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The
Dallas Cowboys, dubbed America's Team in 1978 by Bob Ryan, editor
of NFL Films, really are East Texas' team. That is because the first
owners, Clint Murchison Jr. and Bedford Wynne, were East Texans.
The Cowboys were the first "expansion" team from the National Football
League's long-time lineup of twelve teams, mostly clustered in the
Northeast and Midwest with two teams located on the West Coast. The
expansion, mostly undertaken to combat the insurgent American Football
League, occurred in January 1960. Murchison and Wynne paid $600,000
for the franchise.
The owners hired Tex Schram as general manager, Tom Landry as head
coach, and Gil Brandt as head scout and director of the annual NFL
draft of former college players. The Cowboys did not win a game during
their first season, but won the NFL's Eastern Conference championship
in 1966 before losing to the Green Bay Packers in the NFL's title
game.
The next year they lost again to Green Bay in the championship game,
known as the Ice Bowl because the teams played in such cold conditions-13
degrees Fahrenheit below zero.
Landry and the Cowboys remained perennial winners for more than a
decade with field leadership by quarterbacks Don Meredith and Roger
Staubach and running backs such as Tony Dorsett, Dan Reeves, and Walt
Garrison. Landry popularized soccer-style kicking and coaches sending
in all plays and reintroduced the shotgun formation to the NFL and
eventually to other levels of the game as well. His teaching enabled
the Cowboys to enjoy twenty winning seasons, including two NFL championships,
and two Super Bowl victories or five appearances.
The Murchison family sold the Cowboys franchise to a partnership led
by Dallas banker H.R. "Bum" Bright in 1984, but the team began to
fare badly. Bright sold the team to Arkansas oil man Jerry Jones in
1988, who fired Landry and hired his old friend Jimmy Johnson, coach
of the University of Miami Hurricanes, as the Cowboy's new coach.
Behind excellent draft picks, especially quarterback Troy Aikman,
running back Emmitt Smith, and receiver Michael Ervin, Johnson led
the Cowboys to two Super Bowl victories. After disagreements between
Johnson and Jones, Barry Switzer became coach, followed by Chan Gailey,
Dave Campo, and then Bill Parcells, but none have resurrected the
team.
Still, the Cowboys are America's team, and annual marketing of NFL-related
merchandize with the Cowboy logo outsells all other professional teams
combined. That also means they are America's most hated team,
especially in Philadelphia and Washington, arch Eastern Conference
rivals.
Despite a long-time challenge from the Houston Oilers and now the
Texans, the Cowboys are also East
Texas' team. |
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