount. I learned that about my dad, who not only landed on Omaha Beach on D-Day II during WWII but was a POW four months in German prison camps. He spared us the details, maybe even to himself, when we were growing up.
So, I continued late Wednesday afternoon, paraphrasing what I had written three days after of our crash back then:
My memory is sort of foggy, and I hear during such harrowing times like these, maybe for protective purposes, your mind goes blank, that adrenalin soothes the pain. I can tell you my mind skipped like five seconds that day in 2009 when the Cowboys' indoor practice facility fell down on our heads.
Now, I do remember this past Sunday sending out what probably turned out to be my last Tweet of the trip, stating we were 80 miles or so from Vegas, rolling up the Highway 93. I do remember Jacob had just helped me resize a picture that I could include.
And I vividly remember working on my laptop, head down, when I heard Emory scream. I looked up and saw something right in front of us, no time to even brace myself for what seemed like an eternity but probably the worst 10 seconds of my life. The noise was deafening. Jacob told me I flew off the couch, landing prone on my side in the aisle. I knew what had happened, allright, and it was as if a tornado was ripping through the bus.
If this makes sense, I saw, but I could not see. I heard, but I could not hear. I felt, but I could not feel.
I grabbed a hold of the couch I was sitting on right next to the door of the bus, just diagonally behind Emory. I'm always shotgun. Just knew we were going to roll over as the bus careened off the highway and into this ravine. Remember telling myself, in not such flattering words that very well could have been my last thoughts, "When we roll over I am NOT going to get thrown out of this &@$#+ bus (uh, darn it)."*
Fearing the worst, I was ready to hear the eerie screech of sliding medal against the ground and more glass breaking. But suddenly all went quiet. The bus stopped. Still standing. Heard Emory say, "Mickey, I'm hurt." Badly bruised shin. Tiny cuts up and down his arms. Looked at Jacob. He was squatting down next to me, shook up but OK. Screamed to the back to Foster. He was on one of those captain chairs, debris all over in front of him. Good to go. Me, after taking a brief inventory of these aging bones, seemingly OK, too.
We scrambled off the bus, not really knowing exactly what had happened but running toward the vehicle on its side – I think. Mangled so badly, you couldn't really tell if that was the case. Not the type, not even the color. This, though, was evident: There was nothing more we could do.
What I'll never forget as long as I grace this earth, especially after all the bad that's been happening in the world, in our country and most recently in our city of Dallas, I mean, all the bad things caused by badly troubled people with guns, is this:
All these cars were stopping along the roadside. People probably on vacations or returning from vacations. They came running out of their cars. They were running into the ravine to help. They brought bottles of water from their coolers. They brought the comforting faces of concern. They even brought hugs. Good people, not abandoning their fellow man in time of need.
And then this, striking me when I saw where the intersection to Pierce Ferry Road was. Where what turned out to be a minivan with four people ended up. And where the bus stood, some 40 yards or so from the minivan.
My man Emory saved our lives.
With the windshield on my side of the bus blown out from the terrible impact. With the windshield in front of Emory cracked to pieces, and I do remember pieces of glass flying all over, including in his face. With his side window blown out all over him.
Emory steered the bus back parallel to the road, away from the 30-some-yard long Ferrellgas propane tank directly in front of us, no more than like 50 yards or so from the side of the road. Steered the Cowboys bus right down the middle of this V-shaped ravine loaded with huge chunks of busted up asphalt. Composed and remembering his training, he gently nudged the bus 45 degrees to his left, no panic jerking or slamming on the brakes, just slightly back up the hill where that huge sucker came to a halt.
We were still standing, the engine still running, the four of us basically unharmed.
Amazing. No, miraculous. No, a word I'm incapable of.
Emory, our dear friend all these years, is our hero, and we didn't mind hugging andkissing him later that night. He did, without a doubt, save our lives. That's all four of us, when regrettably for a professional driver there was absolutely nothing he could do to save those other four I'm most sadden to say. The Highway Patrolmen told him repeatedly there was nothing more he could have done. Emory, just hope you're listening.
Wished there could have been some medal of honor bestowed upon Emory more than my written words. More than the times ever since we all continued to tell him … to thank him for a job well done.
In the aftermath that night after we were picked up in the early evening in, heck, the desert heat alongside that road and transported the rest of the way to Vegas, Emory was going to spend the night in a hotel room and fly back to Dallas the next day. We were going to be driven to Oxnard overnight. But I didn't want to abandon a distraught Emory in the hotel room by himself. I offered to stay with him, sleep on the floor and fly to LAX the next day. He would have none of it. We argued. I insisted. He resisted.
Then he looked me squarely in the eye, we couldn't have been but a couple of feet apart, and told me these most memorable words that I remember almost verbatim all these years later, trying to convince me he was OK:
"Mickey, my responsibility to my passengers is to deliver them safely to their destination. And I did my job."
Sure did. I give. End of argument. We hugged. We kissed, I don't mind telling you. We departed. Emory spent the night in that hotel room and headed back to Dallas the next day.
Emory continued to drive afterward, though took some time to jump back in the saddle, despite insisting he was going to retire. He finally did so about two years ago. The Jones family graciously and respectfully threw him a party up in the Cowboys Club for his family and friendsto celebrate his career. Fortunately, I made his "friends" list. He was dressed to the nines. He was beaming. Foster was teaching school back then. He couldn't make it as he did Thursday, dropping a work commitment to join me at the church. So that night we got Foster on the phone to join the celebration best he could. Emory reveled in the gesture.
That night upstairs, darn right we hugged again. Hugged My Driver, eternally grateful to him for making this column possible today.
Hope you're still listening.
