RIP Texas Stadium

When I flew in DFW this week, we came in basically right over the top of Texas Stadium. While I've driven by it countless times, every time we've flown in we've circled from the other direction. With lights on in the joint, I have to say, it looked pretty cool.
Knowing it's being held together with duct tape, though, yeah, I can see why they're tearing it down.

 

Played there in high school six or seven times -- games against our rival and playoff games couldn't be contained in our 10K regular stadium. I scored two touchdowns there, so that's pretty cool.

 

RIP Wade Phillips coaching the Cowboys.

 

Maybe someone can bolt Phillips and Jones to the floor of the damn place when they push the button.

Jerry's World will not take with it the tradition of excellence of Landry and Johnson. Jerry's World will be a Taj Mahal Circus, complete with clowns.

 

If anyone knows a link to the closing ceremony Saturday, I'd like to find it.

 

Wrigley also was featured in the opening credits of "Perfect Strangers" -- who could forget Balki inadvertently having his arm linked with Cousin Larry with the Wrigley marquee in the background?

 

My memories of Texas Stadium are, alas for this Cowboys fan(boi), pitiful.

I've went to "my Mecca" three times over the years. The Cowboys lost all three games.

Once on Monday Night Football to the Panthers in 1997 (I believe). Once to the Jets in 1999 (the only game the Cowboys lost at home that year) and once to the Bucs in 2001. The thing I remember most about the last loss was that as we were driving home (from where we stopped in Mississippi), the WTC was being destroyed by terrorists and let me tell you this, it was a long car ride home from Mississippi to Florida in a cramped car with three other people trying to figure out what exactly was going on and if one of my best friends on Earth was at the Pentagon when it got hit.

I'll miss the place. It truly is, and I don't think anyone can deny it, an iconic place.

 

My first game at Texas Stadium was the Pickle Juice game in 2000. An abject disaster all around for the Cowboys.

The turf temperature was 130º at kickoff (it was still the old school rug), Philly opened the game by recovering an onside kick, prize free agent Joey Galloway tore an ACL, Aikman suffered his 11th concussion, backup Randall Cunningham was knocked out as well, and the Boys got waxed 41-13 in Campo's debut.

Good times.

Since then, I've covered a handful of Cowboys games, one college game and five or six high school games there. The place has really gone downhill in the last eight years — it could still be a real palace with some fixing up, but once JerryWorld became more than a dream, the city of Irving let it go to seed.

It's going to be blown up sometime in the next year or two so Irving can develop the property. And that's a shame, not only because of its historical and cultural significance, but also because its size makes it ideal for 5A high school football — there aren't many places large enough to hold a big game like the Carroll-Trinity one a few years ago.

The Cotton Bowl is out because it's grass and coaches don't like playing on it in November and December when there are turf fields to play on. Ford Field at SMU is close, but even a 30K stadium is too small for some of these games. I think Amon Carter (TCU) is grass as well, and it's in Fort Worth, which is not centrally located for the mega schools.

The new stadium in Arlington is supposed to be available for high schools, but the thing is so huge, the atmosphere will be lost. Unless they have a way of curtaining off the end zones and upper decks (they should, since they're hosting the Final Four.)

I won't say I will miss Texas Stadium, but there will be a hole in the Metroplex fabric where the hole in the roof used to be.

 

The place is a dump. Looks like the annual maintenance budget is about $5. You can't walk from the stadium to any bar or restaurant. Good riddance.

 

Another favorite Texas Stadium moment:





And he wonders why Cowboys fans haven't warmed up to him...

 

Get thee behind me in line then. I'm a Redskins fan, dammit!