Jerry's ‘San Antonio Cowboys’: How Footprint Owns Texas, Cali - And America
SAN ANTONIO - It was late September 2007 and I had just wrapped up my night-time talk show on 103.3 FM ESPN in DFW. It was on this particular show on which I announced to my maybe-too-small audience that I was leaving the station and I was also leaving home.
I had agreed to take a gig in San Antonio on Ticket 760. I was nervous and it was a hell of a risk. I had only worked in the cocoon of my hometown ... But then on the drive home I got a phone call.
Dallas Cowboys PR boss Rich Dalrymple wanted to speak to me post haste. It was after hours. Now considered rather infamous, this was at the time one of the most powerful men in the Cowboys organization - a made man in the Jones family. What the hell could he possibly want with me? Did I say something stupid? Am I going to get in trouble?
Dalrymple said he simply wanted to congratulate me on the new job in South Texas. He'd been listening to my show that night - a stunner to me, as I assumed he had no clue who I was. ... I was honored that he called.
"You can talk about us anytime you want down there,'' Dalrymple said of my future home. "They love us."
Rich also told me that the organization had done research and found that pound-for-pound, Bexar County actually had more Cowboys fans than Dallas County! Seriously! Of the people in Bexar who identified as "NFL fans," nine of 10 said Dallas was their favorite team.
My next phone call was to my father as I proudly told him about the Cowboys official reach-out.
I tell this story in this piece to make a point. To make Rich's point. He was on the money in his assessment of the love affair that San Antonians have with their Puro Cowboys. This is a blue-collar city. It's full of hard-working, down-home simple people who covet those three hours every Sunday all week long.
Yes, they love the Spurs every bit as much, but ... damn, do they love the Cowboys. And as we're about to be reminded when "America's Team'' descends on Oxnard, damn, do Californians love 'em, too! The footprint, from decades before Jerry Jones' arrival but also powered by the decades since, is nothing short of a phenomenon.
I've worked hard in the years since that Cowboys phone call to build an audience in this city. But the truth is, the easiest topic a media person can blab about is to simply "talk Cowboys.'' And I'm appreciative and grateful that I get to do that in San Antonio and now get to communicate my thoughts from Dallas to Oxnard to the world.
I'm compelled to make this column work, and to rep San Antonio properly, lest San Antonians find me lacking and demand I "go back to Dallas." Wish me luck!
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