Cowboy Mecca

Much of what we call the Metro-Pasture here in North Texas, lies basically in the Trinity River basin. It may be a flood prone delta but it’s our flood prone delta. It is a flat to slightly rolling terrain where the rain soaks the thick black gumbo clay soil and drains toward the rivulets and gullies that form the creeks and streams that empty into the forks of the Trinity River. The Trinity is a modest, muddy tributary, which then fills and floods any place that is not built on relatively high ground or fortified by levies. It is not a place prone to grand vistas.

However, there is the occasional chalk escarpment buckling from the post oak savannah and grassland prairie, which produces the highest point in Dallas County at 841 feet above sea level. One of these runs north and south along the western edge of the county and through places known as Cockrell Hill and Cedar Hill. Driving west along the Tom Landry Highway out of Dallas, I-30 crests this geological bump and offers the closest thing to a “view” as one living in these parts can imagine.

There, 9.3 miles to the west something totally new - disc like and enormous - protrudes from the otherwise flat line of the horizon. It catches the eye and conjures images of a giant observatory or the Death Star itself – crashed into the earth and half buried, something from the next century or the one after. By the time you reach the bottom of the lonely hill, the landscape has swallowed the semi-sphere and for the next 8.5 miles, the uninitiated driver wonders, “What the hell was that?” and, moreover, “Where the hell did it go?”

There on a landscape that only a civil engineer could love and make habitable, the first American Mecca of the new century has been erected. Architecturally, culturally, and in the history of sports, Cowboy Stadium, in form and function, succeeds far beyond the limits of the moniker, “football stadium”. Calling it a football stadium is akin to calling a stealth bomber an airplane or Raquel Welch, a girl. Welcome to “Jerry World”: the building that is as audacious as the seed, sower and seller of the idea, Dallas Cowboy owner, Mr. Jerral Wayne “Jerry” Jones.

What the Burj Khalifi is to the Dubai skyline, Cowboy Stadium is to football, perhaps America. It’s going to be a visible player whether you want it to be or not. It rises from the sedate suburban sprawl of Arlington, Texas, between Dallas and Ft. Worth and dwarfs next door neighbor, the 50,000 seat stadium, Rangers Ballpark in Arlington, a place locally known as The Temple. Although I am a fan, my general feeling about the business side of sport, is to just ignore it. It ruins the fun. At some point, football fan or not, you are likely to find yourself lost in Jerry’s realm, in a pilgrimage to the largest domed sports stadium in the world. Covering 3 million square feet, or 73 acres, it is anchored by two giant arches that rise to 292 feet in height and are a quarter of a mile in length. The reason you may find yourself there even if you never attend a sporting event is that the darned thing cost $1.6 billion. Jerry’s got a mortgage.

My first encounter with the futuristic works of the new urban auditorium was to see U2. I think it was U2. It could have been Kenny and the Casuals. We were so far away, I’m not sure. Though I was disappointed in my first encounter – they didn’t even turn the big screen on – I didn’t fail to appreciate the gravitas of the structure.

One can imagine the big house hosting cross-sections of humanity previously unimagined: the first simultaneously held Republican and Democratic Convention; or the world’s largest gathering of trans-gendered evangelicals. Moto-Cross and Tractor-Pulls can’t be far behind. Whatever happens at Cowboy Stadium, or whatever the name is once the naming rights are sold to a suitably high profile partner, one can rest assured it will be the biggest, the largest, or the most puffed-up ego-maniacally motivated event ever held, just like it’s owner.

It is hard to think of another character whose actual importance on the American cultural landscape is matched only by his own self-importance. Like a cross between Elvis, Walt Disney, and P.T Barnum, Jerry is as enigmatic as he is successful. Jerry has had a facelift and his net worth is listed at $2B. At one point he was voted least popular sports personality by Sports Illustrated. Jerry has played himself on television shows, like Entourage and Dallas: War of the Ewings and in commercials for Papa John’s and Pepsi.

Underestimating the vision and utter gall of the chief proponent of All Things Cowboy, has proven folly for many of us. Almost a quarter of a century ago, I was not alone in thinking of Jerry as some hick from Arkansas, a guy who got lucky in the oil “bid-ness” and then got lucky again buying America’s team from a distressed seller for $140 million, now worth $1.6 billion. He instantly became a walking firestorm when he named himself general manager, a position formerly held by the legend, Tex Schramm and then fired the Sainted, Tom Landry. Jerry and new Coach Jimmy Johnson built a team quickly and the “luck” continued when the Cowboys won two Super Bowls in a row, 92 and 93. Jerry fired Johnson after 93 but the Cowboys went on to win one more in 95 under his Barney Fife Coach, Barry Switzer. Only a fool believes in that much luck. Only a bigger fool denies there is no luck involved at all.

The only person to over-estimate Jerry was Jerry himself. It is widely assumed, and Jones has admitted to a certain extent, that he drove Johnson away with his “whiskey talking” that any of 500 coaches could have won the Super Bowl with the talent that he had assembled. Jerry had made a trade with some crazy people in Minnesota for Herschel Walker. The Cowboys got 5 players and 8 draft choices. It was easy for Jerry to see himself as a genius as he used the plethora of picks to build the teams talent pool for Johnson. Once Johnson was fired, the wheels started falling off and we have been searching the roadside for them ever since.

As an owner in the NFL, Jones has done as much to market the league as a brand as well as his own team as anyone. The Cowboys gross over a quarter of a billion dollars each year just in merchandise. Jones is powerful - serving on NFL committees, involved in NFL charities, and a player in collective bargaining. While there is plenty of room to argue that while he has far more football experience than almost all NFL owners, his record as General Manager has been more like a broken theme park ride with people hanging upside down for hours than it has been a thrilling roller coaster ride. But nothing Jerry has done so far in the NFL, not even the three long-ago Super Bowls that he is so fond of mentioning anytime someone suggests he hire a “football man”, compares to conceiving and building Cowboy Stadium.

Not long after buying the team in 1989, Jerry began to dream of a place grander and more ostentatious than anything the National Football League had ever seen before. The statistics are somewhat dry, yet, overwhelming when you think about it. The total cost of the building stands somewhere near $1.5 billion, mostly financed and built during difficult economic times. To walk all of the way around the perimeter of the building is well over a mile. The Stadium seats 80,000 people, with an additional 30,000 more available for standing room only and high-dollar suites. As you walk the carpeted hallway that arcs around the field level suites, the walls are adorned by 4’ x 4’ enlarged photos from the Cowboy photo archives. Each level of the three million square feet facility is a tribute to the franchise, the entire building a museum to 50 years of one of the most successful sports franchises of all time. The Jerry-Mahal, the Boss Hog Bowl -- whatever you call it -- the hand of the owner is everywhere. Of all of the crazy stats, one that illustrates the size of the venue and the depth of Jerry’s will to make it pay, is the standing room only seats, many whose only view of the game is on big screen televisions that are scattered around the stadium like trash cans. These SRO tickets and the food and merchandise revenue that they produce top $3 million dollars for most events.

Now, the Super Bowl juggernaut is about to sweep through North Texas. In one month, Jerry will play host to a 120,000 NFL elites, media and a few fans in what is still the single biggest annual circus worldwide. One of the biggest stars of this Super Bowl will be Jerry World. They won’t be able to stop talking about it and Jerry will be wistfully grinning throughout the entire two weeks.

Wistful because for all his dreaming and scheming and macro-thinking and micro-managing, what Jerry wanted, Jerry didn’t get. His beloved Cowboys are not playing. Jerry’s plan was not just to host the Super Bowl but to have the home team in the Super Bowl. For all of the success of Jerry the owner, Jerry the General Manager has failed miserably to put a consistent competitive product on the field since the end of the Super Bowl runs in the early 90’s. Money and people will be pouring into the area for a massive party but the heart is gone from the event. North Texas football fans after seeing their team stumble out of contention early in the season seem lock-jawed into a January yawn. But for an event like the Super Bowl, the common folk don’t matter anyway. We never had a chance to get tickets. We’ll just sit at home and watch the well heeled football fans gawk at the spectacle of Jerry’s World.