Dallas Cowboys not going to California for camp
The Dallas Cowboys’ tradition of holding at least a portion of its training camps in far away destinations is suspended for the year.
According to sources, the NFL is mandating that all 32 teams hold their respective training camps at their home facilities. The league is implementing the rule to avoid any potential problem with cities that have various rules for the coronavirus.
The league’s primary goal is not training camps, but to start the 2020 season on time with fans in the stands.
This means the Dallas Cowboys will train and conduct their training camp at The Star in Frisco, and not temporarily relocate to their desired locale in Oxnard, Calif.
A moment of silence for the players, coaches, staff and media who love Cowboys’ camp in Oxnard, for its cool temperatures, sea breeze and access to the Pacific Ocean.
But folks in the Metroplex shouldn’t get too excited because it’s expected fans will not be allowed to the Cowboys’ camp, which will be another change. Fans are traditionally allowed to watch Cowboys’ practice free of charge.
The NFL said in a statement, “First, all training camps are required to be held at the club facility (which includes your home stadium). The only exception will be if a club can demonstrate, to the satisfaction of a joint NFL-NFLPA medical task force, that it would not be feasible to conduct at their club facility.
“Second, in order to mitigate exposure risks, we have agreed that no joint practices will be permitted this year during training camp. We believe that each of these steps will enhance our ability to protect the health and safety of players and your football staffs and are consistent with a sound approach to risk management in the current environment.
“The NFLPA was strongly in favor of these two decisions, which were made to limit exposure risks by avoiding the need for clubs to clean and maintain two facilities, by limiting the need for players and club staffs to travel to another location (sometimes located at a considerable distance from the home facility), and by limiting travel and contact between players on different clubs in the context of joint practices. These steps are being taken for the 2020 preseason to address the current conditions and are not expected to be in place in 2021.”
The Cowboys have trained for various lengths of time in Oxnard since 2012.
Cowboys coach Mike McCarthy said he and his staff had been working on various scenarios for camp in California, or exclusively in Texas.
Since the team’s first year it has always gone away to start training camp, both to get out of the North Texas heat, and to generate more media coverage.
In the team’s first season, in 1960, the Cowboys trained in both Oregon and Wisconsin. In 1961, they used Minnesota. In 1962, Northern Michigan University. They trained from 1963 to 1989 in Thousand Oaks, Calif.
Then Jerry Jones bought the team in 1989, and for training camp he took his Cowboys’ circus to Austin, Wichita Falls, San Antonio, but he eventually fell in love with Oxnard.
When Jerry bought the Cowboys, former team president Tex Schramm told him one of the values in having camps outside of Dallas was the traveling media would give more coverage.
Tex, however, never had to deal with a global pandemic.
This story was originally published June 2, 2020 at 5:27 PM.
