Original subtitles

All right, Mr. Jones, we'll be touching down in about two minutes.

Dambling money on oil and gas, of course, is notoriously risky because

miles and miles deep.

Well, only God knows what's down there.

Now, in the 80s, I was really aggressive drilling wells.

And I was really good at borrowing money.

Too good.

If they ever cut me open, that's all those scars in there trying to pay back

what this mouth can borrow.

So I was in massive debt.

As a matter of fact, it was in excess of $50 million.

And I remember my wife called my father -in -law and asked him to come visit

with me. She was concerned that I was going to hurt myself.

But I had decided to gamble everything.

The most that I'd ever spent on one well in my life. Over $800 ,000.

When we turned that well on for the first time, I knew it was a gusher.

When I heard it screaming, it actually screams. It's so powerful.

And then it started spitting, just like any mammal would spit.

And it started coughing.

And then all of a sudden, it started roaring.

And it roared like being at Niagara Falls.

And with that single well,

I made out with $100 million.

Now, I always knew what I was going to do with that money.

And I knew it put me in a position that maybe I could realize my ultimate dream.

So I took that money and took a bigger risk, and I took drilling that damn

And I remembered looking at that oil, and I said to myself,

Jerry, you just bought the Dallas Cowboys.

Bam.

Dallas Cowboys are running away with the most valuable team, not in the league,

but in the world.

Jerry's team now valuing a whopping $9 .2 billion.

Forbes magazine says the Dallas Cowboys are the NFL's most valuable franchise.

When we were building the Dallas Cowboys, I had a vision of what the game

be. I went to another level of imagination.

The 90s Dallas Cowboys are one of the greatest dynasty's in the history of the

NFL.

Supersonic laser blast.

Touchdown. Absolutely nothing but Troy Aikman. What a throw that was from

Aikman. Couldn't have been thrown any better.

Touchdown, Michael Irvin.

This guy celebrates way too much.

Michael Irvin, the man they call the Playmaker.

has just become the NFL's all -time leading rusher.

That young man right there, there's no doubt in my mind, he is the best of both

complete running backs who have played in the NFL.

It is intercepted by Deion Sanders.

When he does get the ball, whether you like him or you don't like him, he does

cause excitement.

Jimmy Johnson's taking his team from the absolute worst to the absolute best.

The Cowboys are back on top of the mountain now.

Barry Switzer winning his first Super Bowl title.

Dallas, the champions again.

Jerry Jones, he's built a dynasty, but the shine is coming off the stars.

Troubles for the Cowboys on and off the field. Many athletes are out of control.

Eric Williams was legally intoxicated when he crashed his car. Irvin is now on

probation for drug possession.

The so -called White House. Board, money, drugs.

Stabbed him with the scissors in the neck at 20 years in jail.

This baby's over. Big, big victory for the Dallas Cowboys.

You know, I grew up in West Texas, and this is football country.

When you're raised in that kind of culture, it is a tradition.

It's just everywhere.

And so I became very attracted to the Cowboys.

But when John Kennedy was shot here, Dallas was condemned.

So it became very apparent that there was a need to change the image of

This is the story of a brand new team on the Texas scene and their fearless

leader and head coach, Tom Landry.

Tom Landry was a classic example of the kind of guy Texans like.

Flew fighter jets in World War II. Went to Highland Park Methodist Church.

It was a part of the community.

Tom was obviously a brilliant man, a classy man.

There was an aura of mysteriousness about him.

And then all of a sudden, they put together a winning team.

The city just went on fire.

They made it to half the Super Bowls in the 70s.

And they won 20.

A lot of the state fell in love with the Cowboys, then of course nationally

people did. They became America's team. America's team. America's team. Dallas

Cowboys have come to be known as America's team.

After the assassination of John Kennedy, we were known worldwide as the city of

hate.

But once we started winning, then we became America's team.

Everywhere we went, the world worshipped the Dallas Cowboys.

So... They built Texas Stadium with a monster.

The hole in Texas Stadium, so God could watch his favorite team.

That would be the Cowboys.

They were no longer just mortals.

They were icons.

They were... They were God.

The Dallas Cowboys are for sale?

For how much? Well, if you have to ask, as the saying goes, you can't afford it.

Some men were born in poverty.

Some were born with wealth.

I was born a loving man, and I just came to help myself.

In 1988, I was down in Cabo San Lucas, just laying around hungover.

And I saw in the paper that owner, Bob Bright, was going to sell the Dallas

Cowboys. The Cowboys' principal owner, Bob Bright, has been engaged in hot

discussion with several groups about selling his team.

I'm a natural, actual, real, authentical Arkansas loving man.

I was going to go down to Dallas and be the cowboy that rode in on the horse.

And every Western is either the hero or the villain.

a stranger come into town.

No one here can say for certain if the team has been sold to Arkansas oil man

Jerry Jones.

Jerry Jones. Jerry Jones.

Not much is known about Jones.

Many football fans dismiss Jerry Jones as a rude, sort of a corn -pwned

carpetbagger. There was a sensitivity in not being a Texan.

Who is this hick from the sticks, this Jethro Jones?

And it sure as hell didn't need to be somebody in Arkansas.

What is Jerry Jones' plan with the Cowboys?

But this has got disaster written all over. This was all plotted by Jones to

ruin the Cowboys so he can move them to Arkansas.

When I met with Mr. Bright, I wrote down the figure 150 million.

That was the highest number in the history of sport.

We got down to where we couldn't agree on about $300 ,000.

And Mr. Bryant looked over at me and he said, I'll flip you a coin for it.

I'm a natural, actual, real, authentical Arkansas loving man.

He flips the coin, I lose.

I lost $300 ,000.

I really got fucked.

I own the Dallas Cowboys.

I'm a natural, actual, real, authentical Arkansas loving man.

Yes, I am.

We interrupt this program to bring you the following News 8 special report.

All right, this is Jerry Orr live at Valley Ranch. The family of Jerry Jones

begun to enter into the conference room.

Bumbright has been trying to unload the team.

And now, finally, live, we will learn the details behind the sale of the

Cowboys.

Walking into that very first press conference, you could feel the unease.

The knives were out, because this was America's team.

And frankly, if you will, Tom Landry, he was a godlike figure in

Dallas.

All of my successes in life was when I was going against the proper move, going

the other way.

I had my eye on a friend of mine from college to coach the Cowboys, Jimmy

Johnson.

Jimmy Johnson is obsessed with winning at football.

Controlled freaks, controlled freaks.

Hi, I'm head coach Jimmy Johnson, and here at University of Miami, you know,

thought may be that there's a lot of distractions, but our players are able

get a quality education, and then on top of that, play championship football.

At Miami, our players, they knew that I expected them to kick the shit out of

them. We weren't going to accept anything less.

They are the Hurricanes of Miami, and from any point on the field, at any

they can strike.

There's only one way we know how to play the game.

Jimmy is the best football coach in the country.

And he has as much bravado as anybody in the game.

Play with class, play with points. Play like the best. That's what you are.

We just had that feeling of swagger.

And I encourage them to be so confident if you're going to kick somebody's ass.

Miami is the best team in the country.

No one embodies that more than Michael Irvin.

He played with the same swagger. And right there is the greatest receiver in

hurricane history.

He's crash -folded crazy.

Is it Michael Irvin or Michael Irvin? The man they call the playmaker.

Listen, I was born to play wide receiver.

When I was born.

The doctor tried to spank me. I caught his hand.

Number 47, Michael Irvin.

If they ain't coming at me, I'll check.

You know what that means.

Oh, man, Irvin.

Holy cow!

Michael was such a competitor, he had no fear.

Irvin's got it! Irvin's free!

Irvin's gone!

Touchdown, Miami!

We're not balling, a shot calling. We take it back to the days of yes

You know, Jimmy knows how to pour the best out of every guy.

He doesn't just coach the body.

He coaches the mind.

And he may practice hell so the game is heaven.

Stretch it out.

There at Miami, I saw Jimmy's desire to win.

His lack of tolerance for losing was, in my mind, legendary.

Touchdown, Miami!

Dylan knew why they were number one.

Jimmy will tell me, do you?

Do you?

There's a perception that player actions are out of control.

Just an attitude of belligerence and hostility and men at war.

I just do not believe college football, this is not what it's supposed to be

about.

People weren't accustomed to seeing players jumping up and down and

and doing all the things that we did.

Bad guys make the colorful press, outlaws, the renegades.

It's easy to write. It confirms prejudices.

We were not doing it their way.

If we get them down, don't let them up. And people hated us because we kicked

their ass.

Jimmy Johnson running up the score, no reason for it. Jimmy was controversial.

And frankly, I liked that. I would get hate mail.

You, you're the devil.

You're the devil.

And I told our players, they can criticize me all they want.

Because we're going to win the national championship.

The error

we had in Miami,

I don't know that anyone would ever, ever experience that again.

After winning the national championship, I was ready for the next level.

Michael Irvin's plan for 1988 is hopefully to be playing in the NFL.

Welcome to the 53rd National Football League Draft.

Now, as we get set, we could be seeing half.

of the first round consists of running backs and wide receivers.

And then before the draft, Jimmy pulls me over.

He says, hey, next season, I have a friend that may be buying the Dallas

Cowboys.

If they call you, that's where you're going, because I may be joining.

All my life, I dreamed of playing for the Cowboys.

I was the 15th of 17 kids.

In the ghetto of Fort Lauderdale, when you were as Poe as we were, you can't

even afford that other O and R.

You just say Poe.

But we had the Dallas Cowboys.

America's team.

My dad, he would have the fedora hat on, just like Tom Landry.

And I'm going to tell you something, man. He loved Drew Pearson.

Called him Clutch.

Whatever catch he made, my dad was just so happy. I told him, I'm going to do

Clutch in the band.

He says, John, one day, I'm going to make enough money, we're going to go see

the Cowboys play.

But then, my senior year, my dad, he was real sick.

He had cancer.

And he said to me, I feel like I'm going home on the morning train.

He said, but you got to make a promise that you're going to always take care of

your mom.

So since then, when I used to score, I used to always point up, put two fingers

up in the sky.

I was telling him that I'm going to keep my promise to take care of mom.

Okay, back to Chris Berman.

All right, Bino, thank you very much. The Dallas Cowboys are up next. Let's go

to the podium. The commissioner has the card.

Dallas Cowboys select on the first round, Marshall Urban, wide receiver

Pete Roselle got the name wrong, but that didn't matter to the Cowboys

they got their man.

Dallas Cowboys, Super Bowl foul next year. Super Bowl foul.

We're all going to fly up to Texas and we're going to bring Texas back down

for the Super Bowl because Dallas is going to get it next year.

I

remember

coming in and that first day seeing a picture of Tom Landry and saying, this

my new dad.

My new dad.

He got grafted by Tom Landry, man. Man, that was everything like that for me.

That was everything. I never felt so close to my father.

Before Jerry had bought the Cowboys, the truth was those

teams were so hard to watch starting in 87, 88.

that America's team was beginning to crumble.

I saw it from the inside out.

I rode on the team plane to and from games.

I basically lived at Valley Ranch.

I had written several stories of Coach Landry forgetting the names of players,

forgetting the play that he'd called, falling asleep in meetings.

We have some young players, you know, like Michael Irwin, who's coming in.

Those are the kind of players we have to rebuild the Cowboys with.

I just came from Miami. So I've gone through four years of whooping ass

everywhere. I don't even take these feets.

My first game, we're playing Pittsburgh pregame in the locker room.

I'm waiting on a big speech from Coach Landry.

Because, you know, I was used to Jimmy.

Jimmy gives those speeches before a game, and Tom didn't give one of those

speeches.

He said, let's get out here and try to keep this thing closed.

I said, what? That's it?

That's it?

It just seemed like no one cared.

The rest of that year, I'm trying to crank it up.

Let's go. Hey, let's play some ball now, motherfuckers. Let's go.

But they were all veterans telling me I need to calm down.

And I had guys coming over to me saying, hey, man, come on, man, it's the pros,

Mike. It's the pros.

That season we lost 13 games.

The Dallas Cowboys are suffering through their darkest period in a quarter

century.

1988 marked their third straight losing season.

The Mystique had died.

And with about four minutes left in the third quarter, fans are going to start

heading for the exit.

That's going to leave about half the stands empty.

Oil's still down and so are the crowds.

And hard as it may be to believe, America's team is running TV commercials

sell tickets.

Courses close to the team tell ABC News that principal owner Bob Bright may be

looking to sell.

Federal regulators moved in and took over Bright Bank, once the second

in Texas.

Now with hundreds of millions in debt, Cowboys owner Bright may be forced to

sell the team.

And by 1988, the economic outlook in Texas was pretty grim.

The big banks started to fail. I watched people line up down the street saying,

give me my money.

All of it was not good.

So I felt that something in Dallas had to change.

There I was, 46, and I'm by the damn Dallas Cowboys.

But we weren't going to be the 70s Cowboys.

I had a different vision.

How about glitz and glamour, big city Cowboys?

The midnight Cowboys.

I think he could beat a soap opera 365 days a year. I could get the eyeballs in

the platform and I could juice it up a little bit.

But just as important, I was dead set on being in business with my children.

Hey.

Tell Jerry I'm all for it.

He's all for it. Let's do it.

Okay, let me know back.

In 1989, I get this call and they said, your dad wants you to call him at home.

I called dad.

And he goes, what would you think about moving to Dallas? And I go, what?

When Dad had called, you know, first we thought he was crazy.

Then he said, doing this will take absolutely everything we have. You need

know that.

And here I am, 19 years old, Charlotte, you know, 22, Stephen, 25.

Felt like we were just kids.

Told my dad, I don't know anything about running a professional football team.

And he looked me dead in the eye and he said, neither do I.

I knew that we were risking my family's whole fortune and a lot more.

And that was madness.

You know, he said, we're just going to have to roll up our sleeves and figure

this out.

And I looked at him and said, before we push all our chips in, can I count on

you that we're all in this together?

After the negotiations with Von Bright came to a little bit of a close, Jerry

and I just kind of assumed that if it happened, I'd be his coach.

He didn't interview anybody. He just said, I'm going to go, you know, get

Jimmy's, you know, one of my good friends.

Now, we could not tell the media or anybody anything.

Speculation is soaring about the future of the man on the sidelines, Tom Landry.

Is Tom Landry out?

And I have no comment about that, nor any knowledge about that.

Jerry says, let's go celebrate.

He said, I know you like Mexican food.

And Jerry, I said, you know, I've been on national television a lot. I said, I

can't go out in public. He said, no, no, no, no, no. It's a little out of the

way place.

Nobody's going to pay any attention to us.

Well, we got spotted immediately.

And someone took our photo.

The next morning, it was front -page news.

That single photo showed me how volatile the

bomb was called the Dallas Cowboys.

Sherry Gamble figured she'd answered the Cowboys' main switchboard 1 ,200 times

by noon.

Mostly, it's the same message.

Coach Landry doesn't know anything.

Coach Landry's here. He still has his job. We still have our job.

Tensions are high after oil manager Jerry Jones and coach Timmy Johnson were

spotted celebrating over dinner last night. To add insult to injury, turns

that Mexican restaurant was Tom Landry's favorite place.

It was like, are we dancing on the grate? Is that what we're doing now?

It just seems so crude. It just seems so classless.

I'm an avid, avid Cowboy fan, but I won't be if he isn't the coach.

Now. Everybody knew this interloper from Arkansas, this outsider, was going to

fire Tom Landry.

And Tom Landry was spotted leaving Valley Ranch this afternoon, heading to

airport for a scheduled trip to Austin, Texas.

Okay, where?

That same day, we flew to Austin to find Coach Landry.

My words were generally, Coach, I'm here.

I respect how much you've done for Dallas.

But, you know, I need to go in a different direction.

And how did you take that news?

There's no question that he was emotional.

But there was no doubt in my mind I had to be the one to do it.

We interrupt this program to bring you the following News 8 special report.

All right, this is Jerry Orr live at Valley Ranch. The family of Jerry Jones

begun to enter into the conference room. A quickly scheduled press conference

organized just this morning aimed to address mounting questions surrounding

future of Coach Tom Landry. We also know that Miami coach Jimmy Johnson is in

Dallas staying at the mansion under an assumed name. I'm trying to advise Jerry

what he's going to get into at the press conference.

And then...

Jerry said, hey, you need to get out of town.

He flew me back to Miami.

There were cameras everywhere.

Everywhere.

You know, you realize, wow, this is a really big deal.

If you haven't guessed, may I introduce Jerry Jones.

I can't find you. I've got some friends out here that aren't strange faces. And

I know that a lot of you that for the first time we're going to see each other

tonight. And I don't want to keep those faces strange long at all.

If my voice cracks, this is Christmas to me.

I'm basically a businessman.

That first press conference, certainly it was of intensity and a magnitude

that I had not ever been involved in.

My family and I have given a big piece of

us to be a part of the Cowboys.

There will be nobody with the Cowboys that doesn't give as big a piece of

The man that is going to be with the Cowboys is Jimmy Johnson.

And what he brings to the table with the Cowboys will be more than if we had

five first -round draft picks and we were getting to get the last five

Trophy winners.

I don't know that anybody could ever be as prepared as what they need to be.

for the firing of Tom Landry and the change that we made in Dallas. So you

be prepared for that.

But I want to emphasize to you that one of the finest things or greatest things

that will have happened in the Cowboy history is Mr. Jimmy Johnson joining the

Cowboys.

When was the decision made that Jimmy would not attend the cut -off tomorrow?

Jimmy and I had our first meeting this morning about 3 a .m.

We were eating Mexican food, but no, I'm teasing. I'm teasing. We met at a

hotel.

I'm sitting there in the front row of the press conference, and I'm

This hick from the Arkansas Sticks, he was celebrating Christmas morning while

Cowboy Nation was mourning the, quote, football death of Coach Landry.

One of the wildest moments ever was somebody asking, well, what will your

be? I intend to have an understanding of the cleat situation.

I intend to have an understanding of the player situation. I intend to have an

understanding of jocks and socks.

And Cowboy Nation just assumed he was a jock sniffer.

This guy really is from Arkansas.

And then he says, I want his job.

And he points at Tech Schramm, the general manager.

And Schramm just shrunk.

You couldn't hit him any harder.

You couldn't punch him.

and make SRAM feel any worse.

It's sad.

It's tough when you break a relationship that we've had for 29 years.

Tom Landry was just the first to get the boot.

Fired or forced to quit were Tech SRAM, the Cowboys' original president and

general manager, the team's longtime head scout, the veteran publicist.

even the guy who played the national anthem and the stadium public address

announcer.

I said, look, a lot of people own a team, but they don't run the team as

well. I'm here to work every day. I'm the president and general manager.

He's president and general manager. There's no way.

There's no way. I never heard of such a thing. Everybody, it's like Jerry is an

oil guy trying to play GM in football.

Really?

Jerry Jones, for better or for worse, will always now be known as the man who

fired Tom Landry.

After that press conference, you know, I remember thinking then, like, you know,

what did we do?

And in Dallas, the new era of Jerry Jones began with a night that will go

in infamy.

As the Saturday night massacre.

The next day at Valley Ranch, Tom Landry sat in his office, sifting through the

past. What's going on?

The funeral?

Jerry and the Jones family had broken into the museum and

taken our most valuable possession.

Heads of thousands.

Fans flooded the streets today to say one last goodbye to a lich. More than

,000 people turned out to honor the Cowboys football coach of 29 years. That

at the parade, it wasn't a parade as much as it was a funeral.

The firing of Coach Landry was certainly one of the great PR missteps, maybe

of all time, because I still wear that.

Texas Stadium seats 65 ,000 people normally, but tonight there's only one

there who counts, and he's on the 50 -yard line.

He's the man who owns the Dallas Cowboys, Jerry Jones.

I'm sitting there looking at things said about me, said about how inept I was,

how dumb I was, country bumpkin from Arkansas, all that bullshit.

You know, for 30 years, I really didn't know it was a disadvantage to be from

Arkansas. Here's a guy who took the team to the Super Bowl five times, won two

of them, and whoop, off with his head.

I've been blessed to be a part of this community and a part of the Dallas

Cowboys. Sam, Coach Landry's a great coach.

Then why'd you fire him?

I wouldn't have bought the Cowboys had I not had a tremendous amount of respect

for Coach Landry. You have a funny way of showing it, John.

There wasn't any white knight business about coming into Dallas and taking a

broken team.

That was nowhere to be found.

I was Darth Vader.

Well, now, Diane, what do you make of this guy? I mean, he's flamboyant, but

you think he's just kind of a showman?

I think he's a jerk.

He's got a lot of money and he's got a big mouth.

Why do you think?

He's obnoxious. That's what he is.

Jerry Jones took the podium before the Arkansas State House, revealing shocking

details about the public outcry over his new ownership. I've had two death

threats. They're serious about their football in the state of Texas almost as

much as we are in Arkansas.

The freshly painted emblem of the Dallas Cowboys was testimony Jerry Jones was

the new owner.

And I'll probably never be in another parade. I may never be in another press

conference again, but when I see you on the street, I'll sure say hello to you.

Thank you very much.

We rode into Texas from the Badlands of Arkansas with a fistful of dollars and

an itchy trigger finger.

Now everyone knows who the stranger is.

They were America's team.

And now, there's Jerry Jones.

With all that hate, I could stop and cry, or I could just keep going,

but I'm not going to take my marbles and go home.

I can't. I burned all my ships when I landed.

Jerry looked at me, he says, you have a football.

I'll handle the business.

We'll go back -to -back, and we'll make sports history.

The season before we got there, you know, the Cowboys were the worst team in

league. The only thing positive about being that bad is the fact that we

the number one pick as strangers.

UCLA. Looking, looking, and throws in the end zone. Touchdown!

In bench press, 330 pounds.

Throw a football 80 yards.

Labeled as the savior of the franchise.

A player of unquestioned physical talent. One of the premier quarterbacks

National Football League.

It's expected to lead the Cowboys back from the dead.

A lot of people think shortly he will be the best.