Dallas Cowboys
On February 25, 1989, Jones purchased the Cowboys from H.R. "Bum" Bright for $140 million. Soon after the purchase, he fired longtime coach Tom Landry, to that point the only coach in the team's history, in favor of his old teammate at Arkansas, Jimmy Johnson. A few months later, he forced out longtime general manager Tex Schramm, and assumed complete control over football matters.
After the 1993 Super Bowl victory, reports began to surface in the media that Jones had made the statement that "any one of 500 coaches could have won those Super Bowls", given the type of talent that he (Jones) had drafted and signed for the team. Jones also stated to reporters at a late night cocktail party that he intended to replace Johnson with former University of Oklahoma coach Barry Switzer. The next morning, however, Jones famously denied those reports by stating that it "was the whiskey talking". Johnson was eventually forced out in 1994 and Switzer was hired to be the new head coach.
He is one of two NFL owners who also have the title or powers of general manager, the other being the Cincinnati Bengals' Mike Brown.
Of all the owners in American professional sports, he is considered to be one of the most involved, on a day-to-day basis, with his team. He can be seen in his box at every Cowboys game and in many cases he ventures down to the Cowboys sideline (usually late in the game).
Read more about this topic: Jerry Jones
Famous quotes containing the words dallas and/or cowboys:
“If a foreign country doesn’t look like a middle-class suburb of Dallas or Detroit, then obviously the natives must be dangerous as well as badly dressed.”
—Lewis H. Lapham (b. 1935)
“What do you think spies are: priests, saints and martyrs? They’re a squalid procession of vain fools, traitors too, yes; pansies, sadists and drunkards, people who play cowboys and Indians to brighten their rotten lives.”
—John le Carré (b. 1931)