Robert Newhouse, a hard-working running back for the Dallas Cowboys who played in three Super Bowls and helped win one of them not just with his legs but also with his arm — throwing a game-clinching touchdown pass against the Denver Broncos in 1978 — died on Tuesday in Rochester, Minn. He was 64.
The cause was complications of heart disease, the Cowboys said.
Newhouse played 12 seasons in the National Football League, all of them for the Cowboys under Tom Landry. Selected by Dallas in the second round of the 1972 draft out of the University of Houston, he soon became essential for the Cowboys, playing mostly as a fullback expected to grind out three or four yards. He was quick and strong, propelled by thighs once measured at 44 inches around. In 1975 he led the team in rushing, with 930 yards, and was ninth in the league at 4.4 yards per carry.
Newhouse’s fortunes began changing in the late 1970s with the emergence of Tony Dorsett, the Cowboys’ top pick in the 1977 draft. Over the next few seasons, Newhouse became more of a blocker than a runner, opening holes for the speedy and dazzling Dorsett. He did not start a game after 1980.
Newhouse may be most remembered for making a spectacular play that would not be expected of a fullback. In the Super Bowl in 1978, Dallas was leading by 20-10 with seven minutes remaining when it recovered a Denver fumble in Denver territory. Landry, sensing that his opponent was rattled, called a trick play the Cowboys had been practicing all week: brown right, X-opposite shift, toss 38, halfback lead, fullback pass to Y.
The ball was on the Denver 29-yard line. Newhouse was nervous in the huddle.
“I was worried because I had all this stickum on my hands,” he told The Dallas Morning News in 1978, referring to the sticky substance that was often used to help players catch the ball but is now banned. “So Preston Pearson handed me this rag, and I was in there” — the huddle — “scrubbing it all. They’d seen us run the play right but not to the left and so didn’t recognize it in time.”
When the ball was snapped, Newhouse took a pitch from quarterback Roger Staubach and began moving to the left, as if he would try to run up the sideline. Instead, he stopped suddenly, turning and throwing back to his right. Wide receiver Golden Richards caught the ball over the outstretched hand of Broncos defensive back Steve Foley for a 29-yard score that secured the Cowboys’ 27-10 win, their second Super Bowl victory.
Newhouse’s pass play, Landry said later, “won it for us.”
Robert Fulton Newhouse was born on Jan. 9, 1950, in Longview, Tex. He played at Galilee High School, in Hallsville, before accepting a scholarship to Houston. He holds the university’s single-season rushing record (1,757 yards).
His survivors include his wife, Nancy; twin daughters, Dawnyel and Shawntel; and two sons, Reggie, a former receiver for the Arizona Cardinals, and Roderick.
Newhouse retired from the Cowboys before the 1984 season, finishing his career with 4,784 rushing yards and 31 rushing touchdowns. He continued to work for the team for many years, including a period as director of alumni relations and player programs.
“If we needed three yards for a first down, we knew we had it,” John Niland, a former Cowboys guard, told The Dallas Morning News. “Give Robert the ball, and we had it. We’d block a yard and a half, and he’d get the other yard and a half on his own. It was a given.”
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