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Jerrel Wayne "Jerry" Jones (born October 13, 1942) is the owner of the Dallas Cowboys NFL franchise and the Dallas Desperados AFL franchise. Jones was born in Los Angeles, California. Shortly thereafter, his family moved to North Little Rock, Arkansas. He was a star running back at North Little Rock High School and eventually received a scholarship to play guard at the University of Arkansas. Among his Arkansas teammates were Jimmy Johnson and Barry Switzer, both of whom he would later hire to coach the Cowboys. While at Arkansas, Jones was a member of the Kappa Sigma Fraternity. After several unsuccessful business ventures (including passing up the opportunity to purchase the AFL's San Diego Chargers in 1967 for the asking), he began an oil and gas exploration business in Oklahoma, Jones Oil and Land Lease, which became phenomenally successful. His company, a private family asset, currently does natural resource prospecting. He is most famous for owning the NFL's Dallas Cowboys. He purchased the Cowboys in 1989 from Bum Bright. Not long after taking over, he fired longtime coach Tom Landry in favor of his old teammate at Arkansas, Johnson. A few months later, he forced out longtime general manager Tex Schramm, and granted Johnson complete control over player personnel decisions. He forced Johnson out in 1993 in favor of Switzer, and since then has acted as his own general manager. Of all the owners in professional sports, he is considered to be one of the ones 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. 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 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". Shortly thereafter, Switzer replaced Johnson as the Cowboys head coach. Jones was named Enemy No. 1 (least favorite sports personality) by Sports Illustrated, in three states by opinion polls (Delaware, Texas, and Virginia). [1] He is often vilified by fans who remain bitter at Jones' unceremonious firing of fan-favorite Landry. It is also said that after Jones ran Johnson out of Dallas, there has been a rift between the two.
Jones in Popular Culture
Jones was the inspiration for the character Baxter Cain, owner of the Dallas Felons, in the 1998 film BASEketball. He appeared as himself in a 2007 television commercial for Diet Pepsi MAX, which also featured Cowboys Head Coach Wade Phillips and quarterback Tony Romo.
