Brooding About the Cotton Bowl

I like to say that since moving to Korea 10-plus years ago, I have come to disregard big-time sports. The NBA playoffs? The NCAA Final Four? The World Series? Wimbledon? The Indy 500? The Olympics? University of Texas football? The passion I long felt has, for the most part, subsided. I glance at ESPN to check results, and that’s about it. If asked who won the most recent Super Bowl, I would have a hard time answering; all right, it’s the Philadelphia Eagles. This somewhat blasé attitude is really not a bad thing, and I make no effort to alter it since other issues have taken precedence. I am not unaware that, as I have withdrawn from the sports world, it has just gotten bigger, richer and more outlandish. Time marches on.

Sports minutiae—who cares?

Oh, but I still delve rather deeply into sports history. Of the 21 articles I have written so far this year, nine of them pertain wholly or partially to sports—baseball, football, basketball and Larry Nassar (now inmate number #21504-040 at a federal prison in Arizona, probably still insisting that all those “pelvic floor” treatments he gave female gymnasts were legitimate). The majority of sports stories—for example, whether the Jacksonville Jags will sign a free agent DB, how some pro hoopster is upset because another has “disrespected” him or the fact that offense in major league baseball has largely devolved to strikeout or home run—leave me cold, but others do not. One that warms me considerably is a certain 88-year-old football stadium in Dallas’ Fair Park. I refer to the Cotton Bowl.

How significant was the Cotton Bowl to a sports-mad kid who grew up in Dallas during the 1950s and ’60s? There were other prominent college and pro football stadiums, but this one was ours. Its history gripped me and still does. Erected in 1930 at a cost of $328,000, it was originally named Fair Park Stadium. As much as I admire Doak Walker (1948 Heisman Trophy winner for SMU), he did not build the Cotton Bowl. “The house that Doak built”—oh, please. It was a Dallas sportswriter’s catchphrase that somehow stuck. The popularity of Walker led to the construction of east- and west-side upper decks, raising seating capacity to more than 75,000. But since he was just 3 years old when SMU beat Indiana 27-0 on October 26, 1930 (the first game), he neither literally nor metaphorically built the stadium. The Mustangs called it home on a full-time basis starting in 1932, and the January 1 Cotton Bowl game commenced five years later. The Texas−Oklahoma game (again, I refuse to acknowledge phony names like “Red River Shootout”) has been held at the Cotton Bowl every year since 1932. I suppose this is the peak of the 24-day State Fair, of which I have many memories. For three hectic seasons (1960−1962), it was home to two pro football teams—the Dallas Cowboys of the NFL and the Dallas Texans of the AFL. As you probably know, Lamar Hunt’s Texans left for Kansas City in 1963; the Cowboys stayed there until 1971 before moving to Texas Stadium in Irving. SMU, having dropped from national prominence, opened a cozy on-campus stadium in 2000.

Glory days long past

The Cotton Bowl has been in decline for so long it’s hard to say when that process started. Although it has been modernized several times, there are limitations. The old girl, getting up in years, has no bells, no whistles. And modern sports fans have become a pampered lot. They like—neigh, demand—comfort and convenience. The Cotton Bowl’s seats are narrow, the plumbing sometimes does not work, and the amenities are distressingly bad. There’s no getting around the fact that the stadium was built in the second year of the Depression.

Jerry Jones, owner of the Cowboys since 1989, did not regard Texas Stadium as quite up to par. In 2004, he began making noise about building a bigger and better facility in one of the D/FW suburbs. This very shrewd businessman applied leverage in the form of the Cotton Bowl. He suggested (in fact, he had blueprints drawn up) a deal whereby it would be leveled and a modern retractable-roof stadium erected in its stead: a 21st-century football cathedral, good for the Cowboys, the bowl game, the Horns and Sooners, and the city of Dallas. This came to naught, of course. Texas Stadium was imploded in April 2010, and a $1.4 billion monstrosity in Arlington called AT&T Stadium became the team’s third home. I was pained and yet not surprised when the Cotton Bowl big shots moved the game there too.

Dallas buys time

As for the stadium, in November 2006 Dallas voters passed a $50 million bond referendum whereby seating capacity was expanded to over 92,000, with new scoreboards, a VIP area, better restrooms, concessions and such. It was, in my opinion, just to keep the administrations in Austin and Norman happy. Payout to UT and OU was increased to $500,000 ($600,000 starting in 2021) each, and things are settled as far as the Longhorns and Sooners go—until 2025, at which time the contract expires. That’s seven years in the future, but if the schools don’t join the exodus to Arlington, I will be stunned. There has also been discussion of just holding the annual game at the two campus stadiums, a home-and-home arrangement. If tradition is the only reason to stay at the Cotton Bowl, it simply will not happen.

A replacement bowl game instituted in 2011 has gone by the names of Dallas Football Classic, Ticket City Bowl and Heart of Dallas Bowl. The days of the Southwest Conference (R.I.P.) champion facing off against an invited squad before a packed house with national championship implications—and let us not forget the Cotton Bowl Parade in downtown Dallas—are far in the past. What you have today are mid-level teams playing before tiny “crowds.” The most recent such contest featured Utah and West Virginia, and exactly 9,392 tickets were sold but even fewer people bothered to attend. Aerial photos of the stadium during the game reminded me of what Ross Perot used to say: “Now, that’s just sad.” In the six years the event has been going on, it has lost $2.4 million.

Cotton, Sugar, Orange and Rose 

I am a long way from Dallas and the inner workings of city government, so I do not know about the future of the Cotton Bowl stadium. I just remember how, in my younger days, I would watch the Cotton, Sugar, Orange and Rose bowls on January 1. A college football marathon, these games enthralled me. But drastic change has come to three of the events.

The Sugar Bowl was first played at Tulane University’s campus stadium in 1935. Built in 1926, it was expanded four times, up to a seating capacity of almost 81,000. The Green Wave called it home, of course, as did the New Orleans Saints for seven seasons before the Superdome was erected in 1975. The Sugar Bowl was moved there without delay. Super Bowls 4, 6 and 9 were held at Tulane Stadium, which was in terrible shape before being razed in 1980. TU, after 38 mostly unsatisfactory seasons at the Superdome, now has a much smaller on-campus facility.

The Orange Bowl, built in 1937 and expanded five times, hosted its eponymous bowl game through 1996. The Miami Dolphins called the Orange Bowl home for 21 seasons before building their own NFL-standard facility, and the University of Miami played there through 2007. It hosted Super Bowls 2, 3, 5, 10 and 13. The stadium where the Dolphins and Hurricanes play has had no fewer than eight different names, and I have no desire to recapitulate them here. The Orange Bowl met the wrecking ball in May 2008.

As for the Rose Bowl, the story is happier. Built in 1922 and expanded to seat 91,000 fans, it is home to the UCLA Bruins. While there is no thought of moving the New Year’s Day game elsewhere, it’s an old edifice with many of the same issues plaguing the Cotton Bowl. Actually, since the Cotton Bowl is in the middle of Fair Park, there is adequate parking; parking in and around the Rose Bowl is a nightmare. Super Bowls 6, 14, 17, 21 and 27 were held in Pasadena.

A questionable future

The Rose Bowl is outdated but in no danger of being demolished and replaced. Tulane Stadium and the Orange Bowl, as we have seen, are history. What, then, of the Cotton Bowl? It has no major tenant and hosts just one big event per year. White elephants are, by their very nature, expensive to maintain and bothersome as well. I hate to be a naysayer about a stadium I love so much, but I just do not see how Dallas can afford to keep it—especially if the UT−OU game leaves after 2025. Another venerable stadium, Legion Field in Birmingham, Alabama, is in a similar predicament. Erected in 1927 and once calling itself “the football capital of the South,” it has little raison d’être (its sole tenant, the University of Alabama-Birmingham, is leaving for a new and smaller stadium downtown in 2020) and struggles for relevance. It is literally crumbling. Legion Field means nothing to me; in fact, I have never set foot in Birmingham. The Cotton Bowl, however, is another matter.