His failure is just one of the ways Hole in the Roof embraces a double meaning. Unable to strike a bargain with the City of Dallas, he elected to build a new stadium in Irving, Texas. By Peter H. Frank, Special To the New York Times. The Cowboys played at the Cotton Bowl in Dallas since their inception in 1960. He was 63 years old. With its mix of popular music, DJ's and news, Radio Nord became very popular. Carter has already heard this. Clint Murchison Jr., and the Stadium That Changed American Sports . On January 31, 1993, he was euphoric. Hunt and Hugh Roy Cullen, American folk heroes in the making. I made $ 11.000, arid my rent was $ 180 a month for a furnished one-bedroom. Clint Murchison Jr. (left) and his brother John Murchison smiled after a 1961 meeting of the new board of directors of the multibillion-dollar Alleghany Corp. in New York. They were the first expansion team to challenge for the championship, and when they lost two years in a row they last dramatically and heroicallyBut haw glorious to lose, and how poignant to keep the conviction in the hearts of Cowboys fans that their team was the best, as inly time would tell. Next Years Champions, the Story of the Dallas Cowboys, by Steve Perkins, 1969 MY 16-YEAR-OLD SON, CARTER, HAS been a Cowboys fan for years. But when it came to the Dallas elite, Clint Jr.s ideas were met by scoffs, not support. Most of what Clint said was unintelligible, but he kept pointing with his cane and trying to talk. 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 . I thought you didnt like Landry and Schramm. Carter doesnt take his eyes off the screen, which is filled with oversized behinds, shaking like wet dogs. Thats not what being young is supposed to be about, anyway. The Dallas Cowboys, Clint Murchison Jr., and the Stadium That Changed American Sports Forever. And in that respect alone, irony abounds, one of many we share in Hole in the Roof. 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. The operation was handled by Delta Drilling, owned by Joe Zeppa. "[6], As the team floundered through their first few seasons and critics called for Landry's firing, Murchison backed his coach by handing him a 10-year contract. 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. WITH DANNY REEVES NOW in the New York job, I want the Giants to win. This story ends with Super Bowl XXVII. His elder son, John, won Wall Street's biggest proxy fight, developed the Vail, Colorada ski resort, and was a noted jet-setter. He attended school at Lawrenceville School and joined the Marine Corps after Pearl Harbor and went on to become a student at Duke University as part of the Marine Corps V-12 training program[2] where he graduated Phi Beta Kappa in electrical engineering. , ISBN-10 [8], According to some conspiracy theorists, Murchison's home in Dallas hosted a meeting on the evening of November 21, 1963 (one day before the assassination of John F Kennedy). [9] Murchison's Cowboys, featuring likable players and a winning tradition, paved the way for a new Dallas image. Tom didnt like the idea of off-the-field jobs, let alone TV product endorsements. From the beginning, Clint saw it as far more than a place to play games. For the most part, Murchison was a hands-off owner, delegating a great deal of operational control of the Cowboys to general manager Tex Schramm, head coach Tom Landry and scouting/personnel director Gil Brandt. I hadnt even known who Jimmy Johnson was until he got to Dallas. The rest of the financing was provided by Murchison and no taxpayer money was used. 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. Jerry is a fellow risk-taker who made his money by becoming what feels to us like an oxymoron an Arkansas oilman. Willie Nelson and Roger Miller, The Beatles, The Rolling Stones and The Doors. Exponentially. Back when 1 was playing They won for 20 years. 1 am quickly backpedaling. Recalling his wit and sense of humor, Mr. He made trades for draft choices and built a team thatll last for years, Carter says. J. Edgar Hoover. How different are the very rich from you and me? Son of a Texas Wildcatter. I just didnt like the way they treated peo-ple. After leaving the Marine Corps, he married and returned to Boston, this time to pursue a graduate degree in math at MIT. The Cowboys used an IBM 360 Model 65 computer.[4]. John was nothing like his father, whereas Clint was everything like his dad a gambler, a risk-taker extraordinaire. In that respect, Clint Sr. and Jr. resembled a more modern billionaire: current Cowboys owner Jerral Wayne Jerry Jones. To wit: In 2017, Katy, Texas, unveiled a $72 million high school facility, which carries luxury boxes for corporate sponsors. The elder Murchison died in 1969, almost a decade into Clint Jr.s Cowboys experiment, which his father only reluctantly supported, despite the fact that, by the time Clint Sr. died, the Cowboys were a sports-world juggernaut. More than $500 million in liabilities have been filed against the Murchison estate in the last two years. Young said the home was passed on to Clint Murchison Sr.'s son and daughter-in-law, John and Lucille Lupe Murchison. The home has seven bedrooms, seven bathrooms and two half-bathrooms and has been renovated,. Forbes magazine assessed its value in 2021 at $5.7 billion the sixth consecutive year the Cowboys were ranked as the worlds most valuable sports company. I have tried to convince myself that if the Cowboys make him happy, then I am happy, but really I still struggle with my own memories of the team and try to reconcile them with the Cowboys of today. Throughout his business career, Mr. Murchison started and participated in a number of industries, including a taxicab company, publishing, life insurance, restaurants, banks and residential construction. Vietnam was loomirg, and I was trying to figure out how to dodge the draft. The primary suite has its own wing, which amounts to more than 2,000 square feet. The Cowboys became first team to use computers in talent scouting. 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. Then, with his sons by his side, Murchison broadened his business holdings. A love of football that began in prep school led Mr. Murchison to create the first great professional sports franchise in Dallas, the National Football League's Cowboys, in 1960. He was determined to create a venue that protected fans while allowing the weather elements freedom to impact the game. In The Murchisons: The Rise and Fall of a Texas Dynasty, author Jane Wolfe writes how Clint Jr. thrived in a milieu of intellectuals from Harvard, MIT and Wellesley. It is the story of the late Burl Osborne, former chairman of "The Associated Press" and publisher of "The Dallas Morning News," who waged and won one of the last great newspaper wars in the United States. Black players had to drive 15 miles to South Dallas to live. St.Martin's Press, New York, 1989. Even the staid Cullens found. Mr. Money is like manure, Clint Sr. once famously told his boys, echoing a line written by Thornton Wilder in his 1954 play, The Matchmaker, but adding his own special spin: If you spread it around, it does a lot of good. Instead, our system considers things like how recent a review is and if the reviewer bought the item on Amazon. Try again. But since he had two sons in their teens, whose business talents were unpredictable, it seemed unwise to keep all their legacy in one immensely risky petroleum basket.. Publisher 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. Clint William Murchison Jr., (September 12, 1923 in Dallas, Texas-March 30, 1987) was a businessman and founder of the Dallas Cowboys football team. Cowboy, Clint said again and smiled slightly. In 1985, Murchison designed, constructed and financed a 30-acre campus-style headquarters for the Dallas Cowboys called Valley Ranch located in Irving, Texas. As with all great stories, ours has a beginning, a middle and an end. (for me)in this is the one, Clint Murchison, Sr. who founded the fortunes in the oilfield . He rarely exchanged pleasantries and ignored people he knew when he would see them on the street or in the elevator. And what a world it was. Please try your request again later. : John Murchison and his brother Clint Murchison Jr. were the first owners of the Dallas Cowboys. Her first book, "THE MURCHISONS: The Rise and Fall of a Texas Dynasty," was published in 1989. Undaunted, these rich Dallas tycoons would get drunk, make prank calls to George Preston Marshall in the middle of the night and cluck into the phone. He said it interfered with concentration. It was gonna be beautiful. Even so, the Arkansas oilman deserves 100% of the business chops he gets. Despite politics and religious issues being banned at the station, it was stopped when the Swedish government introduced new legislation in the spring of 1962, criminalizing the act of buying commercials on the station. The old NFL, country music and rock n roll. In 1919, he made his way to Fort Worth, with nary a penny in his pocket. Dallas sportswriter Blackie Sherrod attributed the Cowboys' success to two rare possessions of Clint Murchison: a bottomless pocketbook and patience.[8]. Wolfe tells a riveting tale of the rising fortunes and ultimate downfall of the Murchison family, quintessential high rollers. 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. He was 6 years old. He believed his team would be good, even special, for years to come. Also surviving are several grandchildren. As Robert Murchison, Clint Jr.s youngest of four children, notes, Their brother Burk, Dads best friend, died when John was 13 and Dad, 12. Clint Jr. and John, Robert adds, could not have been more different. 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. We document that story as well, showing you how, in the end, it comes back around to Clint. Copyright 2023, D Magazine Partners, Inc. We use cookies to ensure that we give you the best experience on our website. When he retired in 1968 he was the fifth all-time rusher in the NFL. Kennedy. Free to hear the presentation, $30 to buy the book. 1 dont know how Johnson treats people. Carter glances at me as two fat VJs start prancing around and talking at us. As we show you later, the city of Dallas twice rejected Americas Team, failing to cut a deal that forced the 21st-century Cowboys to look elsewhere for a new home, which turned out to be Arlington. During their first five seasons, the Cowboys lost $3 million and failed to win more than five games a season. As deals fell through and development projects around the country failed, the cash needed to sustain the payments on the large loans that he had personally guaranteed at high interest rates was not available. Within a short period of time the "Project Atlanta" people sold out completely to the Caroline group. 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. https://www.nytimes.com/1987/04/01/obituaries/cw-murchison-jr-dies-in-texas-at-63.html. After all, I did it for Tex and Tom for 20 years. Johnson didnt just try and patch up for the next year, Carter continues. If that name sounds familiar, it may be. That was all a long time ago. His name was Mohamed Atta. In a 1936 article, The News reported that the home cost $150,000 to build. 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. Theres no in-between mats very comfortable. His grandfather founded the First National Bank in Athens. They cant even figure out how guys like me ever got to be 50. Follow Mary Grace Granados on Instagram, go to our luxury real estate page or subscribe to our free weekly newsletter. Carter accepts and respects my decision, though he does not like it. He has turned on MTV and is watching the Naughty By Nature video Hip-Hop Hooray. (Perhaps its no coincidence that H.L. Clint William Murchison Jr. was the last surviving son of Clint Murchison Sr., a Texas wildcatter who rode the oil boom of the 1920's to fame and fortune. Learn more. New Yorkborn J. Erik Jonsson, a chap of Swedish descent who served as mayor of Dallas from 1964 to 1971, and Fair Park guardian Robert B. Cullum, who owned a supermarket chain that took as its namesake fairy tale hero Tom Thumb, thwarted at every turn Clint Jr.s quixotic crusade to construct a stadium in downtown Dallas, which he hoped to buttress with a lavish new performing arts center and art museum. Eventually, skyrocketing interest rates and plummeting oil and real estate prices led him to one of the largest personal bankruptcies in history. 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. Clint W. Murchison Jr., the scion of a Texas wildcat oil family who created the Dallas Cowboys football team, died Monday night. He was at top speed by his second step and hit like a freight train. This was the same man who almost fired me in 1968 for getting Kenny Rogers a sideline photographers pass. : 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.. Among his companies was the Southern Union Company. Please try again. The living room has the original hardwood flooring and crown molding, and the dining room is accented by the original Gracie Studio wallpaper. He also happened to be far more socially adept, comfortable in high society in ways his brother never was nor hoped to be. Companies they owned included iconic names such as Centex Corporation, Alleghany Corporation, Henry Holt Publishing, Daisy BB Guns and Tony Romas, A Place For Ribs. However, the family's style of loose management and easy credit based on a handshake was ill-suited to the late 1970s, when oil prices toppled and interest rates soared. 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. Except most of the dilemmas are caused by being in sports in the first place. He could barely speak and had hired ex-Redskins quarterback Billy Kilmer to assist him with standing and walking. 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. Suite 2100 Murchison's laissez-faire attitude has been credited by many Cowboys fans as the driving force in the team's 20 consecutive winning seasons from 19661985 (including five Super Bowl appearances and including two Super Bowl championships). See the article in its original context from. 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. Boy, did they prosper. 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. The future seems to be theirs for the taking. She died in 1926, leaving him to raise three small sons John, Clint Jr. and Burk, who died from pneumonia when he was 11. Adjusted for inflation, that amounts to roughly $2.8 million in 2020. Legendary oil magnate Clint Murchison bought 350 acres in 1930 so that his three young sons could have a little room to run around. Do you think theyll go to the Super Bowl five times like the Cowboys of the 70s did? Why am I on Landrys side again? The next generations playing out this lunatic antagonism between the Cowboys and the Redskins more than 30 years after it began without the faintest idea how it started. Failing health and changing financial markets forced Murchison to sell the Cowboys in 1984. But Im already getting ahead of myself. A three-story mansion in San Antonio's Monte Vista Historic District once owned by powerful oilman Clint Murchison has hit the market for $1.5 million. But I should try. Pre-order on Amazon. The university offered to reinstate him if he would rat out his fellow gamblers he refused. Young said the major systems of the home have been improved, along with bathrooms and the primary suite. : [10], Incorporating a host of first-ever innovations, Murchison became known as the godfather of modern stadium construction. Youre in, then youre out. Television has convinced a whole generation that success in sports requires a professional career and a stack of product endorsements. Hole in the Roof takes you on a deep dive into the personality and passions of Clint Jr., while extending a more than passing hello to everyone else who was part of his world. While his "financing by finagling" precipitated the crash, the family's downfall also resulted from bitter lawsuits in the third generation. The Murchisons - the rise and fall of a Texas dynasty, by Jane Wolfe. Murchison quickly established his vision and then hired qualified executives to implement strategies to accomplish the goals. Until John Murchison died and Clint got sick and had to sell to Bum Bright. We went 4 and 10, and it was the Cowboys last losing season for the next 20 years. Clinton Williams Murchison, Sr. (April 11, 1895 - 20 June 1969), was a noted Texas-based oil magnate and political operative. To calculate the overall star rating and percentage breakdown by star, we dont use a simple average. The home has seven bedrooms, seven bathrooms and two half-bathrooms and has been renovated, boasting plenty of natural light, classic details and even some of the original wallpaper. Then Clint slowly lifted his cane and smilingly pointed at the front of Carters pullover shirt. I could just picture all their agents arguing about fees and residuals with the guys from PepsiCo. After all, Michael Irvin makes about $1.2 million and drives a Mercedes. [11] Texas Stadium was the first dedicated football stadium to offer luxury suites. In 1960, the National Football League approved a franchise for Dallas, and Murchison, along with Bedford Wynne, was the franchisee or license holder. He was curious about the latters hole in the roof, which Dallas Cowboys linebacker D. D. Lewis once famously said existed so that God can watch his favorite team.. Get the latest news from Steve Brown and the business staff. From now on, you're on your own.[4]. His father loved to stay borrowed up to the hilt. Clint Murchi-son Jr. was there-he was already desperately ill. In biblical terms, the story of the Cowboys financial empire is one of Clint begat Jerry. 750 North St.Paul St. Please try again. Taking a hands-on approach, Murchison led the concept, design, planning, financing and construction of Texas Stadium. Watch what they do to Buffalo. Mr. Murchison, who had been debilitated. And theyll beat Buffalos no-huddle offense by sacking Jim Kelly and causing a lot of fumbles and interceptions. Carter tells me that the week before the game. He made Phi Beta Kappa in electrical engineering at Duke University in Durham, N.C., and earned a masters degree in mathematics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, which was at the time the countrys toughest school for science and engineering. Oil that is, black gold, Texas tea.. The players are rich, young, immortal. 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. He believed his team would be good, even special, for years to come. 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 believed the people who borrowed money and invested it in land and other things that appreciate with inflation would win. He said he hoped to buy a twin-engine, six-passenger crop duster on which he could add a large fuel tank. Well, thats what Landry did, 1 point out. An unassuming, softspoken native of Tyler, Tex., Mr. Murchison (pronounced MER-kiss-un) was born Sept. 5, 1921, the son of Clint W. Murchison Sr., who made a fortune in the . In addition to the primary bedroom and bathrooms, the suite has a study, a library and two walk-in closets. If you continue to use this site we will assume that you are happy with it. We were) finally playing to sold-out crowds after seven years of struggle. When three creditors, the Toronto-Dominion Bank, the Kona-Post Corporation and Citicorp, filed a petition to force him into bankruptcy, the fate of his financial empire was sealed. Don was a small back- 5-foot-10 and 191 pounds. 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. Dealing with dilemmas is what a lifetime in sports teaches you. NO OTHER PRO TEAM HAD ever quite like them, at one and the same time so rich, so dazzling, so young-and so tragic. Trouble began after John's death in an auto accident in 1979, which forced the dissolution of his partnership with. 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. Marshall would get his number changed and unlisted. These young kids seem to be having so much fun. Schramm, Landry and Brandt all have bronze busts in the Pro Football Hall of Fame. Occasionally the digitization process introduces transcription errors or other problems; we are continuing to work to improve these archived versions. A 'Wheeler-Dealer' Nature. Texas Stadium redefined the sports stadium. The result was the famous Texas Stadium hole in the roof.. Clint taught the sports world how stadiums could be so much more than where games are played. 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And those who saved their cash were going to be the losers., The Boss, Clinton Williams Murchison Sr., was fond of saying he liked to do business through a formula expressed through the homespun homily financin by finaglin. Clint Sr. soon thrust himself into a pantheon of Texas wheeler-dealers that enumerated such fellow giants as Sid Richardson, H.L. It was the first to use seat option bonds to help fund construction and first to offer luxury suites on a commercial scale. The hole in the roof appeared for years as one of the opening shots in the hit CBS television show Dallas, which gave to the world the iconic villain J.R. Ewing, a Texas oilman. After viewing product detail pages, look here to find an easy way to navigate back to pages you are interested in. Reviewed in the United States on August 5, 2017. 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. OK, Thomas was known for being militant and surly and Smith is a choirboy. 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. I just wish it was on Kindle. Author Jane Wolfe lived in Dallas for forty years before recently relocating to her hometown of Columbus, Ohio. Murchison also valued loyalty.