DMN's Kevin Sherrington's Column on the Cotton Bowl

[MrMustang1965]

Straight up: The Cotton Bowl is a dump. A decaying canyon of concrete, it doesn't need bricks and mortar as much as a couple of mortar shells.

Concourses are too narrow, stench too wide. Can't hardly swing a dead rat without hitting a woman waiting in a restroom line. And before you get up from your seat, you've first got to get your knees surgically removed from the guy in front of you.

No wonder Texas and Oklahoma threaten to pull out. The last time tenants put up with similar conditions, Steve McQueen went over the wire.

And they're getting out, make no mistake about it. Unless some influential boosters chirp up and chip in, Texas-OU will play its final Fair date when the contract runs out in two years.

And what then? Only the end of the greatest annual sporting event in Texas history.

Move it to Jerry World? Hard to get the same ambience over in Arlington. Besides, DeLoss Dodds says they wouldn't do that to Dallas.

A home-and-home series is more likely. And it's not hard to see why: The schools wouldn't have to divvy up the loot with the locals.

Once upon a time, money and amenities weren't such an issue at the Cotton Bowl. We were poorer but happier. Also smaller, but with bigger bladders.

Tradition wasn't something you needed to quantify back in the day. But life moves on. The bills for our materialistic lifestyles mount.

Hey, someone's got to pay for the new turf in the indoor practice facility, or how else do you keep up the arms race in college athletics?

Makes you wonder if they'd stay even if the Cotton Bowl got a facelift and expansion.

And what are the odds the place gets everything on its punch list? Officials swear that $26 million would do it. Once the greasepaint is smoothed over, the president of the state fair even said the ol' Cotton "will look as nice as the ones in Austin or Norman."

Cultural cross-reference: Michael Jackson heard the same pitch from his plastic surgeon as they studied abstracts of Diana Ross.

Anyway, $26 million just isn't what it used to be. Not when you're talking stadium renovations. Couldn't even get you two years of Chan Ho Park.

Of course, these threats would be moot if the Cowboys and the city of Dallas had worked out a deal. They could have razed the Cotton Bowl and put up a place with a roof to attract BCS championships, Final Fours, Super Bowls, the works, and not only would a critical area of the city be instantly revitalized, Dallas would be a major player in national sports instead of a third-rate attraction behind Houston and San Antonio.

But it's all water under the Calatrava bridges, or at least that's what they tell us.

All you can do is hope for a champion. Someone or some group to come to the Cotton Bowl's rescue. Exert some pressure on their schools. And it won't be easy, for all the reasons listed above.

So why go to all the trouble? Because there's no other sporting event in the state like Texas-OU.

The quality of the rivalry certainly helps. But so does the history, the corny dogs, the midway, the players coming down the tunnel, Big Tex over the top, partisan fans split right down the middle.

No other major venue in Texas has the same panache, smelly or not. Most of the rest sit [deleted] the highways, drab and colorless, little more than huge blisters on the horizon.

Location matters, as Dallas learned when it failed to make a real pitch for a baseball stadium in the Farmers Market area.

Ameriquest Field is beautiful. Arlington certainly deserves it for all the work officials put in.

But there's a reason urban parks are all the rage. Boston faithful don't worship at Fenway Park because it's old. Wrigley Field isn't beloved just for its ivy.

They're both integral to the fabric of those cities. The Cotton Bowl may be a ratty knot in Dallas' fabric, but a knot, nonetheless.

Don't think I'm a sentimental [deleted] about stadiums, either. Did I complain when the Mavericks and Stars moved out of Reunion?

Did I stand in front of the wrecking ball at Arlington Stadium?

Do I mind if Irving turns Texas Stadium into condos?

No. But come the second Saturday of October and there's no game out at the State Fair, don't expect any huzzahs because the restroom lines are short.

[Stallion]

Laura Miller killed the Texas/OU game, the return of the Cotton Bowl Classic to elite status, and the revitalization of Fair Park and South Dallas all in one of the worst short sighted decisions in the the history of this City. Its all over but the crying.

[EastStang]

Add in to that not trying their best to keep SMU playing at the Cotton Bowl, (although Ford Stadium is wonderful). You see how dominoes fall. The SWC folds. SMU doesn't need a big stadium anymore, they leave the Cotton Bowl. Cotton Bowl now has three events per year (plus assorted tractor pulls), and little revenue to justify repairs. Like old JFK Stadium in Philly it becomes a dump (or better called a dumpier dump). And just like old JFK Stadium in Philly which lost the Army-Navy game, this stadium will lose the Texas-OU game. Then the Cotton Bowl classic will move to the nice stadium in Arlington and the City of Dallas will wonder what happened. So the City will have to pony up big bucks to save the stadium. Now, if the legislators from Dallas in the 1990's had the foresight to put the heat on UT and A&M from bolting from the SWC, the city wouldn't be in this mess. Ripples upon ripples.