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Bright in turn sold the Cowboys to Jerry Jones in 1989 following several losing seasons. The Pete Gent Show was not renewed. 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 . They look at guys like me as really old and not very relevant to the world. By Burk Murchison and Michael Granberry. 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. Pre-order on Amazon. J. Edgar Hoover. He formed Southern Union Gas Company. His name was Mohamed Atta. Clint Jr., probably best known as the builder and first owner of the Dallas Cowboys, was also a philanderer and deal-maker. His father loved to stay borrowed up to the hilt. In 1952, Murchison joined a syndicate that included Everette Lee DeGolyer and Jack Crichton, both of Dallas, to use connections in the government of General Francisco Franco to obtain drilling rights in Spain. They believed the people who borrowed money and invested it in land and other things that appreciate with inflation would win. In case youre wondering, Katy taxpayers paid for most of it. 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. Jane Wolfe is the author of two previous biographies and one that will be published in September, 2022. The bonds were in denominations of $250. After viewing product detail pages, look here to find an easy way to navigate back to pages you are interested in. The players are rich, young, immortal. Young said the home was passed on to Clint Murchison Sr.'s son and daughter-in-law, John and Lucille Lupe Murchison. Among his companies was the Southern Union Company. His mother died when he was two and he was mainly raised by an aunt. https://cityofirving.rezgo.com/details/328826/hole-in-the-roof-book-signing-and-authors-talk. But I should try. Clint Jr.s success can be attributed largely to Schramm, a marketing genius; Landry, one of the games great coaches; and Gil Brandt, who, as director of scouting, revolutionized the way players are recruited by using newfangled technology computers long before computers were commonplace. Both received highly favorable reviews, including this one about "THE MURCHISONS" - "If episodes of the TV show 'Dallas' were half as interesting as this real life Texas family, ratings would never be a problem.". The Cowboys became first team to use computers in talent scouting. 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. While the arts would eventually move downtown, the Cowboys never did. Joe Bailey And in the Murchison empire, Clint Sr. begat Clint Jr. Hes as remarkably like his father as he was remarkably unlike his brother, radio icon Gordon McLendon once said of his friend Clint Jr. His father we all referred to Clint Sr. as The Boss loved to go into businesses of every description. And, if they werent in our living room yelling back and forth, they would call each other up after every third or fourth play, every touchdown, field goal, interception, fumble, or quarterback sack and heckle over the phone. Between his junior and senior years, he interned at The Washington Post during "the Watergate summer" of 1973. : There was a problem loading your book clubs. Clint W. Murchison Jr., the scion of a Texas wildcat oil family who created the Dallas Cowboys football team, died Monday night. Mr. The kitchen features Carrera marble, two countertop islands, a dumbwaiter and countertop seating. Before going to the stadium we stopped to pick up our tickets at the Cowboys towers on Central Expressway. Viewers the world over had to wait until Nov. 21, 1980, to learn the answer to the question that sparked international curiosity: Who Shot J.R.? His 2 sons then extended the empire to Wall Street in the 1950s and pro football in the 1960s--they started the Dallas Cowboys. Her current book is "BURL: Journalism Giant and Media Trailblazer," to be published by Andrews McMeel Publishing (AMP) on September 6, 2022. The Packers went instead and we became the team that couldnt win the big game. It represented an alliance of the founders sons, older brother John and younger brother Clint. He was 63 years old. He was also the father of Dallas Cowboys owner Clint Murchison, Jr.. At that time, he was well on his way to success and wealth in gas and oil, Fortune wrote, and if he had been alone in the world he might never have wandered. Trouble began after John's death in an auto accident in 1979, which forced the dissolution of his partnership with. Bright said Mr. Murchison replied with a letter that read: ''Dear Ed, you are full of prunes. I would love to take one percent credit for Landry, Schramm said, but I can't. 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. Mr. Murchison, whose fortune reached an estimated $250 million in 1984, according to Forbes magazine, was recently beset with financial difficulties brought on by the collapse of the real estate market and global oil prices. 1898, d. 1926). 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. Full content visible, double tap to read brief content. Historians credit the teams success for giving the City of Dallas a point of pride and a way to recover from the assassination of John F. Kennedy in 1963. I dont know anything at all about Smith and Everett. 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. Its like that. Its probably not healthy to take it all so seriously. Hes wondering the same thing I am: What the hell am I doing defending Tom Landry? They dress like 1 did on my TV show in 1967. His hires included Tex Schramm as general manager and Tom Landry as head coach. [1][2] A son of Clint Murchison Sr., who made his first fortune in oil exploration and became notorious for exploiting the sale of "hot oil", Clint and his surviving brother inherited their father's wealth and business interests to which Clint Jr. added ventures of his own. 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. What about Clint? And not very bright. And prospered. The huddle turned strangely quiet for a moment. Rather than being a city-owned rental facility, la the Cotton Bowl and dozens like it across America, where the only real perk was a hot dog and a Coke (or in Texas, a Dr Pepper), Clint cast the stadium in an adventurous new light, and Jones got it. It was the first to use seat option bonds to help fund construction and first to offer luxury suites on a commercial scale. Black players had to drive 15 miles to South Dallas to live. OK, Thomas was known for being militant and surly and Smith is a choirboy. The brothers won. He only had a few childhood friends. 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. He was 63 years old. There was an error retrieving your Wish Lists. The Murchisons were one of the most prominent oil families in Texas, a state knee deep in them. Bring your club to Amazon Book Clubs, start a new book club and invite your friends to join, or find a club thats right for you for free. As with all great stories, ours has a beginning, a middle and an end. He s piiinchin me. He was a 21-year-old kid and pinching was a three syllable word where he came from. 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 result was the famous Texas Stadium hole in the roof.. Because the risk-taking pair won far more than they lost, they stayed afloat. ''With his engineering background, he was very much 'hands on' during its construction. [4], Murchison enjoyed a reputation as a practical joker. 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. John was more conservative than daring, more measured than maniacal. He made trades for draft choices and built a team thatll last for years, Carter says. He also longed for a symbol of redemption a state-of-the-art stadium that could go a long way toward restoring a depressed downtown in the wake of President John F. Kennedys assassination on Elm Street in Dallas in 1963. Dealing with dilemmas is what a lifetime in sports teaches you. Even in this environment, Clint Jr. was viewed as a scientific genius and an eccentric. 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. Murchison quickly established his vision and then hired qualified executives to implement strategies to accomplish the goals. Jones saw what Clint Jr. envisioned with the creation of Texas Stadium. , Dimensions For public libraries interested in the history of the oil business or Texas, or in the exploits of the wealthy. 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. Exponentially. Wolfe gives a colorful description of a quiet, unpretentious man whose financial acumen and brilliant use of leverage helped him build a multimillion-dollar conglomerate. Murchison fought a rare nerve disease called olivopontocerebellar atrophy[4] and was in a wheelchair in his final years. Oil that is, black gold, Texas tea.. The station was not a financial success, and joined forces with the Caroline organization to become the southern station of Radio Caroline. Ms. Wolfe's book adds a lot of detail and backstory to the Murchison dynasty. Now, they would pee on an electric fence to get Kenny to sing the national anthem. Mary Grace Granados, Special Contributor. J. R. crumpled to the floor with a gunshot wound in the cliffhanger episode that aired on March 21, 1980. 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. The Murchisons - the rise and fall of a Texas dynasty, by Jane Wolfe. 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. After all, Michael Irvin makes about $1.2 million and drives a Mercedes. : He was at top speed by his second step and hit like a freight train. 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. MARY LEVY, HEAD COACH of the Buffalo Bills, will tell you that the greatest football player he ever coached was Don Perkins at New Mexico in the late 50s. Murchison was Dallas Cowboys founder and delivered championship NFL football to his hometown (DALLAS, May 22, 2018) - A legendary alliance of former Dallas Cowboys players, executives, coaches and family members, today placed Clint Murchison Jr.'s name in nomination for the NFL Pro Football Hall of Fame. I am on shaky ground. And, right now, in the euphoric afterglow of victory that has to be covering the Metroplex like a constant fog, it would be difficult to find fault with two guys from Arkansas. Dont give up. Also surviving are several grandchildren. He was also friends with longtime FBI director J. Edgar Hoover and heavily involved in national politics. 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. The operation was handled by Delta Drilling, owned by Joe Zeppa. Smith will get over 100 yards rushing, he says. In biblical terms, the story of the Cowboys financial empire is one of Clint begat Jerry. [14] In February 1985, he had to file for personal bankruptcy protection after three creditors, the Toronto-Dominion Bank, the Kona-Post Corporation and Citicorp, filed a petition to force him into bankruptcy. John later went to Yale but quit to join the Army Air Corps when World War II broke out. '', In the early 1980's, Mr. Murchison was involved in a number of energy and real estate ventures that eventually eroded his wealth. . When he retired in 1968 he was the fifth all-time rusher in the NFL. After John Murchison's death in 1979, a legal dispute over his estate led to the sale of the Cowboys to H. R. Bright, a Dallas businessman, for $60 million in 1984. His grandfather founded the First National Bank in Athens. The slow, downward death spiral. Unable to strike a bargain with the City of Dallas, he elected to build a new stadium in Irving, Texas. To preserve these articles as they originally appeared, The Times does not alter, edit or update them. 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. 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 Circle Suites were available for purchase for $50,000 for the life of the stadium. Spared the wrath of terrorists, Texas Stadium enjoyed a happier fate. Clint W. Murchison Jr., the scion of a Texas wildcat oil family who created the Dallas Cowboys football team, died Monday night. Her first book, "THE MURCHISONS: The Rise and Fall of a Texas Dynasty," was published in 1989. 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. Murchison suggested hiring Landry away from his job as a defensive coach with the New York Giants. The company they acquired was Tecon, which over the years would remove the overhanging shale that threatened to close the Panama Canal and would build the tunnel under Havana Harbor, the St. Lawrence Seaway and other multibillion-dollar projects around the world..