Past and present were supposed to meet for dinner and good counsel Wednesday night at Jimmy Johnson’s Key Largo restaurant, The Big Chill. But Johnson had a corporate speech that night, so a last-minute audible was called.
Coach Manny Diaz and his new Miami Hurricanes staff drove to the Keys on Tuesday night to meet the wise man on the mountain — or by the ocean, in this case, since Johnson’s six-acre slice of paradise in Tavernier dead ends into the Atlantic Ocean.
Johnson, at 75, is cutting down on the number of visits these days from the outside, from NFL owners to college coaches driving down A1A to pick his football mind.