Rayfield still has the eloquent "Wright" stuff

By RAY BUCK

It was December 1967.

The Dallas Cowboys has just announced plans to ditch the Cotton Bowl and relocate to Irving.

The City of Dallas quickly responded with a promise of renovations to the Cotton Bowl, including chair-backs instead of bleacher seats.

But it was too late. Sound familiar?

That same December 1967, Cowboys’ future Hall of Famer Rayfield Wright was finishing up his rookie season as a backup tight end (later appearing in five Super Bowls and six Pro Bowls — all at right tackle).

Money was a big deal then, too. But it seemed to buy more.

The Cowboys’ new home in the ’burbs was going to cost $35 million to build — hole in the roof included.

Wright, a seventh-round pick in ’67, was earning $15,000 a year.

“I’ll never forget the first time I walked into that place — man, I thought I was in heaven,” Wright said of Texas Stadium, which opened four years later in October 1971.

“But still, to me, the Cotton Bowl was a very special place.”

That’s how most of the old Cowboys remember the Cotton Bowl, which was where the franchise cut its teeth ... and where plenty of tears were shed.

This is where Don Meredith and the ’66 Cowboys lost a chance to be the NFL’s first Super Bowl representative. But Green Bay intercepted Meredith in the end zone to make a 34-27 Dallas deficit stick, and the Packers advanced to Super Bowl I.

“I’ll never forget that Jethro Pugh and I bought tickets to send 100 kids to every Cowboys home game at the Cotton Bowl, said Wright. “It was $1 per ticket in the end zone, which meant Jethro and I put up $50 apiece.

“These kids were from the inner-city who really admired the Cowboys, but probably never would’ve gotten a chance to see us play otherwise.”

Regrettably, Wright (earning about $27,000 at the time) and Pugh had to stop funding 100 kids when the team moved into Texas Stadium.

Cowboys ticket prices sky-rocketed. Sound familiar?

“Back then, we didn’t make the kind of money that NFL players make today,” Wright explained. “Jethro and I just couldn’t do it anymore.”

Wright was making roughly $25,000 a year at the time.

The road not taken

It has been 26 months since Larry Rayfield Wright delivered one of the most compelling induction speeches in Pro Football Hall of Fame history.

If induction speeches had titles, this one would’ve been The Road Not Taken, a Robert Frost poem that Rayfield used as a hook for how he got all the way to Canton, Ohio, from tiny Griffin, Ga.

His 2005 book Wright Up Front, with Jeannette DeVader, is nearing the end of its third printing.

Still, hardly a week goes by that somebody doesn’t stop him to acknowledge something he wrote or recall something he spoke on that Aug. 6, 2006, HOF induction day.

Or perhaps something from his presenter, L.J. “Stan” Lomax, Fort Valley State coach and father figure to Wright all those years ago.

“Rayfield had two admonitions,” said Lomax, espousing the spiritual quality of football. “Thou shalt not touch Roger ... [and] thou shalt not impede the progress of Calvin [Hill] or Tony [Dorsett].”

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