May 21st, 2009 
Patrick Sells 
Posted in 
Just nine days after being released from the hospital Joe DeCamillis was back at practice with the Cowboys. Expectations were that DeCamillis would be out at least six weeks after suffering a neck injury during the collapse of the Cowboys practice facility that weather experts blame on a Micro-Burst.
Before the injury, DeCamillis had been the talk of the rookie mini-camp, due to his high energy and vocal leadership. And after his surgery it seemed that “coach D” was back to his normal self. Okay, so maybe he wasn’t exactly the same, but if you add a neck brace and a tender walk, and replace his yelling with words spoken into a bull horn than there was no difference.
DeCamillis has shown right away that he could be the vocal leader amongst the coaching staff, as opposed to soft spoken coaches Wade Phillips and Jason Garrett.
He provides the kind of energy and excitement that players can feed off of and take onto the field. And now it seems as if he may be taking it another step, and providing the motivation to persevere through any struggles that the team may face.
Although it is unusual for leadership and inspiration to come from a special teams coach, at this point it doesn’t matter where it comes from for the Cowboys, but rather that they have it.
This is a great story about Coach D. He just gets out of the hospital and he is right back to doing his job and what he loves. If the Cowboys are ever going to play up to their expecations they need leaders like this in their organization.