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IRVING – During his second hour as Cowboys coach, Wade Phillips roved a hallway in the team's Valley Ranch complex, giving one-on-one TV interviews.

One inquisitor asked Mr. Phillips how he felt about public sentiment that he is not a sexy hire.

"Well," the 59-year-old coach chuckled, "I don't know if my wife would say that."

Such an exchange almost certainly could not have occurred with Mr. Phillips' predecessor, Bill Parcells.

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Mr. Parcells, with two Super Bowl titles on his résumé, was a sexy hire in 2003, in the marquee-name sense. And he rarely gave individual interviews.

Frankly, most fans could care less whether Mr. Phillips hardly opens his mouth, so long as he returns the Cowboys to their place among the NFL elite.

But it is significant that Mr. Phillips represents an about-face in leadership style. The moment he stepped to the podium as the new coach Thursday, it was as though four years of cold Northern wind had reversed into a warm southerly breeze.

"I don't know anybody who doesn't like Wade Phillips," said former NFL coach Dan Reeves, who employed Mr. Phillips as his defensive coordinator in Denver and Atlanta. "He makes everyone around him comfortable, from the owner right down to the janitor."

That was not the case with the domineering Parcells. He commanded respect and derived fear. He forbade assistant coaches to talk to the media, making him a one-man Politburo, the lone coaching voice emanating from Valley Ranch.

Mr. Phillips is more in the vein of this year's softer-spoken Super Bowl coaches, Indianapolis' Tony Dungy and Chicago's Lovie Smith. Mr. Phillips is regarded as a players' coach, a description that does not make him wince.

JOHN F. RHODES / DMN Dallas is the third head coaching stop for Wade Phillips.

"The old stereotype is that you've got to get in a guy's face to get the most out of him," Mr. Phillips said. "I've always believed that good guys, or nice guys, can finish first."

It could be argued that the public gained more personal insight into Mr. Phillips during his first two hours on the job than it gleaned from Mr. Parcells in four years. Days before last month's playoff loss to Seattle, it was news when Mr. Parcells revealed he had a girlfriend and a "very, very athletic" cat named Cody.

Mr. Phillips' life is like a dog-eared Larry McMurtry novel. He is a Texan. He is Bum's boy. Bum Phillips is a Texas football institution, a coach who climbed from the Class 2A high school level to become a beloved Houston Oilers coach.

Wade played at Port Neches-Groves High School and the University of Houston. He was an assistant coach at Orange High School and, in 1976, began his NFL career by coaching Oilers linebackers under his father.

No, Wade Phillips is not a sexy hire. He is not Cowboys kin like another of Mr. Jones' finalists, former offensive coordinator Norv Turner. Mr. Phillips was the dependable neighbor on the other side of the barbed-wire fence.

"I can't think of any person that has a greater understanding and appreciation for what football means in the state of Texas," Mr. Jones said.

For Laurie Phillips, Wade's wife of 37 years, Thursday's news conference was a poignant, complete-the-circle moment.

She and Wade met at Port Neches-Groves after Bum became coach there in the mid-1960s.

As Wade stood at the podium, Laurie looked across to 83-year-old Bum. Next to Laurie sat son Wes, who recently completed his first season as Baylor's quarterbacks coach.

"Bum has always said, 'You don't go into coaching unless you're positive that you don't want to do anything else,' " she said. "It's always been sort of a joke in our family that, 'Well, he's going into coaching; we thought he had more sense.'

"But in actuality, it's an honor. It's a compliment that Wesley has gone through it, seen it from the inside and out, and still wants to be a coach. He respects what his father does and grandfather did."

Having Bum ahead of them no doubt helped pave paths for Wade and Wes. But they, too, have paid coaching dues.

Dallas is Wade's 12th coaching stop and 17th job. Wes, who played quarterback at Texas-El Paso, worked as a graduate assistant there, then spent two years at West Texas A&M before moving to Baylor.

VERNON BRYANT / DMN New Cowboys head coach Wade Phillips (left) and team owner Jerry Jones toured the locker room Thursday.

"I just couldn't see myself buying a ticket and sitting in the stands," Wes said. "I just had to be involved somehow. I love the game."

Wes paused to watch his father and Mr. Jones walk through the Cowboys locker room, surrounded by photographers.

"When I was a kid, I always said my dad was a great coach. But to be in the profession now and know that it's actually true, it's special."

Bum couldn't help but laugh as Mr. Jones retold a story from Wade's youth.

Wade was the only boy among Bum and Helen Phillips' six children. With his father working long hours and no one else in the house to talk football, Wade passed time at home formulating plays at the kitchen table, using coins as players.

Nickels, dimes and quarters, Mr. Jones told the media.

"I was laughing," Bum said, "because we didn't have nothin' but pennies."

Wade played linebacker at the University of Houston during the late-'60s, including two seasons when Bum served as a Cougars assistant coach under Bill Yeoman.

He was a good athlete with a knack for anticipating what opposing offenses were going to do. But soon after Bum took an assistant coaching position with the San Diego Chargers, Wade realized his aspiration to play in the NFL was a pipe dream.

Before his junior year at Houston, the 220-pound Wade visited the Chargers' training camp and saw 240-pound linebackers who were much faster than him.

Wade worked as a graduate assistant at Houston in 1969, then became defensive coordinator at Orange High, near Houston. In 1973, Wade was hired as linebackers coach at Oklahoma State, not coincidentally where Bum had been the defensive coordinator.

Nor was it fluke when at age 29 Wade found himself coaching Oilers linebackers in 1976. Bum was the head coach.

A year later, Wade moved to defensive line coach, which placed him in charge of standouts such as Elvin Bethea and Curley Culp, both of whom were older than Wade.

One day in training camp, an exhausted Bethea paused during a drill and shouted at Bum, who was up in a coaching tower.

"You ought to be real proud of Wade," Mr. Bethea said sarcastically. "He's coaching his little butt off down here."

Wade remained with Bum long enough to see him get fired at Houston and abruptly resign at New Orleans, thus teaching the son a harsh lesson he himself has experienced several times since. Coaches almost never leave jobs on their terms.

VERNON BRYANT / DMN Proud parents Debbie and Bum Phillips smile during their son's news conference. Bum made his mark in the NFL as head coach of the Houston Oilers and New Orleans Saints.

When Bum left coaching in 1985, it was time for Wade to carve his own path. He did so by serving as defensive coordinator from 1986 to '88 at Philadelphia. The Eagles' head coach, Buddy Ryan, had fashioned one of the NFL's most dominant defenses as coordinator of the 1985 Super Bowl champion Chicago Bears.

In 1989, Mr. Reeves found himself in need of a defensive coordinator at Denver. Mr. Reeves didn't know Wade but had followed his career. As a Cowboys assistant during the early 1970s, Mr. Reeves met Bum at a charity golf tournament in Houston. Their daughters became friends.

When Mr. Reeves interviewed for the head job at New England, he learned Bum had recommended him, even though they had never worked together.

"Well, I just figured anybody who was a good family man like you were and so nice to my daughter had to be a good football coach," Bum explained when Mr. Reeves called to thank him.

For many of the same reasons, Mr. Reeves returned the favor and hired Wade in 1989. Mr. Reeves was revamping his staff. He wanted to elevate special teams coaches Charlie Waters and Mike Nolan to position coaches, even though Wade had never worked with them.

"It so happened that our staff was about to coach the Senior Bowl [an all-star game for college seniors]," Mr. Reeves recalled. "Wade said, 'Well, I can work with them and tell you.'

"We finish the first practice and we're walking off the field, and Wade said, 'They'll be fine.' "

Mr. Reeves and Mr. Waters, a former Cowboys defensive back who now is the team's radio analyst, have no doubt Mr. Phillips will work well with the Cowboys' players and staff – even those staff members hired by Mr. Parcells and Mr. Jones.

"He's the most likable coach in the NFL," said Mr. Waters, who remained on the Broncos' staff when Mr. Phillips succeeded Mr. Reeves in 1993. "People love to work and play for Wade.

"He has high expectations, but he cuts through the mess. There's a lot of common sense working there with Wade."

Of course, Cowboys fans know all too well that Mr. Phillips has an 0-3 playoff record as a head coach. Just as they are painfully aware that Dallas has not won a playoff game since 1996.

The positive news is that even though Phillips last coached in Texas in 1980, he knows the circumstances he walked into Thursday – wearing ostrich-skin boots, giving interviews to anyone who asked.

"Football's important in the state of Texas," he said. "It was important to me, obviously, growing up. And it's really important here in Dallas."

It remains to be seen whether his approach will result in more wins, but he aims to build a "family" atmosphere. The Phillips coaching family is his blueprint.

"What family means is trust, loyalty and common purpose. Now I'm in the Cowboy family. We're going to trust each other. We're going to be loyal to each other. And we're going to have a common purpose."