“Swagger: Super Bowls, Brass Balls, and Footballs — A Memoir,” it reads on the cover. It’s as action packed as a Tom Cruise spy movie.

Johnson is among my favorite subjects to cover in a 50-year career of sportswriting. I did not know him as an All-Southwest Conference middle guard for the 1964 national champs. And, I probably had only a handshake during his time as defensive coordinator for Frank Broyles from 1973-76.

But I got to know him well when I arrived as a college football writer at the Tulsa World one year before he assembled what he called “my crew” in 1979 at Oklahoma State. The coaches on that staff are still among my favorites and most are in my phone contacts and always willing to talk.

Those five years at O-State are sprinkled in his book, just enough to make it fun for me, but there’s hardly anything about his time at Arkansas. Make no mistake about it, this is about what Johnson wants you to know most about, his glory years in Miami — with both the Hurricanes and the Dolphins — and the Dallas Cowboys.

It’s 265 pages that cover the details of Jimmy’s life, the ups and downs and even some things incredibly dark. He does not gloss over anything. He writes about telling his parents to stay home in Port Arthur, Texas, when the Cowboys made the Super Bowl. Johnson told them he wouldn’t have time to see them.

Johnson writes about crying after losses or over the twists and turns of family. He wrote that he never had sit-down meals at home with his own family. There is obvious guilt.

There is brief mention that he was not interested in the Arkansas job when Ken Hatfield was hired, something that did not entirely surprise me. That may be partly because he knew that Broyles was truly set on Hatfield, Johnson’s teammate on the 1964 team. He writes in the book that his name was thrown out to insiders during the search to make Hatfield look good.

Johnson knew his Hurricanes would swamp Hatfield’s Hogs in the 1987 blowout in Little Rock. Miami won 51-7, and it wasn’t that close. Johnson saw Jerry Jones the night before in a hotel lobby. Jerry’s son, Stephen, was a backup for the Hogs. Johnson told Jerry he might want to step in to keep Stephen out of the game. It would be that vicious.

The story of Johnson not wanting

the Arkansas job in ’84 was news. I knew he wanted it in when Lou Holtz got it in December 1976. Most of those who could confirm or deny the ’84 details are now gone, so Johnson’s story will have to be taken for what it is, Johnson’s side.

That’s what you get throughout the book. Jones is cut open. The saga of how they drifted apart while the Cowboys climbed from the bottom to Super Bowl champs is for sure Johnson’s side. He wrote of bailing out Jones’ financial issues by selling most of the sky box suites in the first summer after they got to Dallas.

It details how Jones bragged about the Tony Casillas trade in 1991. Johnson maintains that he pulled off the trade with the Falcons without help from Jones. Almost immediately, Jones was bragging to media about how he executed the deal.

That infuriated Johnson and was probably one of the first sparks to turn their relationship into a dumpster fire. Johnson

wrote that Jones didn’t even know who Casillas was as he talked about him.

I did. I covered Casillas as a high school star at Tulsa East Central when he picked Oklahoma over Johnson’s OSU team. I went to Dallas for a feature story on Casillas in 1991. Casillas would later help the Cowboys to back-to-back Super Bowl titles.

I recall sitting with Casillas at his locker after a Dallas regular-season game. Johnson stopped by to say hello. I asked if I could possibly talk to Butch Davis, the defensive coordinator for the Cowboys.

Immediately, Johnson led me into the coaches’ locker room to find Davis. It was like old times, mirroring the way things were with me and that Oklahoma State staff.

Johnson was always good with the media. Perhaps he learned that from Broyles, a coach who took media to his home with assistant coaches for steaks after Fayetteville games.

However, “Swagger” is a good look at how Johnson and Broyles used incredibly different methods of motivation. Johnson was proud to talk about his college degree, in psychology, in the way he pushed his Miami teams.

I didn’t see it so much at Oklahoma State, but the Hurricanes strutted and even taunted from start to finish. One thing to note: his teams were not heavily penalized. There should be a separation between the way Johnson’s teams played and the way Dennis Erickson, who came later, coached the Hurricanes. Those Miami teams were over the top.

Johnson did not see his teams as hot dogging or show boating. He wanted them to kick butt, but not draw flags. He wanted talented players, but smart players, too.

I interviewed Johnson during a series of features for the 50-year anniversary of the UA football national championship. We talked extensively about the number one thing he sought as coaches and players: intellect. He wrote that IQ gives you options.

That’s detailed in the book in a chapter, “The Talent in Finding Talent.” Speed and size are important, but Johnson told me and wrote about it, dumb players get you beat.

In hiring coaches, he wanted IQ and character. He said he could teach how to coach and his systems.

Hard workers and gym rats were targeted both for coaches and players. He stayed late and wanted to find others who didn’t have to be told to work hard. He wrote about how he and assistant coach Norv Turner had a running battle on who could come in the earliest. Johnson realized that even while arriving at 4:30 a.m., Turner was trying to beat him and a truce was called

That penchant for staying late and arriving early doomed his first marriage and also made him an absentee father. There are many pages on that sad story, but a happy ending. He’s close to both sons now, and details on how his son Chad has built the kind of rehab centers that saved his son’s life.

There are stories in “Swagger” about Johnson’s tight relationship with William Wesley, also known as World Wide Wes. They became friends by chance when Johnson was trying to recruit a star from

Camden, N.J., Wesley’s hometown.

Wesley told Johnson that he was recruiting the wrong player, and pointed to Greg Mark during warmups. Mark was the only white player on the floor. After watching Mark dunk for four quarters, the Hurricanes coach offered a scholarship and he became a star in Miami.

Johnson then invited Wesley to come watch him play and left him field passes. They’ve been close since.

One of my favorite Johnson stories is not in the book. He was paid by a Walmart vendor to sign autographs after the 2007 Arkansas spring game. Johnson made an impression on Darren McFadden, a year away from becoming a first-round draft pick.

McFadden told me that Johnson explained to the Hogs his disciplinary system as a coach. Johnson said you don’t treat all players the same.

“You build up cash with the coach,” McFadden said. “The more you do on the field, the more you are worth to the coach. The best players get the best treatment, but it’s based on hard work in practice and on the field in games.”

There are instances in the book where that is manifested. Johnson said a rookie backup who falls asleep in a meeting is handed instructions on how to find the human resource office. He’s cut. If Troy Aikman falls asleep, you just wake him up, discreetly.

Johnson’s brilliance comes through in the book. No doubt, he’s a genius. His ability to motivate is a product of his psych degree. Of particular interest is the chapter on mental approach, “Pygmalion ‘Em.”

The Pygmalion Theory is simple. It’s Psychology 101 and at the top of Johnson’s methods on coaching. He wrote, “Words shape minds, right? And leaders control words.”

He never told players not to fumble. Instead, he instructed them to protect the ball. He didn’t talk about losing. He talked only about winning. You didn’t worry about getting your butt beat because you were too busy kicking butt.

The idea is to set incredible expectations, not worry about failure.

Those are among the messages Johnson communicates when executives from sports teams and businesses flock to his home in the Florida Keys for advice. He will detail his draft value chart, but the mental approach with the Pygmalion Theory is probably the most frequent topic.

That’s what he talked to me about on that wonderful phone visit in the fall of 2014. You don’t have to go to the Keys to get the goods from Jimmy Johnson. Order “Swagger.”