DALLAS COWBOYS FOOTBALL CLUB: Looking back at Jerry Jones’ 25 year ownership of America’s Team | Special Feature
IRVING, Texas – Man, 25 wild and crazy years, zigging and zagging, laughing and crying, running and running faster, trying to keep up with the Joneses.
Never, ever – ever – a dull moment, from the one win of 1989 that kept the Dallas Cowboys from an unprecedentedly poor 16-game NFL season to the eight wins – again – of 2013, one short of acceptable for the third straight year.
Who knew 25 years ago this past Tuesday, Feb. 25, 1989, sitting in the Dallas Cowboys team meeting room out here at what we then were referring to as Cowboys Ranch late that Saturday night, that so many lives would irrevocably change when the then-Arkansas stranger Jerral Wayne Jones was being introduced as just the third owner of the world-renowned Dallas Cowboys.
His life, along with those of his wife Gene’s and their three kids: Stephen, Charlotte and Jerry Jr.
The lives of so many who had worked for the Cowboys – made the Dallas Cowboys – from Day One or for the majority of those first 29 years of the NFL’s first expansion franchise’s existence.
The lives of those who would follow the Joneses to Dallas.
And our lives, too, those of us in the media crammed into a room big enough to house a team of football players but bursting at the seams with nearly everyone already on deadline when the long-awaited announcement began sometime after 8 p.m.
Mine especially.
Me, I have mental snapshots of that evening, seeing on one hand the pure joy and excitement laced with some anxiety of the Jones Family and all of Jerry’s partners when he was introduced as the next owner of the Dallas Cowboys. But on the other hand, there was basically the team’s godfather, Tex Schramm, standing off to the side, with the glum look of a man attending his own funeral, realizing then the fact he no longer had a seat on center stage was symbolic of what was to come.
Hey, if Tom Landry was no longer needed, and he wasn’t since Jimmy Johnson was coming along with Jones in a package deal and had already been told by Jones what previous owner Bum Bright should have since he more or less resented Landry, surely the appropriately named Tex was not long for his world of 29 years either.
There was Jones, with almost preacher-like enthusiasm, rapidly talking of immediately winning with the 3-13 team he was inheriting, emphasizing his positivity with a fist pounding the air.
There were the arched eyebrows of the skeptical media, wondering what in the world … realizing the 29 years of Cowboys stability was being rattled as if the ground beneath an Apollo capsule launching into space.
A new day was dawning at dusk.
The last snapshot: After the final 30 was put on however many stories we could pound out by midnight, several writers gathered in Tex’s office, soon to be Jerry’s and still is. Sitting-on-the-floor room only. Again, a day of celebration on one hand, and rightfully so when you pledge $140 million you didn’t really have for an NFL franchise and accompanying stadium that were losing money hand over fist, and on this other hand a somber gathering, reminiscing about the good old days that were mostly great but now suddenly just good and old, growing more feint by the minute in the rearview mirror.
It was as if with these stories Tex was giving away his final possessions over drinks – stiff ones I might add – with the very people he had heartily laughed with yet angrily sparred with oh the many years.
“This is a very sad night for me,” Tex said needlessly.
And I distinctly remember this too: My Dallas Times Herald teammate, Frank Luksa, who had covered the Cowboys and Tom and Tex from nearly their 1960 inception, a man who thought he had seen it all, sitting on the floor next to me. He began to rise, held up his near-empty drink in a toast, saying unbeknownst to the rest of us, “Well, time to go home to celebrate what remains of my birthday.”
Will never forget his birthdate, singed into my mind.
And this, too, I’ll never forget, ever. A few days later, March 1, my life, as I perceived at the time, was turned upside down. A guy who was the sports department’s general assignment writer, handling an assortment of jobs, from helping out on the Cowboys to the Rangers to the Mavericks, college football, basketball and baseball, writing lengthy features and having just come off the previous year of covering the Olympics in Calgary and then Seoul, was told the Dallas Cowboys and Jerry Jones were your beat, buddy.
You have been chosen to inherit the tradition set by such esteemed writers as Sherrod, Perkins, Luksa and Dent. No way, I said, not me. I’m not cut out for this. They told me I was perfectly fit, having helped out since the middle of the 1984 season and having covered nearly every game over what turned out to be the final four and a half seasons of Landry’s coaching career.
So there I went kicking and screaming, into what seemingly was a daily towering inferno. Every day – every day – there was something, starting with Jimmy Johnson’s introductory press conference on Monday, the Port Arthur native apologizing with hat in hand if he somehow had danced on Landry’s coaching grave, saying to those who had perceived so, “I’m sorry,” and me finishing my story that night with one line:
And so the Cowboys new era begins apologetically.
Then there came all the coaching changes. Jimmy’s new assistants being hired. Tom’s old assistants being fired.
Then there was Jerry, armed with the first pick in the NFL Draft saying, “Troy Aikman should play for half the price” just to get to be a part of the Dallas Cowboys organization. Oh my.
Next day having to do a long profile on Jimmy.
Next day Cowboys lower ticket prices for end-zone seats.
Then the start of Plan B free agency.
Then the owners meetings, along with the start of implementing instant replay and the league’s initial crackdown on steroids.
Then there was no vote on approving the Dallas Cowboys sale to Jones, leaving the deal hanging.
Then 29-year NFL commissioner Pete Rozelle’s retirement, he having just compared Landry’s dismissal with “the death of Lombardi.”
Then Jimmy’s first minicamp, along with the real possibility of Randy White and Danny White not being back with the team, which eventually came to fruition a few months later. Then the contract struggle with quarterback Steve Pelluer.
Let’s see, then Too Tall staying, Doug Cosbie leaving, Jimmy playing coy on Aikman being their No. 1 pick, Mike Sherrard leaving, Nate showing up at 358 pounds for offseason workouts, Barry Sanders challenging the NFL’s draft rules, petitioning as an unheard of underclassman for the draft. Landry throwing out the first pitch at a Rangers game. A Landry parade downtown Dallas. The schedule released, at New Orleans becoming the new era’s opener.
Tex Schramm resigning to head up the NFL’s Worldwide American Football League. Cowboys vice president Joe Bailey resigning to join him. Then eventually business manager Billy Hicks, too, to head across the pond. Then the NFL at a meeting in New York finally approving the sale to Jones. Then negotiations began with Aikman’s agent Leigh Steinberg. Then Aikman signing a six-year, $11 million deal, the richest contract for an NFL rookie to date as the Cowboys No. 1 pick. Then the draft.
Oh, we’re just getting started, and these moves were expected, Jerry wanting to get his own people in place, people he could trust not relying solely on those with allegiances to Tex and Tom. Sort of like if you’ve ever been to an Italian wedding or seen an old-day Italian restaurant run. Only the immediate family handles the money, you know, and immediate means wife, husband, kids, mother, father or grandparents. Seriously.
Then longtime Cowboys employees being let go: Day-Oner Gil Brandt, treasurer of 18 years Don Wilson, public relations man of 18 years Doug Todd, 22-year ticket manager Ann Lloyd. All hard to watch.
Gosh, and it wasn’t even May yet.
And remember, back in those days there were three daily newspapers in the Metroplex: ours, The Dallas Morning News and Fort Worth Star-Telegram. The competition was fierce. And remember, too, no internet. Ha, internet. No social media. No cell phones. Dimes and quarters were important commodities for payphones. You had one shot to get every story every night. And if you were a competitor you wanted the impossibility of every story every night, so that meant working to 11 nearly every night. Anxiety filled your sleep.
Then, well, mornings were hell. You were scared to death to grab those other papers for fear of getting beat in black and white. Remember, too, no updating if you didn’t have it all until the next day. Trying to keep up with Jerry and Jimmy was exhausting. They weren’t letting any grass grow under their feet. Blowin’ and goin’ was the slogan. Theirs was an immediate program, not some three-year plan.
By the first of June, felt as if my head was being centrifuged. We had a meeting of sorts, me and the sports editor, who told me I was doing a fine job. Maybe, I said, but I want out. I want my old job back. This is going to kill me. He said no way. I said I can’t. He said we’re eliminating your old position anyway.
I said, well, of course I’ll cover the Dallas Cowboys. Who wouldn’t want to, right? But again, not before agreeing kicking and screaming, having wanted desperately to run for cover.
So here it is 25 years later, and still covering the Cowboys in some form or fashion every single day since, and well, let’s see. By my count, the last game I missed was the season finale in 1988, 23-7 loss to Philadelphia. And swear, I’ve never done this before, so hang with me, that’s 25 seasons times 16 regular-season games a season, equaling, no way, an even 400 straight, along with the majority, but not every preseason game during that span of time.
Seen 1-15 and 13-3. Seen three Super Bowl victories and three consecutive seasons of 5-11. Seen a plane ride home from Philadelphia in 1991 after the Cowboys clinched their first playoff berth in six seasons – first winning season, too, in those six – that barely needed jet fuel to get off the ground, and now three consecutive seasons of 8-8.
Seen a losing franchise, both financially and athletically, become the richest in the United States and first to win three Super Bowls in a four-year span. Seen Hall of Fame coronations and the Jerry-Jimmy spat. Seen Switzer make me laugh until I thought I’d cry and Bill leave me in stitches even when he wasn’t trying to be funny. Seen Jimmy cry How ‘bout dem Cowboys! and smack those lips hard as he could losing those opening two games in 1993.
Seen triplets born to Bill Bates and Triplets land in the Ring of Honor. Seen Dave Campo come and go, and then come back again. Seen a free-agent quarterback rise into becoming the head coach and another rookie free-agent quarterback rise out of nowhere to become the franchise’s all-time leading passer. Seen Texas Stadium come crumbling down and AT&T Stadium rise from that gigantic hole in the ground.
Watched every carry of the NFL’s all-time leading rusher. Saw Michael Irvin the day he arrived hugging the life-sized cardboard cutout of Tom Landry and similarly hugging Jerry Jones the day he retired. Seen tragedies and attended funerals.
Seen it all for 25 years, every step of the way only because someone forced me to take that first step running after a guy I had never met until 25 years ago this past Tuesday. Exhausting, yes. Exhilarating, you bet.
Who knew?
And maybe the best part: 25 years is but a milestone. Got a feeling there’s still much more to come.
Courtesy: Mickey Spagnola | Columnist
RELATED: 25th Anniversary of Jerry Jones’ ownership of the Dallas Cowboys
25 Years – Jerry Jones reflects on buying Dallas Cowboys; Replacing Tom Landry
This day, 25 years ago, Jerry Jones purchased the Dallas Cowboys. Listen to the Jerry Jones himself talk about the trials of the purchase, and the journey through the last twenty-five years.
Tuesday, Feb. 25 marked the 25th anniversary of Jerry Jones franchise purchase of the Dallas Cowboys from Bum Bright in 1989.
Jones spent more than an hour Sunday on the Cowboys bus outside Lucus Oil Stadium in Indianapolis reminiscing about the historic transaction and the days leading up to it _ the nervousness and excitement that caused him to develop a heart condition called Arrhythmia and the huge risk he took, considering the Cowboys were not only a mess on the field at the time but where swimming in debt, losing $1 million per month.
“It was quite a trying time for me. I get emotional talking about it and I’ve asked a professional about why I get emotional talking about it in public or private and they said, well, that was a traumatic time for you. It was a pretty significant reach risk-wise and I didn’t know how it was going to turn out, so it was a nervous time for me. I developed arrhythmia, and I had never had an unhealthy day in my life. Arrhythmia is called by a lot of people and a lot of med students get it. It was from not resting and never sleeping and then getting up just after you lay your head down. So that kind of describes for me that period of time.”
On the warning his father told him about what would happen if he failed:
“I didn’t know, but I quickly found out the visibility that was involved there. My father called me about 10 days, two weeks into this thing and he said, ‘Jerry, I had no idea this thing would have the visibility it’s got and he said, I don’t care you are a young guy, and he said, ‘I don’t care whether you do it by mirrors, smoke or what, if you are not successful, you’ve got to make it look successful or you will be known by a loser and you won’t be able to do anything else for the rest of your life in terms of getting people to go along with you.’ “
On his biggest regret:
“If I had a chance to do it over again I would’ve waited a year and just got my feet on the ground a little bit more and probably just gone with the staff that we had and then later made the ultimate changes that I made. If I had to do that over again, I probably would do it because probably it was the urgency with how fast we had to move. That got a lot of the criticism that the changes that were made with the staff.”
So you regret hiring Jimmy Johnson and firing Tom Landry so callously:
“I don’t regret what I said was looking back because that contributed to the seemingly insensitive way that coach Landry was changed out and that contributed to it, the fact that it was done at the same time that we made the announcement there 25 years ago, that we made the announcement that I was buying the team, that I was going to be the general manager and all of that was done almost the same night. As a matter of fact, that was done the same night. So if I look back at the criticism, that’s one where you might have taken more time.”
Was Jimmy Johnson always going to be the guy to replace Landry:
“I thought of Barry (Switzer). I did think of Barry. But Jimmy is, of course, more active. He probably had more proximity. I kept up with Jimmy. My oil and gas partners were in Oklahoma City and I spent a lot of time around them. They were very prominent in OSU, Oklahoma State’s athletic department. So that all fit real good. When I called Jimmy to tell him that I was looking at it, that I was interested — what would you think about joining me? His quote was: ‘I always wanted to be with you, work with you. If you called me to sell insurance, I’d sell insurance.’ So actually Jimmy came on and we officially – not officially – but we announced he was going to be the head coach and it was a significant period of time after that before we every got around to doing an agreement about money, before we even talked about money. He committed and left Miami and came to the Cowboys before we even talked about money.”
Jones on the nervousness of the financial risk because of the state of the Cowboys and NFL:
“I was excited. I was very nervous. I knew I had huge financial obligations. I knew they were ahead of me and I didn’t have all the answers as to how we were going to address them. I knew there were a lot of pitfalls in just the buying of the Cowboys, not necessarily clean. I bought 13 percent of the Cowboys from the FDIC. They had been foreclosed on. And so it was not in a nice complete operational routine. The franchise was not. All that made me extremely nervous. But had I not had the just sheer positiveness of just getting to be involved in the NFL, knowing that when I got up in the morning I would be in the NFL, knowing that I would be part of the Cowboys then those would have been issues in normal business that might have buckled my knees. But because it was so exciting to me to be part of the Cowboys I give that a lot of credit for working through those things. That was 25 years ago.”
Is the passion and excitement still there:
“Yes, of course. It is. Its actually there more than it was because I’m able to think more offense. I’m not as concerned as I was financially about the state of the franchise, about the NFL, about the game. The future is significantly brighter than it was in 1989 for the NFL, for pro football and for that matter pro sports today. I never thought Gene (his wife) would be waiting tables over this deal. But I did think it had the potential to really knock my stuff in the dirt. I knew that it did. Lamar Hunt got up at one of our NFL owners meetings maybe 12 to 13 years ago. He got up and told the entire ownership that the greatest risk I have ever seen taken in sports was the one the Jerry took when he bought the Cowboys, financial risk. He was well aware of the situation with Cowboys. He was well aware of the lay of the land”
Jones blames his reputation as an owner who only cares about making money on his aggressiveness of being an agent of change in the NFL because of the poor financial state of the Dallas Cowboys organization and the league at time.
“That’ll motivate you to be an agent of change. That’ll motivate you to want to change some things, and that was a part of the driving thing that early on in the NFL that I wanted to change for the benefit of everyone, but for the benefit of the clubs, for the benefit of the fans, I felt that we could do some things that would create more strength, more energy, and that was one of the reasons that I initially was as aggressive, and the other things was timing. I didn’t have time to sit there and wait on some of these changes 15 years or 10 years, you know the days and the time was burning, and so it had to be really, you had to move on it. So that’s one of the reasons that the perception of aggressiveness, or the perception of, for that matter, one of the things that I regret is that the perception about financial, the facts are I had financial security and gave it up to buy the Cowboys, and I didn’t buy the Cowboys to go make money. But once you get in the chair, once you get in the position, then you want to be as good and do as good as you can do. So that’s kind of how things have evolved over the years.”
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2013 NFL SCOUTING COMBINE: Tom Landry’s Wonderlic to be supplemented by new aptitude test
Another change to the NFL Scouting Combine’s testing is on the way.
The combine’s testing has been tweaked over the years, and a significant adaptation is coming. The league plans to implement a second aptitude test to the itinerary for players this week, according to National Football Scouting president Jeff Foster.
An NFL source confirmed that the test will be part of this year’s combine.
Foster said the test is not a replacement for, but rather a counterpart to, the much-criticized Wonderlic test. The Wonderlic has been used at the combines for decades since its origination as an intelligence test in the 1970s by legendary Dallas Cowboys coach Tom Landry. The Wonderlic’s usefulness and the ethics of relying on it have been sources of debate over the years.
According to Foster, the league spent time developing the new test with a university professor. The hope is that “it’s something that’s a little more evolved than the Wonderlic.”
Clubs have long expressed the importance of years of data built up on tried-and-true testing and measurements, enabling balanced comparisons, so Foster and other combine officials always have been reluctant to eliminate elements from the combine. A recent example is the addition of wingspan to measurements. Some people voiced concerns that wingspan is a more illuminating measurement than arm length, so it was added to the combine, but arm length wasn’t eliminated.
LEAP OF FAITH: Jerry Jones should extend Jason Garrett’s contract in historic fashion
Forty-nine years ago, Clint Murchison Jr. proved how much faith he had in a Dallas Cowboys head coach despite a poor overall record. The Cowboys owner gave Tom Landry, who had posted a 9-38-3 record during the previous four seasons, a 10-year contract extension.
If Jerry Jones truly believes in Jason Garrett, he should make a similar bold commitment. Jones should give Garrett, who is under contract through the 2014 season, an additional 3-5 years.
Throughout the coaching staff changes that have taken place over the last month, Jones has praised the foundation that Garrett has built over the past two and a half seasons as head coach, saying things like: “I’m excited. Boy, we’ve got a good man in Jason Garrett putting this together for us.”
On the day Murchison announced Landry’s new deal, the Cowboys owner said: “This is in line with my philosophy that once you get a good man, hold on to him.”
If Jones believes what he says, that he has a “good man” and the “right man,” then he should lock Garrett up for the foreseeable future. A move like that would show that Garrett is in charge and Jon Gruden isn’t walking through the Valley Ranch doors as anything more than a TV analyst.
Following Landry’s extension in 1964 the Cowboys went 12-15-1 the next two seasons. They followed that up by reaching the playoffs 17 of the next 18 seasons.
Jones, who has admitted regret over getting rid of Chan Gailey so quickly, has compared Garrett’s brief coaching tenure to that of Bill Belichick. The New England Patriots coach, who has won three Super Bowls since 2001, was fired from his first head-coaching gig with the Cleveland Browns after only one winning season in five years.
Jones has also compared Garrett to Landry.
“I know that when I first got in the NFL, I could dream that maybe in 29 more years we could have the coach that we had with Coach Landry,” Jones said at the press conference announcing Garrett as the team’s new head coach. “Those are different times, different days, but you can dream that this thing is in place long term because of (Garrett’s) age and frankly, his background and experience growing up in NFL football.”
If Jones still feels that way, a contract extension would be the perfect way to prove it.
MANAGING EMOTIONS: Drew Pearson sees a lot of Tom Landry in Jason Garrett
ARLINGTON — The Dallas Cowboys will take the field for the next two weeks hoping to continue their run to the playoffs.
It will also be their attempt to move forward from the tragedy and emotional roller coaster they have never experienced.
The death of linebacker Jerry Brown, and the status of nose tackle Josh Brent — charged in the death of his best friend and teammate — will certainly cast a shadow on the rest of the Cowboys’ season, no matter how they finish.
“Oh, yeah, it is absolutely that,” said coach Jason Garrett, whose leadership and handling of the team during this trying situation has already been hailed as the crowning moment of his coaching tenure. “It’s an ongoing thing for a long, long time for everybody. Nobody who is associated with this organization, this football team who knows Jerry and Josh and this situation, this tragedy will never be the same as a result of it.”
The Cowboys (8-6) will use football to take their minds off the tragedy and to continue living. Making a run to the playoffs is the best way they feel they can honor Brown.
Still, some things can never be forgotten.
COMING HOME: Cleveland Browns kicker Phil Dawson grew up a Dallas Cowboys fan
Even though Phil Dawson has become the face of the Browns as their longest-tenured player during the expansion era, he will always have a special place in his heart for his first love — the Dallas Cowboys.
Dawson, the Browns’ reliable kicker, grew up a die-hard football fan in Dallas. In the mid-to-late 1980s, Dawson’s father received Cowboys season tickets for a few years in exchange for his services as an accountant. The father-son duo attended virtually every home game when Dawson was in middle school. They were at legendary coach Tom Landry’s final game in 1988 at the old Texas Stadium.
“I can remember taking history books and having to do my homework and claiming I was doing it because I took my book with me,” Dawson said Wednesday after practice. “I have some very good memories. I learned the game of football from my dad and a lot of that was sitting there watching Cowboy games. He taught me a few things and helped me look at things and explain things. Those were some good memories.”
Dawson, 37, is eager for his homecoming Sunday, when the Browns (2-7) visit the Cowboys (4-5). It will be the Browns’ first appearance at Cowboys Stadium in Arlington, Texas, which opened in 2009, and Dawson hopes the retractable roof is closed so he can play in favorable kicking conditions. Since the Browns’ rebirth in 1999, the only time they have played the Cowboys on the road was in 2004.
“It’s fun to share it with family and friends and go back to my hometown,” said Dawson, whose wife, Shannon; sons, Dru and Beau; and daughter, Sophiann, live in Austin, Texas. “I know they’ll all enjoy it, which makes it special for me. But I’m going down on a work trip. I have plenty of time in the offseason to enjoy friends and family and the environment and the cuisine and the whole deal. But when I get off the airplane, it’s all business, and I’ve got a job to do.”
Dawson’s job this week has included playing the role of a ticket agent. He expects more than 30 friends and relatives to attend the game.
“[The list is] growing each and every day,” he said. “I’m about to close down the ticket office. I can’t afford many more.”
Dawson’s family has strong allegiances to the Cowboys. His son, Dru, is not an exception.
“My son, Dru, has a Cowboys room,” Dawson said. “His bedroom is blue, all the Fathead stuff all over the walls. He’s got the star [logo], the NFL emblem. He’s got the stadium. I don’t know if he has any of the players. He has the mural-type stuff all over the place. And then there’s obviously Browns helmets.”
The setting isn’t unlike that of the bedroom Dawson had as a youngster.
“I had a Doomsday Defense poster on my wall,” Dawson said. “I’m kind of dating myself. Obviously, my high school years were the dynasty with the three Super Bowls. I was pretty spoiled as a football fan.”
Dawson was a huge fan of special-teams standout and safety Bill Bates, who played for the Cowboys from 1983-96.
“I loved Bill Bates,” Dawson said. “I didn’t know I’d wind up being a special-teams guy, but I always kind of pulled for the underdog and he was an undrafted guy that was supposed to be too small and too slow but played forever down there, was just a special-teams ace and even when he got in on defense, he did a tremendous job. I’ve always pulled for guys like that.”
When Dawson was an offensive tackle and kicker for Lake Highlands High School in Dallas, he even tried to adopt the style of his favorite player.
“I can remember playing in high school and everyone wanting to look like Bill Bates — the neck roll and the gloves and the wrist bands and the towel, all that stuff,” Dawson said. “… Football is king down there. Unless you grow up in Houston, the rest of the state is Cowboys, and that’s all you did was follow the Cowboys.”
Dawson, of course, won’t be cheering for the Cowboys this weekend. He has made 23 consecutive field goals dating to last season and hopes to keep the streak alive at the expense of his hometown team.
“We’re off to a good start,” Dawson said of his streak. “I certainly don’t want to diminish that, but there’s still seven games to go. So I could screw this whole thing up pretty quick. I like where I am right now, but I’m only as good as my next kick, and the last thing I want to do is to go home to my hometown and poop the bed, so to speak.”
Courtesy: Nate Ulrich | Akron Beacon Journal
NFL FORGOTTEN RIVALRY–Dallas Cowboys vs. Cleveland Browns (Special Feature)
These Cleveland Browns have never beaten the Dallas Cowboys. These Browns – the new Browns, founded in 1999 as a sequel to the historic original franchise. They are 0-2 against Dallas in the regular season heading into today’s important matchup.
The Paul Brown Browns, however, certainly had the Cowboys’ number over the years, beating up on the NFL newcomers for the majority of the 1960s in a series of matchups that bloomed into a classic rivalry, including three playoff games. After the league’s 1970 merger, when Cleveland moved to the AFC, the rivalry unfortunately faded into history, with the teams meeting only sparingly in the regular season until the late Art Modell relocated the club to Baltimore in 1996.
The Cowboys’ luck in their series with the Browns-Ravens lineage has taken a turn for the worse, of course, with Dallas having never beaten Baltimore in four tries, including the heartbreaker earlier this season and the woeful Week 16 matchup in 2008, when the Ravens turned out the lights on Texas Stadium with a 33-24 victory.
These things go in cycles, evidently. The original Browns whipped Tom Landry’s upstart team in each of their first four meetings, beginning with their first game, in Week 4 of the Cowboys’ expansion season, 1960. To that point, the team of undrafted rookies and castoffs from other clubs had acquitted itself fairly well against established NFL competition, having lost to the Steelers, Eagles and Redskins in consecutive weeks, but only by a combined 21 points.
The Browns welcomed the Cowboys into the NFL rather rudely, however, one gorgeous October afternoon at the Cotton Bowl, allegedly in front of 28,500 fans, though many reports suggest the stadium wasn’t nearly as full as the club claimed in those early days. Cleveland scored first on a 46-yard carry by future Hall of Fame runner and receiver Bobby Mitchell in the first quarter, before the great Jim Brown plowed in from five yards out in the second. Mitchell then jaunted 30 yards to make the score 21-0 as the floodgates opened, with the Browns returning an interception for a score before halftime, and Mitchell coasting 90 yards for another touchdown on the opening kickoff in the second half. The Browns led 48-0 before backup quarterback Don Heinrich tossed a garbage-time touchdown to Billy Howton.
It was a sign of things to come that season, as the Cowboys went on to post an 0-11-1 record, managing one tie, late in the season against the Giants, while falling by multiple scores in six of the seven losses to come following the trouncing by Cleveland.
The Browns would repeat the favor twice in 1961, as they joined the Cowboys, Steelers, Eagles, Giants, Redskins and St. Louis Cardinals in the newly formed Eastern Conference. That October, they knocked off a surprisingly 2-0 Dallas team, 25-7, at Municipal Stadium in Cleveland, and in December helped eviscerate any hopes of a playoff berth for the Cowboys by beating them 38-17 in Fair Park, in the second of four straight Cowboys losses that sunk their record to 4-9-1.
The Browns won a 19-10 decision over Dallas at home in the teams’ first meeting in 1962, but the second matchup was a different story, seen as something of a pivot point game for the Cowboys franchise and their young quarterback, Don Meredith. Dallas had jumped out to a fine start to the season again, sitting 4-3-1 on the year before losing five of their last six. The lone exception came on Dec. 2, when they tanned the Browns, 45-21, at the Cotton Bowl, in arguably the best performance of the club in its existence to that point.
“You writers and the football public here don’t realize what a fine team you have here in Dallas,” Paul Brown, an admirer of Landry’s, told the assembled media after the game. “You folks just don’t seem to realize this team can give you a championship. They outplayed us all the way … they deserved to win. I congratulate Tom for a fine job.
“Dallas was an inspired team. They’d never beaten us and it had to come sometime, and they did it to us good today.”
The Browns had traded Cowboys-killer Mitchell to Washington the previous offseason (he scored on a 92-yard kickoff return against the Cowboys in his first game with the Redskins) and Dallas managed to hold Jim Brown to only 29 yards on eight carries. Meanwhile, Cowboys running backs Don Perkins and Amos Marsh combined for 209 yards on the ground, while Meredith was 10-of-12 passing for 147 yards and two touchdowns, keeping Cleveland’s defense off balance all day.
Meredith had been struggling in previous games, and hadn’t yet wrestled full-time duties away from veteran Eddie LeBaron, but the fine day against Cleveland was a prelude of what was to come in his career.
“Meredith certainly had better results today,” Landry said after the game he called the Cowboys’ “best showing against a good team at home.”
Still, that impressive day remained the exception rather than the rule in the early years of the series. The Cowboys continued to muddle along in mediocrity while the Browns remained among the NFL’s elite. Cleveland won the next seven games in the series, not to mention an NFL Championship in 1964, while the Cowboys didn’t even experience their first winning season until 1966.
Once Jim Brown retired after the 1965 season, the series turned a bit. Dallas won a measure of confidence that year with a 26-14 home win over a good Browns squad on Thanksgiving, the Cowboys’ debut on the holiday, in what would become an annual tradition. By 1967, the ghosts of Cleveland’s domination had been fully exorcised, or so it would seem. The Cowboys beat Cleveland twice that year, including a 52-14 destruction of the Browns in the Eastern Championship Game, the first playoff win in the club’s eight-year history.
A week later, on New Year’s Eve, the Cowboys lost to Green Bay on a last second Bart Starr sneak in the NFL Championship, the game better known as the Ice Bowl. It was the beginning of the Cowboys’ “Next Year’s Champions” era, though the unwanted legacy was only furthered by playoff slip-ups against … Cleveland.
After beating the Browns convincingly in their run to a 12-2 record in 1968, the heavily favored Cowboys fell to the Browns in the Eastern Championship Game.
“A whole year shot in two-and-a-half hours,” Cowboys general manager Tex Schramm surmised afterward.
It turned out to be the last game of Meredith’s career and a rather disgraced ending. He completed only three of nine passes, connecting with the Browns as often as his own receivers. Meredith’s interceptions led to 17 Cleveland points, and he eventually gave way to Craig Morton under a deafening swarm of boos, the Cotton Bowl crowd en masse deciding their team could never win with Dandy Don, despite the fact he’d posted his best season yet in 1968.
“We needed a psychological lift,” Landry said following the loss. “Morton was the only thing I had that I could use. I took Meredith out not so much for what he was doing, but to try to shake them up. … I hated to take him out. In my opinion, he wasn’t wholly responsible. I don’t know what he will do (in the offseason). I can’t speak for him, but you can bet he feels worse than anybody right now about this game.
“I wouldn’t say (we) got whipped physically – it was more mentally than physically.”
With Meredith retiring after the season, Morton accepted the offensive reins, but his luck against the Browns and in the playoffs was no better. He threw three picks in a 42-10 Week 7 drubbing at Cleveland in 1969, one of just two Cowboys losses in the regular season. Yet again, Dallas was favored in an Eastern Championship matchup with the Browns, and yet again they came up short. Way short.
The Browns jumped out to a 24-0 lead at the Cotton Bowl, and put the finishing touches on the game when Walt Sumner returned a Morton interception 88 yards for a fourth quarter score. Roger Staubach took over for Morton, but the lead was too far out of reach even for “Captain Comeback,” and the Browns advanced with a 38-14 victory.
“We’re not choke-ups,” receiver Bob Hayes said after the game. “There were 40 guys out there and every one of them played his heart out. … I don’t know what happened. Nobody does. It’s a mystery to all of us. We were ready.
“I looked over to our bench and I could see shoulders sag. Guys who had been eager and jumping to get into the game seemed to be saying, ‘Oh no, here we go again. You play hard to get to this game – the playoffs – and you either have it or you don’t have it. We didn’t have it. Why? It’s a mystery to me. We’ve been pointing to this particular game since last September. It’s one we knew we had to win. We have to win a big one to shake off this image. Some day we’re going to do it.”
The Browns had played a huge role in the Cowboys’ earning of the “Next Year’s Champions” moniker. Cleveland had dominated the all-time series to that point, with 14 wins against only five losses, but Dallas has gotten the best of Browns since, winning seven of the 10 matchups between the clubs. None of the games was bigger than 1970, the Browns’ first year in the AFC, when chance pitted the teams in a late season battle once again. The Cowboys had opened the season 5-4, and needed a serious winning streak late in the season to earn a playoff spot. On a muddy, near-freezing day at Municipal Stadium, Dallas triumphed 6-2, the product of two Mike Clark field goals and an excellent day for Landry’s defense, which shut down the Browns running game and recorded four takeaways.
When the Cleveland franchise was reformed in 1999 – four years after the original club moved to Baltimore – their first preseason outing was against the Cowboys in the Pro Football Hall of Fame Game in Canton, Ohio. It would prove to be a remarkable night, not only for the Browns’ rebirth, but also as the rare preseason contest that reached overtime, something coaches typically try their best to avoid.
Jim Brown, Bobby Mitchell, Don Meredith and Bob Hayes had given way to the likes of Karim Abdul-Jabbar at running back and Tim Couch at quarterback for the Browns, with backups such as Ryan Neufeld and Singor Mobley playing big roles for the Cowboys by the end, when Cleveland’s Phil Dawson decided the game with a field goal.
“It’s good to see the Dawg Pound back in the NFL,” Troy Aikman said afterward, welcoming the return of the new, old Browns, three years after their apparent demise, and some 30 years since they last played the Cowboys for something truly meaningful.
The teams had certainly played bigger contests, but the history behind the preseason opener made it at least noteworthy, just like today’s game, echoes of an all-but-forgotten rivalry.
Photo: Dallas Cowboys quarterbacks Troy Aikman, Roger Staubach, Don Meredith, Craig Morton, and Danny White
Blog hint: With nearly every photograph on The Boys Are Back blog, you can get additional information by hovering over the photo with your cursor. Many times, if you’ll click on the photo you’ll see a larger image.
First photo: Amos Marsh Jr. (jersey #31), Full Back/Return Specialist, 1961-1964
Amos Marsh Jr. was signed as a rookie undrafted free agent by the Dallas Cowboys in 1961, because they were impressed by his speed. Back then his nicknames were "Moose" and "Forward Marsh".
He started his career as a wide receiver and special teams player. In 1962 to take advantage of his size and speed, he was moved to fullback, playing alongside Don Perkins where he became one of the league top 10 rushers with 802 yards and a 5.6 yards average per carry. That year he also set the franchise record for the longest kickoff return with 101 yards, a record that was broken by Alexander Wright 29 years later in 1991. The play came against the Philadelphia Eagles, when the Cowboys became the first NFL team in history to produce two 100-yard plays in the same game: a 100 yard interception return for a touchdown by strong safety Mike Gaechter and the 101 yard kickoff return for a touchdown by Marsh.
Marsh’s production regressed during the following years, leading the Cowboys to trade him to the Detroit Lions in 1965 after the team acquired fullback J.D. Smith
Courtesy: Dallas Star magazine | Cleveland Plain Dealer archives | NFL | Dallas Cowboys
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JERRY JONES BUILDING ROME: Like Landry and Belichick, Jason Garrett needs time
Jerry Jones didn’t sound like a general manager ready to get rid of his head coach when he spoke Tuesday on his weekly radio show.
While talking about the Cowboys struggling under Jason Garrett, who is in his second full season as head coach, Jones mentioned firing a previous coach too soon, a mistake he doesn’t want to make again.
But the highlight of his answer came when discussing how Super Bowl-winning coaches like Bill Belichick and Tom Landry didn’t have success early in their careers.
“I think you got to look at his short tenure as our coach as well as potential for the future,” Jones said on 105.3 The Fan [KRLD-FM]. “Now, that’s a combination that’s worth looking at real good. Because, yes, I made a coaching change with a coach in here that had only been here two years — Chan Gailey. I regretted it. That was not the thing to do at the time. A lot of people would take issue with the statement I just made, but it’s probably one of just a few things regarding the coaching thing that I would take back. That was a pretty quick tenure for him. Fair is not the word, but I don’t know that it was fair to our team and our fans.
“Having said all that, you need to look at how short of a time that Jason’s been here. You need to look at the potential that he has. You need to look at a coach like Bill Belichick, that went up to Cleveland and was fired, and then turned around and was looking, trying to get a job and then ends up working his way back and ends up in New England later on. The books are full of coaches that initially started slower and ended up doing outstanding jobs. … Specifically, I do know of coaches that had they not stuck with them, Coach Landry, we don’t have to remind ourselves of his early years as a young coach.”
That certainly sounds like an owner/general manager that’s content with his current head coach.
Later in the interview, Jones addressed the speculation about the possibility of the Cowboys going after Sean Payton at the end of the season. Jones said he is not allowed to have any communication with the New Orleans Saints coach who is suspended for the season because of his alleged involvement in the Saints’ bounty scandal.
“I have no idea what they’re talking about, and I have no understanding about anything to do with his business or the Saints’ business,” Jones said. “All of that was news to me. I saw it just like you did, on television.”
88 ON 88: Dallas Cowboys receiver Dez Bryant’s route running is limited
Despite how he comes across to some, former Cowboys receiver Drew Pearson told The Dallas Morning News’ David Moore he still has faith Dez Bryant will grow into that elite player.
“I feel confident that it will happen for him,” Pearson said. “I hope it happens here.
“Dez understands the situation he’s in and really wants it. Maybe it will all come to him at one time.
“Maybe he’s just a late bloomer.”
But Pearson still has plenty to nitpick about the Cowboys’ third-year receiver.
What stood out recently was the Monday Night Football blunder when Bryant was fooled into thinking the Bears were in press coverage. He adjusted his route and went deep rather than run the hitch that was designed. Cornerback Charles Tillman picked off the pass from Tony Romo and returned it 25 yards for a touchdown and a 10-0 lead.
“It was a bad read,” Pearson said. “Those are the kind of things that defenses, defensive backs especially, will give you a false look initially. If you’re not cerebral, if you’re not experienced enough to make adjustments, cornerbacks will play those games with you.
“You can’t get fooled by that in your third year in the league. If you made that mistake with coach [Tom] Landry in your third year, that would have been a cardinal sin.”
“When the game is on the line, that is the time No. 88 needs to step up, not take a back seat, not take a step back. That is when No. 88 is expected to shine.”
Part of being consistent is having a few signature routes the quarterback knows he can complete to you in virtually any situation. Pearson had three: the 12-yard sideline route, the 15- to 20-yard turn-in and the 15- to 20-yard end route. Those were his bread and butter.
What does Bryant have? Is he consistent enough with any of them?
“His route tree is limited to the slant, the fade, the go route and the end route,” Pearson said. “That is it. I’ve never seen him run a counter, a post corner, a slant-and-go, a sideline takeoff where he stutters and takes off the way Kevin Ogletree did so successfully in the opener.”
Pearson had been critical of Bryant throughout his first two years with the Cowboys, and Year Three looks to be more of the same. This obviously stems from Bryant wearing the same jersey number that Pearson did during his 11 seasons with the franchise.
“He’s not living up to the expectations that were placed on him by wearing that number,” Pearson recently told the Midland Reporter-Telegram. “Drew Pearson took it to the Ring of Honor level and Michael Irvin took it way beyond that to the Hall of Fame level.
“When Michael and I had a chance to talk to Dez when he came in his rookie year we told him, ‘Don’t do what Drew Pearson did in it. Don’t do what Michael did in it. Do more than that.’ I know that’s a lot to live up to, but what else is there? You live up to those expectations and people will cherish you for the rest of your life.”
Bryant dropped three passes in the Cowboys’ 34-18 loss to the Chicago Bears Monday night. Two of those incompletions cost the Cowboys first downs and the third might have gone for a touchdown.
Even though Bryant finished with a career-high 105 receiving yards, the mistakes overshadowed his eight catches.
Pearson focused on Bryant’s mistakes during a Tuesday interview that aired on ESPN.
“You should know your plays. You should know where to be. You should know your adjustments that you need to make,” Pearson said. “You know what your value is to this Cowboys offense. You should be making the big plays to help the offense when they need it. To me, that’s what the 88s are all about. That’s what I did in the 88s, that’s what Michael (Irvin) did in the 88s. I’m not saying Dez needs to be us. But we’d just like to see him carry that tradition on with the 88s a little better.”
JERRY JONES’ PHILOSOPHY: “I like the coach being one of the coordinators …”
Four of Jason Garrett’s worst losses as Cowboys head coach have come in the team’s last six games. The Cowboys have lost those four by an average of 16.5 points.
In a league structured for parity, those lopsided defeats to the Bears, Seahawks, Giants and Eagles are somewhat alarming.
Jerry Jones, the Dallas Cowboys owner and general manager says he doesn’t see it that way.
“I could go into each game and see how we got on a lopsided score,” Jones said Friday on 105.3 The Fan [KRLD-FM]. “But I thought, candidly, one of the worst games we’ve played is against Tampa. We didn’t play well against Tampa, so the score can be misleading. For instance, I can say turnovers last week against Chicago. I can say we really did become generally careless, I guess would be the word. But once we got three scores down, we were running out of time (and) we certainly did cut and chew and basically throw into … coverage. Chicago’s real good, so those last two interceptions were right into the teeth of what they do the best. They’re a Cover 2 team. You do those outside, little elongated throws in there and you’re going to get them intercepted against Chicago. I look at that. That’s a couple of scores right there. … That’s a couple right there that contributed to the lopsidedness of things.”
Is there too much on Garrett’s plate? With Garrett being both head coach and offensive coordinator, Jones was asked if there has been any talk of handing the play-calling over to offensive line coach Bill Callahan, who also carries the title of offensive coordinator.
“No, there haven’t,” Jones responded.
Entering Friday, the Cowboys ranked last in the NFC in points scored, averaging 16.2 per game. The Jacksonville Jaguars are the only NFL team averaging less at 15.5 per game.
“I believe in a head coach being one of the coordinators,” Jones said. “That’s debatable. I’ve had people say the head coach needs to be what I call a walk-around head coach, and that is he just looks at everything. We’ve had at least two of them in Bill Parcells and Tom Landry — of course I wasn’t here when Tom was here — that did everything. They ran the whole thing. Although they had coordinators or run coaches or passing coaches. I’m sounding a way that I don’t want to sound because it can work.
“I like the coach being one of the coordinators, preferably the offensive coordinator. But of course in Wade Phillips’ case, he was the defensive coordinator. When you do that, you’re going to get in down times, loss times. You’re going to get people to say, ‘They do too much. They’ve just got too much on their plate.’ You have to look at that. Jason has huge capacity to cover a lot of ground, so if anybody can do it, or look to the future, he can.”
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SOURCE: The Jerry Jones Show on 105.3 The Fan
Click on the PLAY button to listen to the entire show. Several issues are covered, including ‘being in the stew’. Enjoy!
DOUBLE TAKE: Tony Romo wins 2011 offensive MVP award and Ed Block Courage Award (Bonus Video)
Watch the Dallas Cowboys annual Kickoff Luncheon LIVE from Cowboys Stadium as the players and staff all join together in benefit of the special programs at Happy Hill Farm Academy.
Tony Romo was twice honored Tuesday. He won the team’s Ed Block Courage Award, which was announced earlier this year but awarded Tuesday, and his teammates voted him offensive player of the year for 2011.
"I didn’t know I’d have to give two speeches, so I’m not as well prepared this time," Romo said during the team’s kickoff luncheon benefiting Happy Hill Farm. "As appreciative as [I am], this is the ultimate team sport and there’s really no MVP when you play football, because my job has no chance if I don’t have five guys up front blocking their butts off and all being one cohesive unit, having a tailback who knows what he’s doing, a fullback who knows where he’s going, a wide receiver making a great play, a tight end making a guy going a different direction and beating a double team. All these things go together, and it’s not just the offensive side of the ball."
The Ed Block Courage Award is an annual award NFL teams give to honor players who "exemplify commitments to the principles of sportsmanship and courage. Recipients are selected by their teammates for team effort, as well as individual performance."
Romo had one of his best seasons with 4,184 yards, 31 touchdowns and 10 interceptions despite playing through two separate, significant injuries. He had a broken rib and a punctured lung in Week 2, never missing a game, and had a severe hand contusion in Week 16 before playing in the season finale against the Giants.
"[This award] is a great example to show the people behind the scenes that allow us to come out and compete and play a game that we love, that we would get out there and do for nothing if we had to," Romo said, pointing out the training staff.
Linebacker DeMarcus Ware, who had 19.5 sacks, was named the team’s defensive MVP, and kicker Dan Bailey, who went 32-of-37 with a long of 51, was voted special teams MVP.
Former offensive lineman John Niland took home the Tom Landry Legend Award.
RELATED: John Hugh Niland G 1966-1974 Dallas Cowboys
John Niland was an All-State fullback at Long Island’s Amityville Memorial High School. He played college football at the University of Iowa where he started out as a fullback, before switching to guard during his junior campaign. He was an All-American selection his senior year in (1965) and also a Second-team All-America selection in 1964.
Niland was drafted in the first round (fifth overall) of the 1966 NFL Draft by the Dallas Cowboys. He became the starting left offensive guard for the Cowboys from 1966 to 1974. One of the top offensive lineman of his era, he was particularly excellent as a pulling guard.
Practicing against Bob Lilly since his rookie year, helped him become a Pro Bowler and solidified an offensive line that won 3 NFC Championship Games and 1 Super Bowl. He was nicknamed Johnny Nightlife by his teammates, because of his thirst for the nightlife.
As a rookie in the 1966 NFL Championship Game and later in the 1967 NFL Championship Game, the so-called Ice Bowl, Niland played next to left offensive tackle Tony Liscio and opposite right defensive tackle Lionel Aldridge of the Green Bay Packers.
The Dallas Cowboys won the NFC Championship Game during the 1970-71 NFL playoffs against the San Francisco 49ers, thanks in great part to Duane Thomas’s 143 yards on the ground, but lost in Super Bowl V to the Baltimore Colts. However, in the following year, they defeated again the San Francisco 49ers in the NFC Championship Game of the 1971-72 NFL playoffs and then the Miami Dolphins in Super Bowl VI. In the latter game, Niland and Liscio overwhelmed Bob Heinz and Bill Stanfill, respectively, leading Duane Thomas and others to a whopping 252 yards on the ground.
Along with Rayfield Wright, Nate Newton and Larry Allen, Niland is one of only four offensive lineman in team history with at least six Pro Bowl selections. He was selected to six consecutive Pro Bowls from 1968 to 1973 and was a three-time All-Pro selection, while only missing two games in his nine seasons with the Cowboys
Courtesy: Charean Williams
Greatest 25: Butch Johnson Stretches Out In Super Way
Dallas Cowboys Star Magazine decided to count down the best of the best, the top 25 plays in franchise history. Here is No. 5 and a snippet from the Dallas Cowboys Star Magazine story:
Simply Spectacular, Jan. 15, 1978:
The Cowboys led the Denver Broncos, 13-3, midway through the third quarter of Super Bowl XII. After dominating early, forcing three fumbles and four interceptions in the first half alone, Dallas should’ve been in command, but momentum was starting to change. The Cowboys were facing a third-and-10 at Denver’s 45-yard line.
There is nothing like the national, heck, worldwide stage of the Super Bowl. Make a spectacular catch in Week 3 at Cincinnati, and sure, it’s going to be replayed that night, maybe make a few Plays of the Week reels, but the highlight is quickly lost in the passage of time. Not so on the final Sunday of the football season. Just ask Lynn Swann, John Taylor … or more recently Santonio Holmes.
And then there’s Michael “Butch” McColly Johnson, the Cowboys longtime return specialist and third wide receiver who hauled in a Roger Staubach pass in such aerobatic brilliance that it’s impossible to watch any collection of outstanding Super Bowl plays without its appearance. Just recently, in an ESPN poll, the catch was rated among the most memorable plays – that’s plays, not just catches – in the 45-year history of the Big Game.
The call came in from head coach Tom Landry, “Spread orange left, ray 15,” but quarterback Roger Staubach slightly altered the play in the huddle, later explaining, “(Broncos free safety) Bernard Jackson had been hanging in the middle. He wasn’t dropping into a deep zone as he should have been doing. Our receivers had mentioned it to me and I remembered it in the huddle. Butch wasn’t supposed to figure in the play, but I told him ‘Run a good post pattern.’
“When I faded, I saw that Jackson hadn’t dropped quickly enough. (Cornerback) Steve Foley did a good job, but Jackson should have stopped the play. When I threw, I thought the pass was too long. I couldn’t believe it when Butch made a sensational catch.”
For what it’s worth, the catch never would’ve counted today, especially with the recent addition to the rulebook of completing the reception. Johnson left his feet just inside the 5-yard line with outstretched arms and fingertips and somehow, someway, hauled the ball in around the 1-yard line, his left shoulder landing on the ground as he completed the 360-spin while crossing the goal line. Before he was standing upright, though, the ball was on the ground in the end zone.
In the locker room after the game, according to Sports Illustrated, a reporter said, “It looked spectacular,” to which Johnson simply replied, “It was.”
Courtesy: Jeff Sullivan | Dallas Cowboys Star Magazine
HONORING OUR HERITAGE: Dallas Cowboys FIRST linebacker, assistant coach Jerry Tubbs dies at age 77
Jerry Tubbs was there at the dawn of the Cowboys’ franchise in 1960 and he was still a member of the organization at the end of Tom Landry’s tenure in the late 1980’s. A man who watched the Cowboys grow into America’s Team, first as a player and then an assistant coach, died this week in the Dallas area.
He was 77 and was survived by his wife, Marlene.
Tubbs, who grew up in Breckenridge, a town located 130 miles west of Dallas, became a well-known figure with the Cowboys after an accomplished career at Oklahoma, where he played for legendary coach Bud Wilkinson and never suffered defeat during the Sooners’ dynasty.
After beginning his NFL career with the Chicago Cardinals as a first round pick in 1957 and then being traded to San Francisco a year later, he came to Dallas in 1960, when the newly-formed Cowboys selected him and 35 other players in an expansion draft.
“The only reason we got him was because he told the 49ers he was going to retire,” said former Cowboys vice president of player personnel Gil Brandt.
It turned out to be quite a coup for the Cowboys. As a middle linebacker – a key position in Landry’s defense — he immediately became integral member of the team and was invited to the Pro Bowl in 1962. Eventually, in 1966, he became a player-coach and transitioned into a full-time assistant one year later.
“He handled that extremely well,” recalled former Cowboys defensive back Mel Renfro. “He wasn’t a very vocal guy. He was nuts and bolts…Everybody loved him.”
Naturally, Tubbs supervised the linebackers he once played alongside and the ones he coached at the outset — Lee Roy Jordan, Chuck Howley and Dave Edwards — were regarded as great defenders.
“He was a very down-to-earth guy,” Edwards said. “He was the type of coach that could be friends with his players.”
He also shared many of the same personality traits that Landry had. An analytical type, he was more reserved than vocal. And by the time his run in Dallas was up after the 1988 season, he was the third-longest tenured assistant or head coach in Cowboys history. In fact, he still is.
“Tom had a great deal of faith in him as a coach,” Brandt said. “Jerry was very, very smart. And he was one of the toughest guys.”
But Edwards said what he remembers most about Tubbs was that he was “just a real, real good person.”
Remembering
Jerry Tubbs
January 23, 1935 – June 13, 2012
Gerald J. Tubbs (January 23, 1935 – June 13, 2012) was a linebacker who played for ten seasons in the National Football League from 1957 to 1966, mainly for the Dallas Cowboys. He was selected by the Dallas Cowboys in the 1960 NFL Expansion Draft. After his retirement he stayed with the Cowboys as an assistant coach for 22 years.
Tubbs played college football at the University of Oklahoma. In 1996 he was inducted to the College Football Hall of Fame. Tubbs never played in a game his team lost until turning pro.
High school career
Tubbs was an honor graduate student and played center at Breckenridge High School. He was part of two Texas state championship football teams in 1951 and 1952. He played in three high school All-Star games and was a unanimous Texas All-State selection in 1952.
He never lost a game in high school.
The teams were coached by Cooper Robbins (1951) and Joe Kerbel (1952). Both went on to the college ranks.
Since 2008, the Breckenridge Buckaroos open the football season playing the "Jerry Tubbs Kickoff Classic".
In 1971, he was inducted into the Texas High School Football Hall of fame.
College career
Tubbs played three varsity years at the University of Oklahoma, and the Sooners won all 31 games in that period. He was a fullback in 1954 and averaged six yards on rushing attempts. Head coach Bud Wilkinson moved him to center in 1955, and this became his signature position. He also played linebacker and in a victory over Texas in 1955, he intercepted three passes. In 1956 he was unanimous All-America center and was named Lineman of the Year by three agencies.
In 1954, when fullback Billy Pricer was injured, Tubbs had to replace him playing against University of Texas, the first time he had ever played in the backfield. In the remaining games of that season, he averaged 6.1 yards per carry.
Tubbs graduated from Oklahoma with a degree in economics and was a 1956 Academic All-America.
During his three varsity years, Oklahoma’s record was 10-0, 11-0, 10-0. His 31 wins were part of that legendary 47-game winning streak and two national titles from 1954-56.
The 1954 team was ranked third nationally in the Associated Press and United Press polls. The 1955 and 1956 teams were national champions. In those years Oklahoma played one bowl game. The 1955 team beat Maryland University 20-6 in the Orange Bowl.
A consensus selection for 1955 and 1956 All-American honors at center and linebacker, Tubbs was the first Sooner ever to win the Walter Camp Award as the outstanding player of the year. He was the leading vote-getter for All-American in both UPI and AP polls and was voted the outstanding lineman in every poll he was eligible.
Tubbs finished fourth in the 1956 Heisman Trophy voting (very high for a lineman), behind his second place teammate, Tommy McDonald, and winner Paul Hornung of Notre Dame University.
In 1996, he was inducted into the College Football Hall of Fame.
In 1999, he was inducted into the Oklahoma Sports Hall of Fame.
Professional career
Cardinals and 49ers
He was drafted by the Chicago Cardinals in the first round of the 1957 NFL Draft — 10th overall. Suddenly, he found himself on a perennial loser, playing out of position as an outside linebacker. He was benched, then traded to the San Francisco 49ers near the end of his second season. He finished out that year at outside linebacker. The following year he moved into the middle linebacker spot.
After the 1959 season, Tubbs planned to retire, so the Forty Niners left him off their list of players who were exempt from the 1960 NFL Expansion Draft.
Dallas Cowboys
Tubbs was acquired by the Dallas Cowboys in 1960 NFL Expansion Draft. As it turned out, he would spend the next 29 years in Dallas — as a player, then a player-coach, then a fulltime assistant coach.
When Jack Patera fell to injury in the 4th game of the 1960 season, Tubbs became the starter at middle linebacker.
He was an impact player on those early Cowboys teams. He had quickness, toughness and an unbeatable motor. In 1962, he was one of the first Cowboys players voted to the Pro Bowl, along with: QB Eddie LeBaron; DT Bob Lilly; RB Don Perkins; and CB Don Bishop.
During his playing days, he rated among the top middle linebackers in the NFL.
Tubbs became a player-coach in 1965. In 1966 he retired and was working for the Dallas Federal Savings and Loan Association, but was lured back for one more year by Tom Landry. He played just the first 3 games of the season, until he suffered a back injury. The following year (1967), Landry, sensing that the Cowboys had a real chance at a championship, wanted to have Tubbs as insurance in the event Lee Roy Jordan should be injured. He came back again, but didn’t play a single down.
Post-playing career
When he finally retired as a player in 1968, he became the linebackers coach under Tom Landry for 21 years. He coached in five Super Bowls, with Dallas winning two.
External links regarding Jerry Tubbs
- College Hall Of Fame – Jerry Tubbs Biography
- First win for Cowboys was a memorable one
- Oklahoma Sports Hall of Fame – Jerry Tubbs Biography
- Jerry Tubbs football cards
Dallas Cowboys Super Bowl VI Champions
10 Ron Widby | 12 Roger Staubach (MVP) | 14 Craig Morton | 15 Toni Fritsch | 19 Lance Alworth | 20 Mel Renfro | 22 Bob Hayes | 23 Margene Adkins | 26 Herb Adderley | 30 Dan Reeves | 31 Gloster Richardson | 32 Walt Garrison | 33 Duane Thomas | 34 Cornell Green | 35 Calvin Hill | 36 Joe Williams | 37 Isaac Thomas | 41 Charlie Waters | 42 Claxton Welch | 43 Cliff Harris | 46 Mark Washington | 50 D. D. Lewis | 51 Dave Manders | 52 Dave Edwards | 54 Chuck Howley | 55 Lee Roy Jordan | 56 Tom Stincic | 60 Lee Roy Caffey | 61 Blaine Nye | 62 John Fitzgerald | 63 Larry Cole | 64 Tony Liscio | 66 George Andrie | 67 Pat Toomay | 70 Rayfield Wright | 71 Rodney Wallace | 72 Don Talbert | 73 Ralph Neely | 74 Bob Lilly | 75 Jethro Pugh | 76 John Niland | 77 Bill Gregory | 79 Forrest Gregg | 83 Mike Clark | 85 Tody Smith | 87 Billy Truax | 89 Mike Ditka
Head Coach: Tom Landry Assistant Coaches: Ermal Allen | Bobby Franklin | Jim Myers | Dan Reeves | Ray Renfro | Ernie Stautner | Jerry Tubbs
Dallas Cowboys Super Bowl XII Champions
1 Efren Herrera | 11 Danny White | 12 Roger Staubach | 18 Glenn Carano | 20 Mel Renfro | 21 Doug Dennison | 25 Aaron Kyle | 26 Preston Pearson | 31 Benny Barnes | 33 Tony Dorsett | 35 Scott Laidlaw | 36 Larry Brinson | 41 Charlie Waters | 42 Randy Hughes | 43 Cliff Harris | 44 Robert Newhouse | 46 Mark Washington | 50 D. D. Lewis | 53 Bob Breunig | 54 Randy White (Co-MVP) | 56 Thomas Henderson | 57 Bruce Huther | 58 Mike Hegman | 59 Guy Brown | 61 Jim Cooper | 62 John Fitzgerald | 63 Larry Cole | 64 Tom Rafferty | 65 Dave Stalls | 66 Burton Lawless | 67 Pat Donovan | 68 Herbert Scott | 70 Rayfield Wright | 71 Andy Frederick | 72 Ed Jones | 73 Ralph Neely | 75 Jethro Pugh | 77 Bill Gregory | 79 Harvey Martin (Co-MVP) | 80 Tony Hill | 83 Golden Richards | 86 Butch Johnson | 87 Jay Saldi | 88 Drew Pearson | 89 Billy Joe DuPree
Head Coach: Tom Landry Assistant Coaches: Ermal Allen | Mike Ditka | Jim Myers | Dan Reeves | Gene Stallings | Ernie Stautner | Jerry Tubbs
Dallas Cowboys 1960 Inaugural Season Roster
Gene Babb | Bob Bercich | Dick Bielski | Don Bishop | Nate Borden | Tom Braatz | Byron Bradfute | Bill Butler | Frank Clarke | Fred Cone | Mike Connelly | Gene Cronin | Paul Dickson | Fred Doelling | Jim Doran | Mike Dowdle | Fred Dugan | L. G. Dupree | Mike Falls | Tom Franckhauser | Bob Fry | John Gonzaga | Buzz Guy | Wayne Hansen | Don Healy | Don Heinrich | Bill Herchman | John Houser | Billy Howton | Ed Husmann | Dick Klein | Walt Kowalczyk | Eddie LeBaron | Woodley Lewis | Ray Mathews | Don McIlhenny | Don Meredith | Jim Mooty | Jack Patera | Duane Putnam | Dave Sherer | Jerry Tubbs | Gary Wisener
Head Coach: Tom Landry Assistant Coaches: Tom Dahms | Babe Dimancheff | Brad Ecklund
BREAKTHROUGH ‘BOYS: Story of ‘71 Dallas Cowboys team is a must-read
While the focus this week seems to be squarely on Saturday’s upcoming matchup with the Eagles, in a game that could decide the Cowboys’ playoff fate and possibly lead them to an NFC East title, it’s still Christmas. It’s still that time of year to get some last-second shopping.
And if you’re still scrambling out there, trying to find a gift for a football fan, especially a die-hard Cowboys fan, then you might want to check out Breakthrough ‘Boys, the story of the 1971 Cowboys.
Personally, I’m currently about halfway through the book, written by Jamie Aron, a longtime writer for The Associated Press who has written a handful of sports books in the last decade.
But this one right here hits home more than any other I’ve read in a while because even though it’s been 40 years since the Cowboys’ first title, so many things happened that season that can be related to today’s game.
Even if you don’t remember the Cowboys or the NFL back then, or in my case, weren’t even born yet, there are some reference points to consider.
Imagine the Danny White-Gary Hogeboom quarterback controversy, the presence of Terrell Owens on and off the field, the opening of Cowboys Stadium and just the steady pressures of trying to get over the hump and finally win a playoff game. Those are things this team has faced over the years as some of the bigger storylines in franchise history.
And things like that actually all occurred there in 1971. You had Tom Landry trying to make up his mind about the quarterback position, flipping back and forth between Craig Morton and Roger Staubach. Then there was the saga of Duane Thomas, who distanced himself from the team but his talents on the field couldn’t be ignored.
It was also the first year Texas Stadium opened and the Cowboys moved from the historic Cotton Bowl to the state-of-the-art stadium that was the most unique sporting venue in the world and certainly ahead of its time. We experienced the excitement of that just two years ago as well.
And if all that wasn’t enough, just imagine what it was like for a Cowboys team labeled “Next Year’s Champions” that finally became “America’s Team.”
It all happened in 1971 and it’s all chronicled in Breakthrough ‘Boys. This might not be the Super Bowl season you remember the most, but it’s the one that actually started it all.
For more information and some fun facts about the book, check out the Facebook page for Breakthrough ‘Boys, which also can be purchased online.
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RANDY GALLOWAY: Jimmy Johnson offers some management tips to Jason Garrett
Let’s do a quick flashback to a month ago and a three-way verbal exchange among famous local football names:
Jimmy Johnson, giving opinions weekly on the Fox-TV pre- and postgame Sunday NFL show, said as a fan of Jason Garrett, he would suggest the Cowboys’ young head coach hire an offensive coordinator for next season and concentrate on being a full-time head coach.
Garrett was asked about the opinion, and while pledging his respect for Jimmy, said he would continue as head coach/offensive coordinator in the future.
Jerry Jones was asked for his thoughts on the subject, and immediately shot down the Jimmy idea, saying he didn’t approve of a "walk-around head coach," although not mentioning he’s had three of them — Johnson, Barry Switzer and Bill Parcells, a trio with five Super Bowl titles combined.
Jimmy’s zinger reply to Jerry:
"He doesn’t like it because Jerry thinks he’s the walk-around head coach."
So it ended it with that chuckle-moment, and we all moved on.
Troy Aikman: I disagree with Jimmy Johnson, Jason Garrett can do both jobs
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Former Cowboys coach Jimmy Johnson recently suggested that current coach Jason Garrett should put his focus on being the team’s head coach and think about hiring an offensive coordinator to call the plays.
Since making that statement on FOX’s pregame show last Sunday, Garrett, Cowboys owner Jerry Jones and former quarterback Troy Aikman have all disagreed with Johnson’s line of thinking.
“I don’t think being a head coach is too big for Jason,” Aikman said Thursday morning during his weekly appearance on 1310 “The Ticket” (KTCK-AM). “I don’t think being an offensive coordinator is too big for him. And I don’t often, but I’d probably disagree with Jimmy, to think that Jason Garrett can’t handle both jobs, I’d have a hard time believing that.”
Jerry Jones said Tuesday on 105.3 The Fan (KRLD-FM) that he “always thought that Jason Garrett could handle coordinating as well as being the head coach.”
After Wednesday’s practice, Garrett said Johnson’s comments “could be an opinion he might have and other people might have. But right now, we feel good about the structure we have on our staff and that is what we will do going forward.”
Aikman compared coaching an NFL team to being President of the United States. He also added that if Garrett was going to hire an offensive coordinator, he would have done it already.
“Very few presidents, none that I know of, that have come out and said that they were really prepared for the job when they got it,” Aikman said. “I think the same goes for being a head coach in the National Football League. As much as you prepare yourself, then you get the job and there’s parts of it that you didn’t anticipate or there’s things that are required that you’ve got to deal with that you didn’t think were a part of it.
“If you’re going to embrace the head coaching job and then say it’s too difficult for me to do both, I think you’d give up play-calling as soon as you get named head coach. But no one does that. The offensive guys that have gone on to become head coaches have continued to call plays, and then they get more and more acclimated within the role of head coaching and how to split their duties and delegate a little bit and then they’re fine.”
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DALLAS COWBOYS HERITAGE: Tom Landry special airing Thursday on NFL Network
Tom Landry - The Boys Are Back blog
On a week that will acknowledge three of the great players in Dallas Cowboys history, it’s fitting that the NFL Network will air a documentary on the franchise’s all-time winningest coach.
Tom Landry: A Football Life airs Thursday night at 9 p.m. (CT).
The network’s promo for the special: “For 29 seasons, Tom Landry commanded the sideline for the Dallas Cowboys with a stoic demeanor and iconic hat, overseeing a football team that operated with machine-like efficiency. Yet behind the myth and mystique was a father figure that stood in contrast to the image of an unemotional head coach, all of which is revealed in Tom Landry: A Football Life.”
Among those interviewed are former players Roger Staubach, Drew Pearson, Mike Ditka, New York Giants teammate Frank Gifford and various media personalities.
The trailer can be seen here.
SPOTLIGHT: Jerry Jones – Dallas Cowboys owner, general manager
Dallas Cowboys owner_general manager has produced three Super Bowl winning teams!
Jerral “Jerry” Wayne Jones (born October 13, 1942) is the owner and general manager of the NFL team, the Dallas Cowboys.
Early life
Jerry Jones was born in Los Angeles, California. His family moved to North Little Rock, Arkansas when he was an infant. Jones was a star running back at North Little Rock High School. Jones attended college at the University of Arkansas and was a co-captain of the 1964 National Championship football team. He was an all-SWC offensive lineman for Hall of Fame coach Frank Broyles and a teammate of Neil Rosenberg and Jimmy Johnson. Other notable teammates were Glen Ray Hines, Ken Hatfield, Jim Lindsey, and Loyd Phillips. Several future great head coaches were assistant coaches for Frank Broyles and the Razorbacks during his college career in Fayetteville including Hayden Fry, Johnny Majors, and most notably Barry Switzer, Hall of Fame coach of the University of Oklahoma. Jerry Jones is one of a very small number of NFL owners who actually earned a significant level of success as a football player.
When Jerry Jones graduated college in 1965, he was hired as an executive vice president at Modern Security Life of Springfield, Missouri, his father’s insurance company. He received his Masters degree in business in 1970. After several unsuccessful business ventures (including passing up the opportunity to purchase the AFL‘s San Diego Chargers in 1967), he began an oil and gas exploration business in Arkansas, Jones Oil and Land Lease, which became phenomenally successful. His privately-held company currently does natural resource prospecting.
Dallas Cowboys
In 1989, Jerry Jones purchased the Cowboys and Texas Stadium from H.R. “Bum” Bright for $140 million. Soon after the purchase, he fired long time coach Tom Landry, to that point the only coach in the team’s history, in favor of his old teammate at Arkansas, Jimmy Johnson. A few months later, he forced out longtime general manager Tex Schramm, and assumed complete control over football matters.
After the 1993 Super Bowl victory, reports began to surface in the media that Jerry Jones had made the statement that “any one of 500 coaches could have won those Super Bowls”, given the type of talent that he (Jones) had drafted and signed for the team. Jones also stated to reporters at a late night cocktail party that he intended to replace Jimmy Johnson with former University of Oklahoma coach Barry Switzer. The next morning, however, Jones famously denied those reports by stating that it “was the whiskey talking”. Jimmy Johnson was eventually forced out in 1994 and Barry Switzer was hired to be the new head coach of the Dallas Cowboys.
Jerry Jones is one of two NFL owners who also have the title or powers of general manager, the other being the Cincinnati Bengals’ Mike Brown.
Of all the owners in American professional sports, he is considered to be one of the most involved, on a day-to-day basis, with his team. He can be seen in his box at every Cowboys game and in many cases he ventures down to the Cowboys sideline (usually late in the game).
Criticism
In an online poll from October 8, 2003, Jerry Jones was named the least favorite sports personality by Sports Illustrated. He is often vilified by fans who remain bitter at Jones’ unceremonious firing of fan-favorite Tom Landry. Some of the fan criticism is due to Jerry Jones’ high visibility and involvement as the “face of the team” which is in stark contrast to original owner Clint Murchison Jr.
Some Dallas Cowboy fans have expressed their displeasure with Jerry Jones and the lack of success in the franchise. This had led to formation of grassroots organizations aimed at displacing Jones from his position.
Jones is the subject of a book published September 1, 2008 titled ‘Playing to Win’ by David Magee. In the book, Jerry Jones says he handled the firing of Tom Landry poorly and takes some blame for the disintegration of his relationship with Jimmy Johnson.
NFL fines
Jerry Jones was fined $25,000 by the NFL for publicly criticizing referee Ed Hochuli after Hochuli made a controversial call in a game between the San Diego Chargers and the Denver Broncos on September 14, 2008. He made comments both to the press and on his radio show, saying Hochuli was one of the most criticized officials in the NFL. This was Jones’ first fine by the NFL.
In 2009, Jones was fined for violating a gag order on labor issues. Commissioner Roger Goodell had issued a gag order for all owners and team executives from discussing any aspect of the pending labor issues. Jones “crossed the line”, drawing a “six-figure” fine, sources said, as the commissioner distributed a memo to all 32 owners, along with a reminder that the gag order remains in effect. Goodell did not disclose the specific amount of Jones’ fine in the memo.
Jones in popular culture
Jerry Jones was the inspiration for the character Baxter Cain (Robert Vaughn), owner of the Dallas Felons, in the 1998 film BASEketball. He had a brief cameo appearance as himself in the 1998 made-for-television reunion movie Dallas: War of the Ewings. He also appeared as himself in an episode of the TV show “Coach” in 1996. He also appeared as himself in a 2007 television commercial for Diet Pepsi MAX, which also featured then Cowboys head coach Wade Phillips and quarterback Tony Romo. Jerry Jones most recently starred in a commercial for Papa John’s in which a stunt man performs a dance act. Jones also appeared in the seventh season of the HBO series Entourage as himself in 2010.
Personal life
Jerry Jones is married to Gene Jones and they have three children: Stephen, Charlotte and Jerry, Jr. They also have nine grandchildren.
Stephen Jones (born July 21, 1964) is a graduate of the University of Arkansas and serves as the Cowboys’ chief operating officer/executive vice president/director of player personnel. Charlotte (born July 26, 1966) is a Stanford graduate and serves as the Cowboys’ vice president/director of charities and special events. Jerry, Jr (born September 27, 1969) is a graduate of Georgetown University who earned his law degree from Southern Methodist University, is the Cowboys’ chief sales and marketing officer/vice president.
Cowboys Stadium
A highlight of Cowboys Stadium is its gigantic, center-hung high-definition television screen, the largest in the world. The 160 by 72 feet, 11,520-square-foot scoreboard surpasses the 8,736 sq ft screen that opened in 2009 at the renovated Kauffman Stadium in Kansas City, Missouri as the world’s largest.
At the debut pre-season game of Cowboys Stadium, a punt by Tennessee Titans kicker, AJ Trapasso, hit the 2,100 in. screen above the field. The punt deflected and was ruled in-play until Titans coach Jeff Fisher informed the officials that the punt struck the scoreboard. (Many believe Trapasso was trying to hit the suspended scoreboard, based on replays and the angle of the kick.) The scoreboard is, however, within the regulation of the NFL guidelines – hanging approximately five feet above the minimum height. It should also be noted that no punts hit the scoreboard during the entire 2009 regular season during an actual game. Also, what should be noted is that on August 22, 2009, the day after AJ Trapasso hit the screen, many fans touring the facility noted that half of the field was removed with large cranes re-positioning the screen. According to some fans, a tour guide explained that Jerry Jones invited a few professional soccer players to drop kick soccer balls to try and hit the screen. Once he observed them hitting it consistently he had the screen moved up another 10 feet.
The first regular season home game of the 2009 season was against the New York Giants. A league record-setting 105,121 fans showed up to completely pack Cowboys Stadium for the game before which the traditional “blue star” at the 50 yard line was unveiled for the first time; however, the Cowboys lost in the final seconds, 33–31.
The Cowboys got their first regular season home win on September 28, 2009. They beat the Carolina Panthers 21–7 with 90,588 in attendance. The game was televised on ESPN’s Monday Night Football and marked a record 42nd win for the Cowboys on MNF.
EXECUTIVE BIO – Jerry Jones (Dallas Cowboys website)
In one of the most dramatic eras of ownership in professional sports, Jerry Jones’ stewardship of the Dallas Cowboys has brought unprecedented results and success to one of the world’s most popular sports entities.
Aside from being one of only four current owners to guide their franchises to at least three Super Bowl titles, Jones’ efforts in the areas of sports marketing, promotion and the development of Cowboys Stadium have created a vivid imprint on the landscape of the NFL and the American sports culture.
Highlighted by Super Bowl victories following the 1992, 1993 and 1995 seasons, Jones became the first owner in NFL history to guide his team to three league championships in his first seven years of ownership. In 1995 Dallas also became the first team in NFL history to win three Super Bowls in four seasons while tying the then-NFL record for most Super Bowl victories by an organization with five.
The first decade of Jones’ ownership closed with eight playoff appearances, six division titles, four conference championship game appearances and three world crowns as the Cowboys were named the NFL’s Team of the 1990s. Dallas closed the first decade of the new millennium with division titles in 2007 and 2009 while the 2009 club secured the 11th playoff appearance in Jones’ 22 seasons of leadership.
Along with the success of the Dallas Cowboys on the field, Jones’ vision and leadership provided the driving influence behind the concept, design, and construction of Cowboys Stadium in Arlington, Texas – a venue that is recognized internationally as perhaps the most spectacular and state-of-the-art sports stadium in the world.
Opened to the public in May of 2009, Cowboys Stadium’s dramatic first season of operation resulted in the venue being named the Sports Facility of the Year by the Sports Business Journal in May of 2010. Along with that achievement for the team’s new home, Jones was also named the 2009 Sports Executive of the Year by the SBJ.
The 100,000 plus seat Cowboys Stadium established the attendance record for an NFL regular season game as 105,121 witnessed the September 20, 2009 home opener, while the 108,713 who attended the NBA All-Star Game on February 14, 2010 became the largest crowd to witness a basketball game in the history of the sport.
In just over two years of operation, more than four million fans have attended events that included high school and collegiate football, major college basketball, professional bull riding, Motocross, world championship boxing and a handful of concerts that featured world renowned recording artists. Another million visitors have passed through the twelve-story-high doors of the stadium for daily public tours of the venue.
With its architectural versatility and cutting edge media capabilities, Cowboys Stadium has become a visible beacon that has established North Texas as a major focal point on the sports and entertainment canvas of North America.
The brilliant home of the Cowboys has become a powerful catalyst in attracting a wide range of national and international events that will define the future of the region for generations to come. After already playing host to Super Bowl XLV in February of 2011, other top flight events for the future include the annual AT&T Cotton Bowl, the 2014 NCAA Final Four in men’s basketball and the annual Texas A&M-Arkansas football series just to name a few.
Since he took over as general manager in 1989, the Cowboys have drafted 25 different players who have gone on to appear in a combined total of 95 Pro Bowls. Dallas has also signed 11 free agent players who have made 28 Pro Bowl appearances while representing the Dallas Cowboys. Since 1989 the Cowboys have made 129 trades, the most celebrated of which was the 1989 deal that sent Herschel Walker to the Minnesota Vikings and provided the personnel foundation for three league titles.
In selecting the on-the-field leadership for the Cowboys, Jones hired a pair of coaches who won three Super Bowls in Dallas: Jimmy Johnson (1992-1993) and Barry Switzer (1995). Chan Gailey followed with a division title and playoff appearances in 1998 and 1999. In 2003 Jones successfully recruited two-time Super Bowl winner Bill Parcells to Dallas, and Parcells directed the team to three winning seasons and two playoff trips in four seasons. In February of 2007, Jones added another successful NFL head coach in Wade Phillips who guided the club to a pair of division titles in his first three years (2007 and 2009) and a playoff victory in 2009. In 2011, Jones named Jason Garrett as the team’s eighth head coach after the former Cowboys’ quarterback guided the club to a 5-3 record as the interim coach in the second half of the 2010 season.
In the last 33 years, 34 different owners have entered the National Football League. Of that group, only Jerry Jones and Robert Kraft of New England have guided their franchises to more than two Super Bowl championships. Moreover, Jones joins Art Rooney, Jack Kent Cooke, Al Davis, Eddie DeBartolo and Kraft as the only men to have won at least three Super Bowls as NFL owners.
On the league front, he actively contributes his vision and enthusiasm to enhancing the NFL’s status as the world’s premier professional sports league by serving on a wide range of league committees. He was recently very involved—as a member of the Management Council Executive Committee–in the labor negotiations that resulted in the most recent Collective Bargaining Agreement between the NFL and its players. In addition to the CEC, Jones is currently the Chairman of the NFL Network Committee, and he is a member of the NFL Broadcasting Committee, the Pro Football Hall of Fame Committee and the NFL Player Dire-Need Committee. Jones also served on the committee that was charged with overseeing the search for a successor to retired NFL Commissioner Paul Tagliabue — a search that successfully landed current NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell in September of 2006. In addition, Jones has served two prior terms as a member of the NFL’s Competition Committee as well as a stint on the Business Ventures Committee.
His contributions and innovations in the areas of marketing, corporate sponsorships, television, stadium management, stadium development, labor negotiations and community service have made a visible imprint on the ever evolving face of professional sports in America. Since becoming involved with the Cowboys, Jones’ accomplishments have been recognized through his induction into the Boys and Girls Clubs of America Hall of Fame, the Texas Sports Hall of Fame (2007), the Texas Business Hall of Fame (2005), the Arkansas Sports Hall of Fame (1999) and the Missouri Sports Hall of Fame (1998). In August of 2007, he served as the presenter for Michael Irvin’s induction into the Pro Football Hall of Fame — a recognition he was also named for by Emmitt Smith as the NFL’s all-time leading rusher was enshrined in Canton in August of 2010.
As a co-captain of the 1964 National Championship Arkansas Razorbacks, Jones is one of a very small number of NFL owners who actually earned a significant level of success as a football player. He is the only man in the history of the National Football League to play for a collegiate national championship football team and own a Super Bowl winner. In addition, Jones and the legendary George Halas are the only two men to become NFL owners after playing in a major college football bowl game. His current ties to the college game include membership on the Board of Directors for the National Football Foundation and College Football Hall of Fame.
A man of varied interests who will not rest on yesterday’s achievements, he is a dedicated businessman and family man – sharing a vivid enthusiasm for both. Although Jones and his family are very involved in numerous civic and charitable causes, the Joneses have left an indelible local and national impression on the philanthropic landscape with their love and dedication to The Salvation Army.
For the past 14 seasons, the Jones family has dedicated the Cowboys Thanksgiving Day halftime show as a national showcase to kick off The Salvation Army’s annual Red Kettle Drive. Through the donation of national television air-time, the event has created a new holiday tradition, while helping to increase donations to The Salvation Army’s annual fund raising efforts by hundreds of millions of dollars. Major George Hood of The Salvation Army states that “by presenting the National Kettle Kickoff on Thanksgiving Day, the Dallas Cowboys have helped the Army raise over one billion dollars in the past 14 years.” Reba McEntire, Randy Travis, Clint Black, Jessica Simpson, Billy Gilman, Creed, LeAnn Rimes, Toby Keith, Destiny’s Child, Sheryl Crow, Carrie Underwood, Kelly Clarkson, The Jonas Brothers, Daughtry and Keith Urban have provided the entertainment for the holiday extravaganzas.
The Salvation Army points to the annual Cowboys kickoff event as one of the most effective, creative and important innovations that has been developed in the long and storied history of the organization.
The Joneses received the Evangeline Booth Award in 1999, one of the Army’s highest national community service awards and have been selected for membership into the prestigious Salvation Army William Booth Society. Gene and Jerry were also named to the Army’s National Advisory Board in April of 1998 shortly after being named the organization’s Partners of the Year in 1997. In April of 2007, Gene and Jerry Jones served as the honorary chairpersons for the Salvation Army’s National Advisory Organizations Conference (NAOC) that was held in Dallas.
For 10 years, Gene and Jerry Jones served as hosts and underwrote the costs for the Super Lunch, a fundraising event for The Salvation Army Irving Corps Community Center. In 1998 the Gene and Jerry Jones Family Center for Children opened in conjunction with The Army.
As part of the Jones Family and the Dallas Cowboys commitment to Arlington, Texas, the home of the club’s new stadium, Gene and Jerry Jones Family Charities will donate a total of $16.5 million to non-profit organizations serving youth in Arlington from 2009-2041.
In 2001 the Joneses were awarded the Chairman’s Award by The Boys and Girls Clubs of America. In June of 2002, Gene and Jerry Jones were recognized as the recipients of the Children’s Champion Award for Philanthropy that was presented by the Dallas for Children organization. In 2003 the Family Gateway organization of Dallas presented Gene and Jerry with the Annette G. Strauss Humanitarian Award. In April of 2005, Gene and Jerry were recipients of the Hope Award, the highest community service recognition awarded by the Lone Star Chapter of the National Multiple Sclerosis Society. In 2010 the Jones Family and the Cowboys were selected by the Boys and Girls Clubs of America to receive the prestigious Chairman’s Award that recognized the Cowboys long and dedicated history of supporting that organization.
The Jones family is very involved with several other community-related organizations, including Children’s Medical Center of Dallas, Happy Hill Farm Academy/Home, the National Board for The Boys and Girls Clubs of America, the Kent Waldrep Paralysis Foundation, The Rise School of Dallas, The Family Place and The Family Gateway. In 2010, the Jones family endowed the North Texas Youth Education Town with a $1 million grant. Created as a lasting legacy of Super Bowl XLV, the North Texas YET will be administered by The Salvation Army and provide North Texas youth with education, mentoring, fitness and character enrichment programs.
Jerry (10/13/42) and Gene live in Dallas. They have three children, Stephen, Charlotte and Jerry, Jr., and nine grandchildren.
Stephen (6/21/64) is a graduate of the University of Arkansas and serves as the Cowboys Chief Operating Officer/Executive Vice President/ Director of Player Personnel. Charlotte (7/26/66) is a Stanford graduate and serves as the Cowboys Executive Vice President/VP of Brand Management/President Charity Foundation. Jerry Jr. (9/27/69), a graduate of Georgetown University who earned his law degree from Southern Methodist University, is the Cowboys Executive Vice President/ Chief Sales and Marketing Officer.
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Courtesy: Wikipedia and Dallas Cowboys website Edited: The Boys Are Back
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