Old Boys Club: 'An artistic gusher'

LBJ came, LBJ saw, LBJ pleaded for Craig Morton to get into the game.

As retired 36th president of the United States and a special guest of team owner Clint Murchison, Johnson simply tried using his executive power, but more about that later.

The Dallas Cowboys’ first game ever played at Texas Stadium — Oct. 24, 1971 — brought a football gala to Irving. There was no mistaking the aura surrounding the $35 million structure’s grand opening.

"An artistic gusher" was how Star-Telegram columnist Jim Trinkle described it the next day in the paper.

The final score was something of a gusher, too: Cowboys 44, Patriots 21.

There was a quarterback controversy in Dallas at the time. Roger Staubach started the game; Morton mopped up.

And, apparently, no one was more pleased to see both QBs than LBJ, who was accompanied by a pair of former First Ladies — his wife, Lady Bird Johnson, and widow of the 34th president, Mamie Eisenhower.

Texas Stadium, "The Hole in the Roof" and all, made its debut before a festive crowd of 65,708. But what made this stadium opener different than most was the fact that it occurred on the sixth Sunday of the season. (The ’71 Cowboys were 3-2, including a split in their last two home games at the Cotton Bowl.)

The natives were restless. "Next Year’s Champions" was an unwanted label slapped on a frustrated Cowboys franchise — and its fans.

Staubach or Morton?

Nobody knew it then, but the team would win its first Super Bowl title in its 12th season, exactly a dozen weeks after Texas Stadium opened.

But what was on the minds of most Cowboys fans Oct. 24, 1971, were the series of playoff losses, including three championship game losses, over five previous seasons: to Green Bay twice, Cleveland twice and to Baltimore on a last-gasp field goal by a rookie kicker named Jim O’Brien in SB V.

As you might imagine, Tom Landry’s Cowboys were ready for a change in scenery, a change in amenities, a change of luck.

Texas Stadium represented such a change.

As fans headed to the inaugural game that day, their immediate concerns were twofold: 1) Impatience with Landry’s alternating quarterbacks — even to the tune of every other down, and 2) a worry-wart mentality about traffic flow around the new stadium.

Staubach or Morton?

Mild delays or total gridlock?

Well, Staubach started the game against New England, completing 13 of 21 passes for 197 yards and no interceptions. He ran for a touchdown and threw for a pair — both to "Bullet Bob" Hayes.

But perhaps the biggest surprise of the day was how smoothly traffic flowed. The freshly paved lots of Texas Stadium filled up and emptied without many traffic tie-ups at all.

'Next year’s champs’

Sunday’s Star-Telegram Cowboys-Patriots game advance (Oct. 11, 1971) made less out of the grand opening of new digs than the need for Dallas to win a game.

"[Owner] Murchison, who had the idea, and Dallas Cowboys fans, who had the money, have done their part," wrote S-T beat writer Frank Luksa. "The only missing link ... is a tenant worthy of the accommodations."

Ouch!

There were 1,500 unsold tickets that morning, despite the opening of a brand-new Cowboys playpen.

"[This] tough-sell," Luksa wrote, "might be traced to two factors: The Patriots (2-3) aren’t going anywhere, and the suspicion lingers that maybe the Cowboys (3-2) aren’t either, unless there is an abrupt about-face."

Oddsmakers put Jim Plunkett and the Patriots at 20 1/2-point underdogs.

Said the third-year Staubach before the game: "I can’t afford a bad performance, that’s for sure. If I don’t do well, I’m in trouble."

And if Staubach couldn’t make it here, he was prepared to make it somewhere else. Splitting time had run its course with both QBs.

Pomp and romp

Entertainer Tommy Loy, a Texas native and well-known musician of his day, played the national anthem on his trumpet. But the rest of Oct. 24, 1971, belonged to Staubach.

Columnist Trinkle did the math and wrote in his Monday morning column: "Any time 262,832 eyes and ears are jammed together, politicians flock in like it was Old Home Week. The former quarterback at 1600 Pennsylvania — naw, that isn’t the Washington Redskins — came with Lady Bird."

Said Landry afterward: "[Staubach] handled it real well. I did call all of the plays, but it was good for Roger to come back as he did," reported the Star-Telegram.

One week earlier, Staubach and the Cowboys suffered a bitter loss at New Orleans, 24-14. But if you think this one blowout of Plunkett and the Pats was going to make up Landry’s mind for him ... you would be wrong.

The following week (Oct. 31, 1971), Dallas lost at Chicago, 23-19. In that game, Staubach and Morton alternated plays.

But the Texas Stadium coming-out party proved to be a "rout" between two thorns. Against New England, Morton came off the bench and tacked on a TD drive of his own after replacing Staubach early in the fourth quarter.

Trinkle used his Monday morning column to tell of LBJ’s QB wishes.

"After the game, Clint Murchison escorted Lyndon Baines Johnson into the Cowboy boudoir," Trinkle wrote in the S-T. "A man of the Pedernales [River] enjoys shaking a sweaty palm. Clint marched the President-once-removed to Morton’s stall. Grinning, [Johnson] said, 'I told them to send you in because the President wanted to see you play.’ "

Morton apparently then asked LBJ, "You hear ’em boo?"

As Trinkle explained in his column: "They didn’t, not really. Cowboy romantics were in such an adoring mood Sunday, they wouldn’t have booed a goal-line fumble."

Fatality in Detroit

Sadly, an NFL tragedy was occurring five states away in Michigan.

The grand opening of Texas Stadium generated excitement, signaled progress, ushered in change. But in the final moments of the Bears-Lions game at Tiger Stadium in Detroit produced only sorrow.

Lions receiver Chuck Hughes suffered a fatal heart attack while on the field. He collapsed, face down, and died with Bears linebacker Dick Butkus standing over him.

It’s still the only time that an NFL player actually died on the field during a game.

The Oct. 25, 1971, Star-Telegram reported: "Findings of an autopsy ... [revealed] hardening of the arteries which had cut off 70 percent of his circulation. Hughes died when a blood clot blocked the remaining flow of blood to his heart."

Butkus didn’t know what to think, because there had been no contact with Hughes on the play. The game quickly ended.

Hughes, 28, was a Texas Western (now UTEP) alum. He is buried in San Antonio.

Traffic, what traffic?

In Dallas, team president Tex Schramm was doubly happy after the first game at his new stadium. Run-away victory. Orderly traffic.

"I guarantee they got out as easy as from the Cotton Bowl," Schramm told the Star-Telegram.

It was the best that either Schramm or Landry could expect when the day began.

Trinkle wrote: "The highway department had warned there would be boiling tempers and radiators, divorces and aggravated assault from fans trying to crash traffic lines ... [but] it wasn’t nearly the hysteric traffic-jammer that was predicted."

One commuter estimated that it took only "35 minutes" to clear all the parking lots. Being that it was a 44-21 game ... maybe that’s why.

Note:Texas Stadium: America’s Home Field ($22.95, Ascend Media) is scheduled for release later this month. Mac Engel, Star-Telegram Cowboys’ beat writer, authored the book that chronicles a lifetime of memories inside Texas Stadium.

Next week: Tom Rafferty recalls the special "game ball" presentation made inside the Cowboys locker room at RFK Stadium in December 1988.