60-year anniversary: How the Cowboys’ star formed in the universe

Everything is bigger in Texas, including the stories. But the truth behind the birth of the Dallas Cowboys is plenty wild on its own.

Chapter 7: Stars on the field and beyond

The Cowboys’ iconic star logo was there from Day One, though slightly altered from how it appears today. The star was always blue, but without its trademark white-and blue border outlines; those came in 1964 and are what distinguishes the genuine Dallas Cowboys logo from just a blue-colored star.

An alternate logo, a cartoonish line drawing of a cowboy wearing a football helmet and chaps while riding a galloping horse was also sometimes used. It appeared only secondarily on select merchandise over the team’s first decade of existence.

The color scheme was royal blue and white. The original helmets were white and remained so for the first several seasons, until silver was added to the palette. For its jerseys, Dallas was rather fashion-forward for the period, placing large stars on the shoulders and utilizing a crisscross collar design that made the Cowboys’ V-neck jerseys unique at the time. Royal blue gradually segued to navy blue as seen the uniform’s modern iteration.

White jerseys at home? That hard and fast Dallas tradition- opposite what most teams wore- was also a Cowboys mainstay from the beginning. One story holds that white jerseys helped the home team stay just a bit cooler in the sweltering Texas heat and forced visitors like the Bears and the Eagles to sweat more profusely in their sun-absorbing dark jerseys. But legend has it that the TV veteran Schramm also wanted to offer casual fans more visual interest when they ventured out to games; if the Cowboys wore white at home, it would ensure a more exciting parade of vibrant colors on the visiting teams from week to week.

Once that first whistle blew, though, the Cowboys’ inaugural season was mostly ugly. They dropped their first game to the Pittsburgh Steelers after blowing a promising 14-0 lead. In the second outing, they lost to the Eagles (who would go on to win the 1960 championship) by a pair of blocked PATs. It got worse from there. Home games were played at the Cotton Bowl, which they shared with Hunt’s Texans. In all, the Cowboys went winless over their 12 matchups in 1960. The only bright spot was a 31-31 tie with the Giants at Yankee Stadium, a result that killed New York’s chances of claiming the conference crown that year.

Yes, the Dallas Cowboys’ inaugural season ended in a dreadful 0-11-1 record, a stark and surprising contrast to the unprecedented glories that would follow over the next six decades.

Both Meredith and Perkins enjoyed successful careers in Dallas, both playing through the 1968 season. Meredith went to three Pro Bowls and was the quarterback for the team’s infamous “Ice Bowl” game versus Green Bay. He went on to act in movies and, as a broadcaster, was a key component in catapulting Monday Night Football to its status as an American institution. Perkins was a six-time Pro Bowler and helped end the practice of segregating players by skin color when they traveled to hotels. They were inducted into the Cowboys Ring of Honor together in 1976. Meredith passed away in 2010; Perkins is 81 years old today.

Of the 36 expansion players chosen that first year, 22 made the final team. Eleven of them lasted just one season with the Cowboys.

The NFL continued to expand. Minnesota was granted a franchise at the same time as Dallas in 1960, but the Vikings did not begin play until the following year. The Cowboys helped pave the way for more Southern teams; the Atlanta Falcons joined the league in 1966, and the New Orleans Saints debuted in 1967.

Landry took the team to five Super Bowls, and won the league title twice. He was named NFL Coach of the Year on two different occasions. He is in the Pro Football Hall of Fame and the Cowboys Ring of Honor. He currently stands fourth on the list of all-time regular season wins by an NFL coach, with 250. He passed away in 2000. He was head coach of the Cowboys for an astonishing 28years.

Schramm and Brandt also worked for the team until 1989. Schramm was inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 1991 and posthumously into the Ring of Honor that he created while with the team. He died in 2003. He is responsible for countless innovations that are deeply ingrained in the NFL, the sports world, the broadcast industry, and larger modern culture even today. Brandt is in the Cowboys Ring of Honor as well, and, at 86, is still a regular contributor on Sirius XM NFL Radio. He was inducted in the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 2019.

Lamar Hunt’s team, the Dallas Texans, went 25-17 over their first three seasons, winning the AFL championship in 1962. Despite a league title and attendance figures that bested those of the NFL’s Cowboys, Hunt determined that the Dallas/Fort Worth market could not sustain two professional football teams. He relocated his franchise to Kansas City prior to the 1963 season and renamed them the Chiefs. The Chiefs went to the first Super Bowl (before it was even called the Super Bowl, a name Hunt incidentally came up with in 1966) and won Super Bowl IV, the last one to be played with teams representing both the NFL and AFL. The league he founded merged with the NFL in 1970 after ten seasons. Hunt died in 2006; his family still retains ownership of the Chiefs.

Murchison was instrumental in the design and construction of Texas Stadium, the team’s iconic home from 1971 to 2008. He also oversaw the development of Valley Ranch, the first-of-its-kind campus that served as Cowboys headquarters until 2016. Murchison sold the team he founded to Bum Bright in 1984, citing poor health. He died three years later at age 63.

The team he founded in 1960 with a $600,000 investment was valued in 2019 at $5.5 billion, a full 20 percent more than the world’s second-most valuable sports franchise, baseball’s New York Yankees. Today, the Dallas Cowboys own the highest winning percentage of any team in the National Football League.

Murchison is, incredibly, not enshrined in the Pro Football Hall of Fame.

On January 28, 1996, the Dallas Cowboys won Super Bowl XXX with a 27-17 victory over the Pittsburgh Steelers. The club’s eighth Super Bowl appearance- then a record- resulted in their fifth world championship, also the most ever at that time. It occurred on the franchise’s 36th birthday.

In the exactly 24 years since, the team that changed the sport forever has yet to return to the sport’s biggest stage.

You can follow Todd on Twitter @ToddBrock24f7.

Joe Nick Patoski’s wonderfully comprehensive book, “The Dallas Cowboys: The Outrageous History of the Biggest, Loudest, Most Hated, Best Loved Football Team in America,” was an invaluable resource in the telling of this story.

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