The old man slammed the sports section of the Fort Worth Star-Telegram down on the just-wiped table, took off his sweat-stained Resistol, placed it in the seat beside him and settled in with several other breakfast regulars in the cinderblock cafe near Fort Worth’s Stockyards.
“Jerry Jones is a sumbitch and I’ll have some scrambled e’s and Jimmy Dean with biscuits and redeye,” he said, curling his Skoal-toned lips and adjusting his weight to accommodate a belt buckle big enough to serve a pizza on. He wasn’t alone in his appraisal.
“Sumbitch fired the greatest coach in pro football,” said a rail- thin young man eating chicken-fried steak and mashed potatoes with sweet iced tea – for breakfast. His buckle was pie-plate-big as well, and glinted in the sun streaming through the aroma of Maxwell House, burnt toast and bacon.
“The Cowboys can go straight to hell – and will,” spat another old cowboy across the way, sopping a buttery cat-head biscuit with his gnarled, scarred and calloused fingers. “He’s a sumbitch, all the way.”
“Sumbitch, alright,” grunted another old wrangler sitting at the bar, nursing a chipped cup. “Yessir, a pure-n-T sumbitch.”
As it turned out, maybe they were all right and all wrong, all at once.
1989 was not a good year to live in Texas. The Lone Star economy was gurgling financial red, not crude black. Oil was $10 a barrel. Texas was sucking an empty pipe toward bankruptcy as business after business closed and skyscrapers fell into court-appointed hands. I lost $10,000 trying to sell our house. It was not a pretty time.
Into this turgid maelstrom strutted cocksure Jerry Jones with a jailhouse smile, a brutally brusque manner, a chalkboard-scraping, hands-on management style and dry-hole-busting attitude. Worse for Texans, he was from Oklahoma via Arkansas.
“Arkansas sumbitch,” said one of the waitresses, refilling my cup and nodding to me. “Pardon our language, sir.”
I did.
She was stout, work-muscled, freckle-tanned and wearing a big belt buckle just like the men. Seemed Jerry Jones had a rep as a “sumbitch” with anybody who wore a big buckle.
“Thought he was from Oklahoma,” said the skinny cowboy.
“Arkansas, Oklahoma – sumbitch either way,” she grinned. They all laughed.
Jerry Jones paid Bum Bright $65 million for the once-great team (coming off a 3-13 season) and swallowed upwards of $100 million of the franchise’s debt when he took over (not that the cowboys in the cafe knew or cared about those details). America’s Team was partly just that; the government owned 12 percent of the outfit from a failed loan. Jerry had a long row to hoe.
His first official act was to fire NFL legend Tom Landry, cementing his “sumbitch” rep with a lot of Texans. He hired his old teammate from Arkansas, Jimmy Johnson, coach of the University of Miami. “Jimmy Jumpup” – as he was known because of his endless energy back when he and Jones played for the Razorbacks – became “Jimmy Who?” in Miami when he followed Howard Schnellenberger, who’d given the university a taste of winning with a national title in 1983. But “Jimmy Who?” went 52-9 and won a national championship with the Hurricanes. “Jimmy Why?” led the Cowboys to a 1-15 first season.
One night at The Grapevine Steakhouse, a diehard fan said to me about Jerry and his new coach, “Sumbitch ain’t just a sumbitch, he’s a losin sumbitch. And he hired another losin sumbitch as coach. Two sumbitches.”
But Jerry ignored his critics and bulled his way through losing and tough economics by meddling and wheeling and dealing and “coaching” from the owner’s box. His little oil company kept him in cash flow and his guts kept him in the news. Before anybody could say, “Set, down, hut,” the “sumbitch” was on top of the NFL world as Johnson, Troy Aikman, Emmitt Smith, Michael Irvin and America’s Team grabbed up two Super Bowl trophies in quick succession. Then Jerry got crossways of Jimmy and hired Barry Switzer, and the Cowboys won their third Lombardi Trophy.
Besides winning games, Jerry turned the Cowboys into an unprecedented cash Cowboy machine. And lost 60 pounds doing it.
While the last few years have been profitable, they’ve been lean in the win column. Jerry changed coaches often (not unusual in sports). But not even legendary Bill Parcels could turn the Cowboys into a championship team, and he left at the end of last season. Wade Phillips is the new coach, and while that may not exactly curl the toes of die- hard fans’ Ropers, Jerry Jones’ new stadium digs in Arlington should twist their little piggies like the witch after Dorothy’s house landed on her.
About a good line drive away from beautiful Rangers Ballpark in Arlington, Jones is showing other NFL owners what $1 billion can build. Adios, Texas Stadium, hello, Mama. The Cowboys’ new playhouse will dwarf every other NFL stadium in audacity and size and shock and awe and every other category imaginable. Seating upwards of 100,000, it will be the mother, father, grandparents and third cousin of all ballparks. The yet unnamed, Jetson-ish, luxury-packed entertainment behemoth will host the 2011 Super Bowl whether the Cowboys get there or not (likely not). And it even has a funky hole (retractable, unlike the old one) in the roof as a nod to Texas Stadium’s retro concrete, deep fryer environment.
But this isn’t remotely like the old place – or anyplace really. The word impressive doesn’t have enough syllables to describe this thing. Check it out: http://stadium.dallascowboys.com
Yeah.
Jerry may not be the most likable “sumbitch” around (even other NFL owners probably don’t store his number in their cell phones for when they come up short and need a golf partner), but you have to hand it to him – he puts his money where his mouth is. And his mouth is all over.
As one of the most innovative owners in pro sports, he stood up and fought the NFL on broadcast rights and won. Because of that move, every other owner can thank Jerry when they cash those freakishly big checks these days. He turned money-sucking stadiums into cash machines and branded like Steve Jobs. Through ball-busting audacity, he turned a debt-riddled loser into a team/brand/giant worth $1.2 billion, according to Forbes. Think of a 1,800 percent increase in shareholder value –and Jerry’s the shareholder.
I talked to a friend of mine in Texas last night. We hit the usual topics like weather and old friends, and then it got serious as our words turned to football. He mentioned the recent article in Sports Illustrated about Jerry Jones and his massive new stadium.
“The Cowboys will be back,” he said.
“With Wade Phillips as coach?” I asked.
“Maybe not this year. But Jerry will by-gawd find a way to bring our Cowboys back.”
“Sounds like Texans have embraced Jerry in a more positive way than they did when I lived there,” I said.
He paused and then laughed in a rumble under his breath, like thunder in the Hill Country.
“Well, it’s true; Jerry is still a sumbitch,” he said. “But he’s our sumbitch.”