Clint Jr. had begun as an undergraduate at MIT but was soon derailed by World War II, which led to his induction in the Marine Corps, via the U.S. Navys V-12 program. The players are rich, young, immortal. The character, made famous, or infamous, by actor Larry Hagman (whose mother, Mary Martin, played the title role in the original Broadway production of Peter Pan), hot-wired a ratings bonanza that introduced the world to the hole in the roof. Pre-order on Amazon. It also analyzed reviews to verify trustworthiness. In later years, the joke became, They talk about Clint being low-profile, but he was a carnival-barker show daddy compared to John, who most Cowboys fans didnt know existed. In later years, however, John played an excruciatingly important role in the history of the Cowboys albeit in death, which triggered the fall of Clint Murchison Jr. John was two years older than Clint Jr. and was, by all accounts, the careful, judicious partner. They had a good system. Washington Redskins owner George Preston Marshall hated Clint Murchison Jr. because, to get the Dallas franchise, Murchison lobbed money on Congress to force the Redskins to give up their virtual broadcast monopoly of professional football in the South in 1960. The News described it as Murchisons country home, a 25-room house with an air-conditioned basement. Even those who know a little, Fortune wrote, dont pretend to understand how Clint got mixed up in so much outlandish stuff, or how he keeps track of it all without going batty or broke. His wealth in 1953 was estimated at $300 million and growing. My son knew who Troy Aikman and Michael Irvin were before they joined the Cowboys. Clint Sr. appreciated the kindness, but in his mind, academia was no place for a Murchison. On Sept. 11, 2001, barely a year after asking about the hole in the roof, Atta spearheaded a terrorist attack that flew hijacked airliners into the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center, killing 2,749 people in the towers and on the ground nearby. I could just picture all their agents arguing about fees and residuals with the guys from PepsiCo. Bright in turn sold the Cowboys to Jerry Jones in 1989 following several losing seasons. He sat on the board of the Dallas Museum of Fine Arts, which lingered in Fair Park, in the shadow of the Cotton Bowl, until 1984, when it moved to downtown Dallas as the newly christened Dallas Museum of Art. A 'Wheeler-Dealer' Nature. The franchise was worth $600,000 when the Murchisons bought it, and the Super Bowl was an afterthought of a game designed to pave the way for the NFL-AFL merger that would keep down player salaries. We could not tell the story of Clint Jr. without sharing our view that all good stories fall into three categories: history, comedy or tragedy. TimesMachine is an exclusive benefit for home delivery and digital subscribers. (for me)in this is the one, Clint Murchison, Sr. who founded the fortunes in the oilfield . Dallas, Texas 75201. In 1919, he made his way to Fort Worth, with nary a penny in his pocket. Who knew that this family had so much to do with what we now know and love as Texas?! Brings new meaning to the phrase Sunday Funday. Bright said Mr. Murchison replied with a letter that read: ''Dear Ed, you are full of prunes. Clinton Williams "Clint" Murchison Sr. (April 11, 1895 - June 20, 1969) [1] was a noted Texas -based oil magnate and political operative. 750 North St.Paul St. Clint Murchison Sr. was among the richest of Texas oilmen, appearing on the cover of Time magazine in 1954 with an estimated net worth of more than $300 million. Thats not what being young is supposed to be about, anyway. It was gonna be beautiful. Hunt, in helping create the AFL, established a professional football presence in Dallas, and the NFL realized the urgency with which they needed to address a potential market gain by the upstart league and a loss for the established organization. We missed going to the first two by a total of 3 yards and about 15 seconds. The Packers went instead and we became the team that couldnt win the big game. How different are the very rich from you and me? Theyll win at least three. To wit: In 2017, Katy, Texas, unveiled a $72 million high school facility, which carries luxury boxes for corporate sponsors. Clint Jr. did, too. By some accounts, John was responsible for a conservative viewpoint that helped hold in check the ''wheeler-dealer'' nature of his elder brother. Hence, Schramm oversaw most of the Cowboys day-to-day business matters, and represented the Cowboys at league meetingsa prerogative normally reserved to the owner. Kevin Smith covered Jerry Rice last week. He has his eyes on the TV. His father loved to stay borrowed up to the hilt. Mary Grace Granados, Special Contributor. I am on shaky ground. But some things havent changed: I am a father who refuses to allow his son to play football despite his deep desire and obvious talent as a receiver-it is a price that is just not worth the privilege. He was also the father of Dallas Cowboys owner Clint Murchison, Jr.. Co-author Burk Murchison is named for the uncle who died. A dozen huskies in feeding frenzy, chasing a couple hundred chickens and dragging Santa along behind to boot. Photos not seen by PW. And Emmitt Smith is gonna get a lot more than Duane Thomas for doing almost exactly what Duane did on the field. With its mix of popular music, DJ's and news, Radio Nord became very popular. Carter has a first-year basketball coach out of Indiana whos a Bobby Knight wannabe. Hunts son, Lamar, also founded a professional team, the Dallas Texans, who began playing in the Cotton Bowl in 1960, at the same time the Cowboys did, but who, after winning the American Football League Championship in 1962, became the Kansas City Chiefs a year later, only months before the Kennedy assassination in November 1963. One of the first to make nationwide headlines was the youngest of Hunt's sons: shy, well-mannered Lamar. Despite sporting radically different personalities, the two agreed to co-own the Cowboys via their partnership, with each owning half of the 90% of total ownership. In biblical terms, the story of the Cowboys financial empire is one of Clint begat Jerry. Instead, our system considers things like how recent a review is and if the reviewer bought the item on Amazon. On January 31, 1993, he was euphoric. NFL films will show the Cowboys seven TDs over and over in every future pregame show, so the network can recoup their billion-dollar investment in the NFL by selling hundreds of minutes of commercial time at $2 mil-Hon-$3 million a minute. The Los Angeles coliseum was half empty, and the crowd was asked to sit opposite the press box so that TV audiences would have the impression that there were lots of people in attendance. You left it all on the field and youre 29 years old with your life stretching out in front of you like a thousand miles of bad road. In 1985, Murchison designed, constructed and financed a 30-acre campus-style headquarters for the Dallas Cowboys called Valley Ranch located in Irving, Texas. Reviewed in the United States on February 3, 2010. Mary Grace Granados is a Dallas native and graduate of Southern Methodist University. He loved to spend an evening at the home of a professor, or a fellow graduate student, where the conversation about mathematical or scientific theory lasted well into the morning hours.. Taking a hands-on approach, Murchison led the concept, design, planning, financing and construction of Texas Stadium. When I see Bobby Knight throw a fit on television and realize my son is going to have to deal with a high-school coach who thinks mats the way to behave, I mourn for high-school sports and the quick, bloody death of so many young dreams. Even so, the Arkansas oilman deserves 100% of the business chops he gets. [4], Murchison enjoyed a reputation as a practical joker. He was furious. After high school, he enrolled at Trinity University, then in Waxahachie, where he was expelled three weeks later for shooting craps. Jones may not have been aware of it when he bought the Cowboys, but to his credit, he was a quick study. Then thru the 70's it all starts to fall apart as Clint jr made dumber and more leveraged deals that thru off little cash. This was, for the most part, exactly what Clint Jr. had envisioned. After everybody finished laughing and Danny finished blushing (which he did often), Meredith called the next play and we went on to beat Cleveland. Conspiracy regarding Kennedy Assassination, Sparkman-Hillcrest Memorial Park Cemetery, "How the 'America's Team' Dallas Cowboys transformed the city's image after JFK assassination", "Meet the man several Dallas legends want to see in the Pro Football Hall of Fame: 'Without him, there would be no' Cowboys", https://www.worldcat.org/title/clint-murchison-meeting-november-21-1963/oclc/51629169, "Texas Business Legends - Texas Business Hall of Fame", Anne Murchison Found Clint, Oil Money and the Cowboys Weren't EnoughWithout God, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Clint_Murchison_Jr.&oldid=1135885754. Pre-order from Texas A&M Press. The plan was fowled up by a puzzled security guard who heard the chickens clucking under the stadium. Dallas will jam up the running lanes and shut down Thurman Thomas, Carter tells me early in the week before the Super Bowl. In her first book, Wolfe, former society editor of the Dallas Morning News , gives a superb glimpse of the personal lives and family dynamics of these millionaires whose bankruptcy in 1985 stunned both the state of Texas and the nation's financial community. Mr. Murchison, who had been debilitated. He and his Cowboys cronies tried for a decade to foul up the Redskins big Christmas halftime show that was highlighted by Santa arriving at mid-field pulled by a dogsled. He was a wide receiver for the Cowboys, and then he wrote North Dallas Forty. Clint was the first American sports owner to see the stadium as the primary source of revenue, even more so than television. It represented a new vanguard in American stadia, just as its predecessor had when it opened for football on a sunlit afternoon on Oct. 24, 1971, with halfback Duane Thomas notching its first score on a 56-yard touchdown run that served as a lyrical foreshadowing of what would happen months later: The Cowboys captured their first championship, beating the Miami Dolphins in Super Bowl VI in New Orleans by the lopsided score of 243. Flanker Max Magee played drunk and caught two TD passes-one of them using only one hand and the side of his head. Clint Murchison Sr. began building the family fortune selling animal skins for pennies; later with interests in oil, real estate, and publishing, he was one of the first conglomerate makers. The brothers won. You cant talk to them about pensions and health insurance and how bad youre gonna feel every morning. This next part is important, because it underscores the model Clint Jr. followed with the Cowboys: Once Clint Sr. established or acquired a company, he left its operations to others, in the same way that Clint Jr. appointed Tex Schramm to be his president and general manager and Tom Landry his head coach. Now, the Cowboys are made up of kids not much older than my son, and Carter has predicted the 90s will be the Cowboys decade. He formed Southern Union Gas Company. Still, this latest version of the Cowboys sure beats the bejezus out of the Bills, just like Carter said they would. He says theyll only run Emmitt Smith about 10 times in the first half and then run him down Buffalos throat in the second half. Robert Murchison notes that Pop was out of town much of their childhood looking after his business interests, thus John and Dad were raised by a loving aunt, grandmother and wonderful servants., Looking for a new chapter after the death of his wife and son, Clint Sr. moved to Dallas, where he rapidly expanded his burgeoning portfolio. Then, with his sons by his side, Murchison broadened his business holdings. It was a pleasure to read. And what a world it was. It was the first to use seat option bonds to help fund construction and first to offer luxury suites on a commercial scale. For all my negative feelings about pro football, I can think of no better example to describe the best of life in the NFL in the 60s. NO OTHER PRO TEAM HAD ever quite like them, at one and the same time so rich, so dazzling, so young-and so tragic. [7] On the eve of the Dallas Cowboys' first Super Bowl he wrote to coach Tom Landry, Dear Tom: I have taught you all I can. It began between the owners, They were arguably professional footballs most popular team, despite falling short of a championship until they won Super Bowl VI on Jan. 16, 1972. Young said the major systems of the home have been improved, along with bathrooms and the primary suite. The huddle turned strangely quiet for a moment. More than $500 million in liabilities have been filed against the Murchison estate in the last two years. These included the establishment of the NFL's Dallas Cowboys franchise, real estate development, construction, home building, restaurants and financing the offshore pirate radio station called Radio Nord. Mr. Murchison is survived by his second wife, Anne, and a daughter and three sons from his first marriage, Coke Anne Saunders, Clint Murchison 3d, Burk Murchison and Robert Murchison. Owning islands and football teams and how it can all end; Clint Jr owning the World Champion Dallas Cowboys and having $4000.00 in the bank when he filed for bankruptcy. Read instantly on your browser with Kindle for Web. Theres a bar room with a hidden basement or wine cellar below, and a third-level game room, according to details provided by the agent. Jerry is a fellow risk-taker who made his money by becoming what feels to us like an oxymoron an Arkansas oilman. We may also surprise you by showing you the ways in which the sports world has taken Clints model and corrupted it in ways that he more than anyone would loathe. Johnson didnt just try and patch up for the next year, Carter continues. : His elder son, John, won Wall Street's biggest proxy fight, developed the Vail, Colorada ski resort, and was a noted jet-setter. It was, however, a natural fit for Clint Jr., who for the first and only time in his life was surrounded by people whose intelligence mirrored his. Over the next 20 years I wrote three more novels, several screenplays, dozens of newspaper and magazine articles and saw my screenplay of North Dallas Forty made into a major motion picture starring Nick Nolte. And yet, it was money that Clint Sr. and his wife would not be able to share. Somebody get that gol durn Bill Glass, Reeves said in his angry Georgia drawl. He was also the father of Dallas Cowboys owner Clint Murchison Jr.. [2] Contents 1 Personal 2 Family 3 Death 4 JFK conspiracy allegations 5 References Personal The huskies would go after the chickens and that would be the best halftime show ever. The Aaron Family Jewish Community Center of Dallas will also host the authors, on Dec. 12 at 7 p.m. at the center, 7900 Northaven Road, Dallas. In the spring of 2000, a 31-year-old Egyptian national showed up at a federal office in Florida seeking a $650,000 loan from the Department of Agriculture. Murchison is also recognized as the father of the modern football stadium. From now on, you're on your own.[4]. Murchison quickly established his vision and then hired qualified executives to implement strategies to accomplish the goals. Broke and dying, Clint Jr. sold the Cowboys in 1984, the same year the art museum abandoned Fair Park, only to resurface downtown as the anchor of the Dallas Arts District. Legendary oil magnate Clint Murchison bought 350 acres in 1930 so that his three young sons could have a little room to run around. Learn more. But Don Perkins never played in a Super Bowl. I just didnt like the way they treated peo-ple. The proxy fight was the largest in corporate history.[5]. And not very bright. The Murchisons were one of the most prominent oil families in Texas, a state knee deep in them. : It is now a signature element in the design of AT&T Stadium, whose own version of the hole in the roof appeared in the opening moments of the TNT remake of Dallas. I dont know anything at all about Smith and Everett. When he retired in 1968 he was the fifth all-time rusher in the NFL. His father was its president. In February 1985, Mr. Murchison filed for bankruptcy protection in what lawyers believed was one of the nation's largest personal bankruptcy cases. By the end of June 2021, Texas had seen almost 3 million cases of COVID-19 and more than 52,000 deaths putting it third in the nation, trailing only California and New York in deaths and only California in cases. He seems to be able to listen to my question and understand the rap lyrics. Clint Sr. was born in 1895 in Athens, a small hamlet in East Texas. Ive heard that before. They may not go five times, but theyll win all they go to. Carter flips back to MTV. Clint Murchison Jr. was an entrepreneur, businessman and risk-taking founder of the successful Dallas Cowboys football franchise. All five of the Cowboys Super Bowl trophies were acquired when the team made its home in Texas Stadium, spanning the seasons from 1971 to 1995. Clint W. Murchison Jr., the scion of a Texas wildcat oil family who created the Dallas Cowboys football team, died Monday night. To calculate the overall star rating and percentage breakdown by star, we dont use a simple average. The home has six additional bedrooms, two of which are in what is designated as the guest suite. He also happened to be far more socially adept, comfortable in high society in ways his brother never was nor hoped to be. They had gotten as far as seeding the field with hundreds of pounds of chicken feed and smuggling a couple hundred chickens into the stadium. Free to hear the presentation, $30 to buy the book. When he got to Wichita Falls, he yanked his buddy out of a poker game. While his "financing by finagling" precipitated the crash, the family's downfall also resulted from bitter lawsuits in the third generation. You better have a story I havent heard or Im going to my room. After his father's death in 1969, Mr. Murchison and his brother John ran an array of companies described as ''obscure, fantastic and phantasmagorical'' by Philip I. Palmer Jr., a lawyer who handled the Murchison bankruptcy case in 1985. As Jones said on the night in 1989 that he proclaimed himself the Cowboys new impresario, he would be involved in everything down to the jocks and socks. The Murchison way was the polar opposite. The Jonsson-Cullum forces adamantly and repeatedly said no, ridiculing the notion as civic silliness. The stadium with the hole in its roof served as the home of Americas Team from 1971 until the end of the 2008 football season, after which its primary tenant moved to what became AT&T Stadium in Arlington, where taxpayers funded $325 million of the overall daunting tab of $1.2 billion. Its 70 acres now eat up multiple blocks, housing museums and a school for the performing arts, in addition to the Dallas Symphony Orchestra, the Dallas Opera and the Tony Award-winning Dallas Theater Center. He could barely speak and had hired ex-Redskins quarterback Billy Kilmer to assist him with standing and walking. Also surviving are several grandchildren. His failure is just one of the ways Hole in the Roof embraces a double meaning. A son of Clint Murchison, Sr. who made his first fortune in oil exploration and became notorious for exploiting the sale of "hot oil", Junior and his surviving brother inherited their father's wealth and business interests to which Clint Jr. added . The primary suite has two bathrooms (one complete with a coffee bar), and both are adorned with marble finishes. In telling you the story, we will show you how it serves as history, comedy and tragedy, but most of all, as a rollicking read, every bit as fascinating as a Texas character named Clint Murchison Jr., the creator of your Dallas Cowboys, who fostered their own rare world beneath the hole in the roof that seized the attention of terrorists and sports fans alike. But if you pile it up in one place, it stinks like hell., According to Fortune, Clint Sr. declares one of his best assets is a full knowledge of the use of credit. After all, I did it for Tex and Tom for 20 years. The club came apart from the top. Eventually, skyrocketing interest rates and plummeting oil and real estate prices led him to one of the largest personal bankruptcies in history. Clint Murchison's Special Magic was to allow cognitive dissonance to exist and flourish in order to establish and maintain the Cowboy's unique culture for more than 25 years. He believed his team would be good, even special, for years to come. After several unsuccessful opportunities to buy existing franchises, including the San Francisco 49ers and Washington Redskins, Murchison was awarded an NFL expansion franchise that would begin play in the 1960 season. In 1953, Fortune magazine published a two-part profile of Clint Sr., who then controlled 103 companies, ranging, in Woolleys words, from such traditional Texas interests as oil, gas, cattle and banks to a fishing tackle company, tourist courts, a silverware factory, Martha Washington Candy and Field and Stream magazine, which flourished in the golden age of magazines. Its probably not healthy to take it all so seriously. Contribute to chinapedia/wikipedia.en development by creating an account on GitHub. Bright said Mr. Murchison once read an uncomplimentary news article about the Dallas Cowboys and himself. During the outrageously troubled 2020 season, 13 National Football League teams 13! Theyll never get old. This is a digitized version of an article from The Timess print archive, before the start of online publication in 1996. Before that moment, however, Bryant said he asked specifically about two iconic buildings: the World Trade Center in New York and Texas Stadium in Irving. Carter and the latest version of the Cowboys have a lot in common. The Cowboys used an IBM 360 Model 65 computer.[4]. In the beginning, things were a little wildanimals were. [4], Murchison, with his MIT background, understood the potential of using computers in football. In 1966, when the still-young Dallas Cowboys franchise ended six years of agony with their first winning season, the team's owner and founder, Clint Murchison Jr., son of a billionaire oilman, was feeling ambitious. Get the latest news from Steve Brown and the business staff. Texas Stadium redefined the sports stadium. This was the same man who almost fired me in 1968 for getting Kenny Rogers a sideline photographers pass. At their fathers knee, Woolley wrote, Clint Jr. and John learned how to wheel and deal. Soon, Clint Sr. was sharing his idea of an education, designed to ensure enduring wealth and chisel the Murchison name into the granite of high society. It would, he believed, give the Cowboys and their fervent fan base a spiffy new home that would pay an added dividend: it would serve as a catalyst in rebuilding a damaged Dallas and healing a wounded populace who bristled at the nickname city of hate.. This leadership genius produced remarkable results externally and of equal importance maintained this unique, special culture internally. In other words, as Cowboys fixtures, they lasted even longer than Clint. Texas Stadium and its hole in the roof would not have existed had it not been for the Cowboys founder, Clint Murchison Jr. His father, Clint Murchison Sr., was one of the most iconic names in the history of Texas oil, the world that gave rise to J.R. Ewing. Unable to strike a deal with city leaders to build a new stadium in downtown Dallas, Murchison selected a site in nearby Irving. She died in 1926, leaving him to raise three small sons John, Clint Jr. and Burk, who died from pneumonia when he was 11. . : Working with his father and his brother John, the Murchison family diversified away from oil into homebuilding, general construction, real estate development, insurance, mutual funds, publishing, the leisure time industry and restaurant industry. The Cowboys and the Super Bowl have come a long way from that close encounter we had in 1966-67. Clint believed there was an opportunity in Dallas for a successful professional football team. He changed where and how games are played, not only in professional football but also in baseball, basketball, and colleges and high schools. He reacted to his rejection by threatening to slit the throat of loan manager Johnell Bryant, who told him she was skilled in the martial arts, which scared him away. Free shipping for many products! Murchison funded radio entrepreneur Gordon McLendon to create a floating commercial (pirate radio) station called Radio Nord aboard the motor vessel Bon Jour, anchored in the Stockholm archipelago. No pain, no gain. He spent 19 years at the Los Angeles Times before returning to Dallas. Tex and Tom couldnt keep their areas of responsibility defined. Adjusted for inflation, that amounts to roughly $2.8 million in 2020. ''One of his greatest satisfactions besides the Cowboys was Texas Stadium, the home of the Cowboys,'' John D. O'Connell, a longtime friend and business associate, said of Clinton Murchison. They began doing business as the Murchison Brothers in the late 1940s from an office in Dallas, Texas. Dont give up. Ms. Wolfe's book adds a lot of detail and backstory to the Murchison dynasty. I had been there for the last three. Plenty of Texas History you would never learn about in a history class (in Texas). The primary suite has its own wing, which amounts to more than 2,000 square feet.