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The Athletic Dallas 5h ago
Fame is a funny word.
In its most basic form, it implies relevance. The most famous people are those we hear about most often; those we automatically associate with a particular subject or event. A DFW sports Hall of Fame based purely on that criteria, however, would start off with five consecutive Cowboys quarterbacks. And while the Cowboys are well represented throughout this list, neither Tony Romo nor Danny White will displace Dirk Nowitzki, no matter how good the team’s TV ratings are or how many jerseys emblazoned with their name have been sold.
Athletic greatness is another trait we associate with Halls of Fame. For most, it’s the primary factor. But when choosing a list for one city as opposed to an entire sport, it makes for an imperfect barometer. Cliff Lee put together the greatest postseason run in Rangers history, but he only spent a few months in Texas. Tyson Chandler was the missing piece to a Mavericks title, but his contributions pale in comparison to what Jason Terry did over the course of eight years.
Ultimately, we told our writers to think about the most impactful people to the Dallas-Fort Worth sports market. These could be players, coaches, owners – anyone who made a distinct impact on the sports landscape. Tim Cato, Jon Machota, Sean Shapiro, Levi Weaver and Saad Yousuf were asked to vote, five at a time, on the DFW sports figures most deserving of enshrinement. We went through five rounds of votes, making a multitude of difficult choices along the way. From the first ballot through the fifth, this is our all-time Dallas-Fort Worth Hall of Fame.
First ballot:
Dirk Nowitzki (unanimous)
Dirk Nowitzki could make the Dallas Sports Hall of Fame simply because he lifted a forlorn franchise to respectability and then championship glory across his 21-year career. This alone — a feat of longevity and loyalty which has never been seen before in virtually any professional sport — would put him on this list. That he led basketball into its future with his unprecedented combination of height and shooting, too, would make him notable. But doing it all as a foreign citizen who arrived here and embraced this city every step of the way, too, means that Dirk is Dallas and that Dallasites are proud he represents them as the greatest athlete in the city’s history.
Roger Staubach (unanimous)
The quarterback of the Dallas Cowboys fills arguably the most high-profile position in all of sports. And no one did it better than Staubach. Captain America led the Cowboys to the first two Super Bowl wins in franchise history during the 1971 and 1977 seasons. In Staubach’s nine years as the starting QB, the Cowboys went to six NFC Championship games and four Super Bowls. He made six Pro Bowls and built a reputation for playing his best in the biggest moments. A member of the NFL’s All-Decade Team in the 1970s, he was inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 1985. It would be nearly impossible to find someone who has a bad thing to say about Staubach, one of the greatest players in NFL history.
Emmitt Smith (unanimous)
No player was more critical to the Cowboys’ dynasty run in the 1990s than the NFL’s all-time leading rusher. The three-time Super Bowl champion and eight-time Pro Bowler rushed for over 1,000 yards 11 times during his 13 seasons in Dallas. His career mark of 18,355 rushing yards is one of the safest records in all of sports. For example, Ezekiel Elliott would have to maintain his current pace for nine and a half more seasons to have a chance to top what Smith did throughout his Pro Football Hall of Fame career. Smith’s durability combined with his north and south running style was a perfect complement to the dominant offensive lines the Cowboys had in the 1990s.
Troy Aikman
The quarterback of Dallas’ three Super Bowl wins in the 1990s was a six-time Pro Bowler during his 12 seasons as the Cowboys starter. At the time of Aikman’s retirement, his 90 wins during the 1990s were the most in a single decade by any quarterback in NFL history. Aikman was inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 2006. “Troy Aikman won three Super Bowls and there were games he didn’t throw it a lot,” former Cowboys head coach Jimmy Johnson said during a FOX pregame show earlier this year. “I promise you, if we would’ve wanted Troy to throw the football, he would’ve lit it up. But the safest way to win is with the defense and the running game.”
Michael Irvin
The Playmaker joined Aikman and Smith as the third piece of The Triplets, a group that receives the most credit for the Cowboys’ three Super Bowls in four seasons. The 2007 Pro Football Hall of Fame inductee made five Pro Bowls during his 12 seasons with the Cowboys. He posted seven 1,000-yard receiving seasons, highlighted by his career year in 1995, when he caught 111 passes for 1,603 yards and 10 touchdowns. Irvin was one of the vocal leaders during the Cowboys’ Super Bowl run of the 1990s. Like Aikman and Smith, he was also a member of the NFL’s All-Decade Team in the 1990s. Irvin was the last player coached by the legendary Tom Landry to retire from the NFL.
Second ballot:
Mike Modano
If there were six inductees in each of our classes, Mike Modano would have been a first-ballot Hall of Famer. Instead, he’ll have to settle for leading the second class after leading the Stars franchise for 20 years, 16 of them in Dallas after the franchise relocated from Minnesota. Many of Modano’s franchise records are unlikely to be touched, well, ever — and he helped define hockey in a new market for the NHL.
Iván Rodriguez
It’s a good time to be asked to write about Rodriguez; just this week, we published our rankings of the ten best seasons ever by a Rangers catcher, and Pudge accounted for seven of them. One thing I was reminded of: After his MVP-winning 1999 season, he was actually on pace to obliterate those numbers and put together one of the greatest seasons by any catcher, ever, in 2000 before he broke his thumb. (.347/.375/.667/1.042 with 27 home runs on July 24). He was a first-ballot baseball Hall of Famer, but perhaps if the Rangers had kept him around after the 2002 season (he only played 1,064 more games after that year), I could have convinced my co-workers to put him in on the first ballot for this one.
Michael Johnson
The list of accomplishments for the Dallas sprinter is extensive, from once holding world records in the 200-meter and 400-meter dashes to being the first male athlete ever to win both of those events in the same Olympics. He also anchored the world’s greatest 4 x 400 relay and was elected to the United States Track and Field Hall of Fame in 2004. Johnson is on the shortlist of greatest sprinters the world has ever seen and arguably sits atop that list as far as male athletes in U.S. history. After retiring from the sport, Johnson has opened up Michael Johnson Performance in McKinney, a hotbed for elite professional athletes from around the country.
Nolan Ryan
The Rangers had been around for 17 seasons before signing Nolan Ryan, and while there were a few good years sprinkled in there, bringing in the native Texan superstar was the move that seemed to give them legitimacy around the league. They never did make the playoffs with Ryan on the roster, but between his 5,000th strikeout, his sixth and seventh no-hitters, a busted lip from a Bo Jackson comebacker and, of course, the headlock he put on Robin Ventura, Ryan put the Rangers in the national spotlight for the better part of his five seasons in Arlington and transcended the sport as a national icon. Later, as a member of the Texas front office, he was a fixture on the front row as the Rangers made their first two World Series appearances.
Bob Lilly
You can’t put together a group like this and not include the man known as “Mr. Cowboy.” Lilly was the first draft choice in the history of the Dallas Cowboys. He went on to play 14 seasons at defensive tackle, earning 11 Pro Bowl appearances and a Super Bowl ring. Lilly was the face of Dallas’ Doomsday Defense and he was the first person inducted into the Cowboys Ring of Honor. He is well known for playing in 196 consecutive regular-season games and missing only one game in his career. No Cowboys player has worn No. 74 since Lilly retired. He was inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 1980.
Third ballot
Tom Landry
He’s the only person with a statue outside of AT&T Stadium. Landry was the architect who put the Cowboys on the map nationally. He’s regarded as one of the greatest coaches in sports history. His record of 20 consecutive winning seasons (1966 to 1985) still stands to this day. Under Landry, the Cowboys played in 12 NFC Championship games in 17 years. He was inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 1990 with a record of 250-162-6. His 250 wins are the most in franchise history. Jason Garrett is second with 85. Don Shula (328), George Halas (318) and Bill Belichick (273) are the only NFL head coaches with more wins.
Jerry Jones
During his 32 years as owner and general manager of the Cowboys, Jones has become arguably the most powerful person in the NFL. He has helped build the Cowboys into the most valuable franchise in all of sports, according to Forbes. Jones was criticized for the way he fired Tom Landry after purchasing the team in 1989, but he hired Jimmy Johnson and the Cowboys ended up winning three Super Bowls in Jones’ first seven years as owner. They haven’t reached the NFC Championship game in the 24 seasons since, but the team remains one of the most popular in the world. Jones was inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 2017. It’s difficult to think of sports in Dallas without Jones immediately coming to mind.
Adrián Beltré
He wasn’t a Ranger for long enough to be a first- or second-ballot inductee here, though he certainly will be voted into Cooperstown as soon as he’s eligible. Beltré was simultaneously the grizzled old veteran toughing it out through injury and also the joyful imp bending baseball’s stodgy old reputation to his own creativity whenever he pleased. Many players have come and gone filling one of those roles, but for Beltré to do both was rare indeed. His career went through the Dodgers, Mariners and Red Sox before arriving in Texas, but he spent more time as a Ranger and accumulated more milestones here — 300th and 400th home runs, his 3,000th hit, the final three of five Gold Glove awards and so on — than anywhere else.
Larry Allen
The dazzling shine of position players on the Cowboys dynasty in the ’90s (see the first ballot above) means the offensive line anchoring it sometimes gets overlooked. Though Larry Allen only joined in 1994 for the final championship, the fact he’s often seen as the face of that unit speaks to his greatness. The 11-time Pro Bowler, seven-time first-team All-Pro and Pro Football Hall of Famer is widely considered the best interior offensive lineman in NFL history. He helped bring the Cowboys a championship and helped bolster the careers of legends like Emmitt Smith and Troy Aikman into what they became.
Ben Hogan
One of the greatest golfers of all time, Ben Hogan is synonymous with the longest-running PGA Tour event to be held at the same site. Hogan won five times at the event now known as the Charles Schwab Challenge, and Colonial Country Club in Fort Worth became known as Hogan’s Alley. The highlight of his illustrious career came in 1953, when he won Masters, the U.S. Open and the British Open. It came four years after he and his wife, Valerie, survived a near-fatal crash with a bus.
Fourth ballot:
Randy White
Randy White came to the Cowboys with high expectations as the second overall pick in the 1975 draft, and those expectations only climbed higher when he was assigned to fill the role left by “Mr. Cowboy” Bob Lilly early in his career. He lived up to every bit of it, helping the Cowboys to a Super Bowl championship over the Denver Broncos and winning MVP honors in that game. He’s one of just 10 defensive players to be named Super Bowl MVP. From 1977 to 1985, White was named a First-Team All-Pro and to the Pro Bowl in each season and was inducted to the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 1994.
Jason Terry
There’s one photo that’s forever seared into my mind: Jason Terry hugging Dirk Nowitzki during the 2011 Finals. Terry wasn’t just Dirk’s sidekick, but someone who had been with him for years — through the pain of the mid-2000s to the euphoria of winning Dallas’ only sports championship so far this century.
Everything Terry did on the basketball court complemented Dirk’s own skills, from his endless bravado when letting shots fly to his rare, unexpected dunks that could rally his whole team. All those things helped endear him forever to a city he still embraces.
Sergei Zubov
While Modano is the long-time face of the Stars, Sergei Zubov is the second-most important player in franchise history. The trade for Zubov, a one-for-one deal for Kevin Hatcher, teed up the Stars’ era of dominance in the late 1990s, and the Russian defender was finally honored by the Hockey Hall of Fame in 2019. Zubov never wanted the spotlight, but his play merited it.
Mark Cuban
Mark Cuban made fandom cool. Just days into the 2000s, he became the Mavericks’ hip new owner, fresh off selling a billion-dollar internet company. He quickly made it known he wouldn’t just do things the way they had been. No, Cuban made headlines for outspokenness that often got him fined, for his radical ideas to change the sport, for being spotted on most broadcasts behind the players on the bench. But all those things stemmed from something that was obvious to even the most casual observer: Cuban cared about this team in the exact same way any other fan would.
Tony Dorsett
Tony Dorsett played all but one of his 12 seasons in a Cowboys uniform and helped the team to a Super Bowl title. His 12,036 career rushing yards are second in the franchise record books behind Emmitt Smith, the NFL’s all-time leading rusher. One of Dorsett’s most memorable runs came in the strike-shortened 1982 season, when he scored a 99-yard touchdown against the Minnesota Vikings. Only Titans running back Derrick Henry, in 2018, has done it since. In addition to his professional accomplishments, Dorsett also won the Heisman Trophy in 1976 when he helped lead Pittsburgh to a national championship. He was later inducted to the Pro Football Hall of Fame and College Football Hall of Fame, leaving a legacy as one of the most decorated running backs in history.
Fifth ballot:
Michael Young
One thing that probably drops Young to the fifth ballot is that most of his best years came in seasons when the Rangers were not a very interesting team. From 2001-2008, the Rangers were 618-678 and put together just one winning season. Meanwhile, Young played 1,214 of his 1,823 career games as a Ranger in those years, going to five of his seven All-Star games in that stretch (including 2006, when he won the MVP award). The Rangers’ all-time hitting leaderboard looks like the results of the “most likely to…” voting for a homeschooling household. His quick hands, solid bat and strong clubhouse leadership made him the Rangers’ constant as they climbed from the mire of mediocrity into two consecutive World Series runs. Young now serves as a special assistant to the GM.
Jere Lehtinen
Jere Lehtinen was the first player who played his entire career in Dallas to get his number retired by the Stars. And No. 26 was more than deserving: The winger won three Selke Trophies as the NHL’s best defensive forward and probably should have won more. Lehtinen was known as Mr. Fix-It in Dallas. If a line was struggling, coaches inserted Lehtinen, and all of a sudden things got better.
Tony Romo
Although there are other Cowboys in the Pro Football Hall of Fame who might be more deserving of this spot, Romo gets the nod because of the position he played and how long he played it. Romo didn’t have the teams around him that Staubach did in the 1970s or Aikman in the 1990s. But he broke many of the franchise’s passing records during his 10 seasons as Dallas’ starter. Romo was named to the Pro Bowl four times. No Cowboy has passed for more yards (34,183) or thrown more touchdown passes (248). His 78 career wins are second to only Aikman (94) and Staubach (85). The team failed to reach an NFC Championship Game during his tenure, but Romo was an indelible part of the fabric of DFW sports.
Brett Hull
With all due respect to everyone also on this list, Brett Hull has the only walk-off championship-winning play in DFW history. Hull famously scored the game-winning goal in overtime against the Buffalo Sabres in 1999 that many fans in upstate New York still believe shouldn’t have counted. Hull’s time in Dallas wasn’t long, but in just three seasons, he scored 95 goals and became the finisher the Stars needed to finally win a title.
Rolando Blackman
Rolando Blackman was the Mavericks’ most consistent presence for about a decade, and when he left in the early 90s, the team tumbled straight into losing seasons. That, more than anything, demonstrated his importance to an infant franchise that was grabbing attention in the Dallas community. Blackman played in 865 of the team’s first 984 — and that’s despite not being drafted until its second season. Blackman served perhaps the most important role legitimizing and establishing the culture known as “MFFL” today.
Honorable mentions: Nastia Liukin, Doak Walker, Josh Hamilton, Jason Witten, Ed Belfour, Juan Gonzalez
Fame is a funny word.
In its most basic form, it implies relevance. The most famous people are those we hear about most often; those we automatically associate with a particular subject or event. A DFW sports Hall of Fame based purely on that criteria, however, would start off with five consecutive Cowboys quarterbacks. And while the Cowboys are well represented throughout this list, neither Tony Romo nor Danny White will displace Dirk Nowitzki, no matter how good the team’s TV ratings are or how many jerseys emblazoned with their name have been sold.
Athletic greatness is another trait we associate with Halls of Fame. For most, it’s the primary factor. But when choosing a list for one city as opposed to an entire sport, it makes for an imperfect barometer. Cliff Lee put together the greatest postseason run in Rangers history, but he only spent a few months in Texas. Tyson Chandler was the missing piece to a Mavericks title, but his contributions pale in comparison to what Jason Terry did over the course of eight years.
Ultimately, we told our writers to think about the most impactful people to the Dallas-Fort Worth sports market. These could be players, coaches, owners – anyone who made a distinct impact on the sports landscape. Tim Cato, Jon Machota, Sean Shapiro, Levi Weaver and Saad Yousuf were asked to vote, five at a time, on the DFW sports figures most deserving of enshrinement. We went through five rounds of votes, making a multitude of difficult choices along the way. From the first ballot through the fifth, this is our all-time Dallas-Fort Worth Hall of Fame.
First ballot:
Dirk Nowitzki (unanimous)
Dirk Nowitzki could make the Dallas Sports Hall of Fame simply because he lifted a forlorn franchise to respectability and then championship glory across his 21-year career. This alone — a feat of longevity and loyalty which has never been seen before in virtually any professional sport — would put him on this list. That he led basketball into its future with his unprecedented combination of height and shooting, too, would make him notable. But doing it all as a foreign citizen who arrived here and embraced this city every step of the way, too, means that Dirk is Dallas and that Dallasites are proud he represents them as the greatest athlete in the city’s history.
Roger Staubach (unanimous)
The quarterback of the Dallas Cowboys fills arguably the most high-profile position in all of sports. And no one did it better than Staubach. Captain America led the Cowboys to the first two Super Bowl wins in franchise history during the 1971 and 1977 seasons. In Staubach’s nine years as the starting QB, the Cowboys went to six NFC Championship games and four Super Bowls. He made six Pro Bowls and built a reputation for playing his best in the biggest moments. A member of the NFL’s All-Decade Team in the 1970s, he was inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 1985. It would be nearly impossible to find someone who has a bad thing to say about Staubach, one of the greatest players in NFL history.
Emmitt Smith (unanimous)
No player was more critical to the Cowboys’ dynasty run in the 1990s than the NFL’s all-time leading rusher. The three-time Super Bowl champion and eight-time Pro Bowler rushed for over 1,000 yards 11 times during his 13 seasons in Dallas. His career mark of 18,355 rushing yards is one of the safest records in all of sports. For example, Ezekiel Elliott would have to maintain his current pace for nine and a half more seasons to have a chance to top what Smith did throughout his Pro Football Hall of Fame career. Smith’s durability combined with his north and south running style was a perfect complement to the dominant offensive lines the Cowboys had in the 1990s.
Troy Aikman
The quarterback of Dallas’ three Super Bowl wins in the 1990s was a six-time Pro Bowler during his 12 seasons as the Cowboys starter. At the time of Aikman’s retirement, his 90 wins during the 1990s were the most in a single decade by any quarterback in NFL history. Aikman was inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 2006. “Troy Aikman won three Super Bowls and there were games he didn’t throw it a lot,” former Cowboys head coach Jimmy Johnson said during a FOX pregame show earlier this year. “I promise you, if we would’ve wanted Troy to throw the football, he would’ve lit it up. But the safest way to win is with the defense and the running game.”
Michael Irvin
The Playmaker joined Aikman and Smith as the third piece of The Triplets, a group that receives the most credit for the Cowboys’ three Super Bowls in four seasons. The 2007 Pro Football Hall of Fame inductee made five Pro Bowls during his 12 seasons with the Cowboys. He posted seven 1,000-yard receiving seasons, highlighted by his career year in 1995, when he caught 111 passes for 1,603 yards and 10 touchdowns. Irvin was one of the vocal leaders during the Cowboys’ Super Bowl run of the 1990s. Like Aikman and Smith, he was also a member of the NFL’s All-Decade Team in the 1990s. Irvin was the last player coached by the legendary Tom Landry to retire from the NFL.
Second ballot:
Mike Modano
If there were six inductees in each of our classes, Mike Modano would have been a first-ballot Hall of Famer. Instead, he’ll have to settle for leading the second class after leading the Stars franchise for 20 years, 16 of them in Dallas after the franchise relocated from Minnesota. Many of Modano’s franchise records are unlikely to be touched, well, ever — and he helped define hockey in a new market for the NHL.
Iván Rodriguez
It’s a good time to be asked to write about Rodriguez; just this week, we published our rankings of the ten best seasons ever by a Rangers catcher, and Pudge accounted for seven of them. One thing I was reminded of: After his MVP-winning 1999 season, he was actually on pace to obliterate those numbers and put together one of the greatest seasons by any catcher, ever, in 2000 before he broke his thumb. (.347/.375/.667/1.042 with 27 home runs on July 24). He was a first-ballot baseball Hall of Famer, but perhaps if the Rangers had kept him around after the 2002 season (he only played 1,064 more games after that year), I could have convinced my co-workers to put him in on the first ballot for this one.
Michael Johnson
The list of accomplishments for the Dallas sprinter is extensive, from once holding world records in the 200-meter and 400-meter dashes to being the first male athlete ever to win both of those events in the same Olympics. He also anchored the world’s greatest 4 x 400 relay and was elected to the United States Track and Field Hall of Fame in 2004. Johnson is on the shortlist of greatest sprinters the world has ever seen and arguably sits atop that list as far as male athletes in U.S. history. After retiring from the sport, Johnson has opened up Michael Johnson Performance in McKinney, a hotbed for elite professional athletes from around the country.
Nolan Ryan
The Rangers had been around for 17 seasons before signing Nolan Ryan, and while there were a few good years sprinkled in there, bringing in the native Texan superstar was the move that seemed to give them legitimacy around the league. They never did make the playoffs with Ryan on the roster, but between his 5,000th strikeout, his sixth and seventh no-hitters, a busted lip from a Bo Jackson comebacker and, of course, the headlock he put on Robin Ventura, Ryan put the Rangers in the national spotlight for the better part of his five seasons in Arlington and transcended the sport as a national icon. Later, as a member of the Texas front office, he was a fixture on the front row as the Rangers made their first two World Series appearances.
Bob Lilly
You can’t put together a group like this and not include the man known as “Mr. Cowboy.” Lilly was the first draft choice in the history of the Dallas Cowboys. He went on to play 14 seasons at defensive tackle, earning 11 Pro Bowl appearances and a Super Bowl ring. Lilly was the face of Dallas’ Doomsday Defense and he was the first person inducted into the Cowboys Ring of Honor. He is well known for playing in 196 consecutive regular-season games and missing only one game in his career. No Cowboys player has worn No. 74 since Lilly retired. He was inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 1980.
Third ballot
Tom Landry
He’s the only person with a statue outside of AT&T Stadium. Landry was the architect who put the Cowboys on the map nationally. He’s regarded as one of the greatest coaches in sports history. His record of 20 consecutive winning seasons (1966 to 1985) still stands to this day. Under Landry, the Cowboys played in 12 NFC Championship games in 17 years. He was inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 1990 with a record of 250-162-6. His 250 wins are the most in franchise history. Jason Garrett is second with 85. Don Shula (328), George Halas (318) and Bill Belichick (273) are the only NFL head coaches with more wins.
Jerry Jones
During his 32 years as owner and general manager of the Cowboys, Jones has become arguably the most powerful person in the NFL. He has helped build the Cowboys into the most valuable franchise in all of sports, according to Forbes. Jones was criticized for the way he fired Tom Landry after purchasing the team in 1989, but he hired Jimmy Johnson and the Cowboys ended up winning three Super Bowls in Jones’ first seven years as owner. They haven’t reached the NFC Championship game in the 24 seasons since, but the team remains one of the most popular in the world. Jones was inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 2017. It’s difficult to think of sports in Dallas without Jones immediately coming to mind.
Adrián Beltré
He wasn’t a Ranger for long enough to be a first- or second-ballot inductee here, though he certainly will be voted into Cooperstown as soon as he’s eligible. Beltré was simultaneously the grizzled old veteran toughing it out through injury and also the joyful imp bending baseball’s stodgy old reputation to his own creativity whenever he pleased. Many players have come and gone filling one of those roles, but for Beltré to do both was rare indeed. His career went through the Dodgers, Mariners and Red Sox before arriving in Texas, but he spent more time as a Ranger and accumulated more milestones here — 300th and 400th home runs, his 3,000th hit, the final three of five Gold Glove awards and so on — than anywhere else.
Larry Allen
The dazzling shine of position players on the Cowboys dynasty in the ’90s (see the first ballot above) means the offensive line anchoring it sometimes gets overlooked. Though Larry Allen only joined in 1994 for the final championship, the fact he’s often seen as the face of that unit speaks to his greatness. The 11-time Pro Bowler, seven-time first-team All-Pro and Pro Football Hall of Famer is widely considered the best interior offensive lineman in NFL history. He helped bring the Cowboys a championship and helped bolster the careers of legends like Emmitt Smith and Troy Aikman into what they became.
Ben Hogan
One of the greatest golfers of all time, Ben Hogan is synonymous with the longest-running PGA Tour event to be held at the same site. Hogan won five times at the event now known as the Charles Schwab Challenge, and Colonial Country Club in Fort Worth became known as Hogan’s Alley. The highlight of his illustrious career came in 1953, when he won Masters, the U.S. Open and the British Open. It came four years after he and his wife, Valerie, survived a near-fatal crash with a bus.
Fourth ballot:
Randy White
Randy White came to the Cowboys with high expectations as the second overall pick in the 1975 draft, and those expectations only climbed higher when he was assigned to fill the role left by “Mr. Cowboy” Bob Lilly early in his career. He lived up to every bit of it, helping the Cowboys to a Super Bowl championship over the Denver Broncos and winning MVP honors in that game. He’s one of just 10 defensive players to be named Super Bowl MVP. From 1977 to 1985, White was named a First-Team All-Pro and to the Pro Bowl in each season and was inducted to the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 1994.
Jason Terry
There’s one photo that’s forever seared into my mind: Jason Terry hugging Dirk Nowitzki during the 2011 Finals. Terry wasn’t just Dirk’s sidekick, but someone who had been with him for years — through the pain of the mid-2000s to the euphoria of winning Dallas’ only sports championship so far this century.
Everything Terry did on the basketball court complemented Dirk’s own skills, from his endless bravado when letting shots fly to his rare, unexpected dunks that could rally his whole team. All those things helped endear him forever to a city he still embraces.
Sergei Zubov
While Modano is the long-time face of the Stars, Sergei Zubov is the second-most important player in franchise history. The trade for Zubov, a one-for-one deal for Kevin Hatcher, teed up the Stars’ era of dominance in the late 1990s, and the Russian defender was finally honored by the Hockey Hall of Fame in 2019. Zubov never wanted the spotlight, but his play merited it.
Mark Cuban
Mark Cuban made fandom cool. Just days into the 2000s, he became the Mavericks’ hip new owner, fresh off selling a billion-dollar internet company. He quickly made it known he wouldn’t just do things the way they had been. No, Cuban made headlines for outspokenness that often got him fined, for his radical ideas to change the sport, for being spotted on most broadcasts behind the players on the bench. But all those things stemmed from something that was obvious to even the most casual observer: Cuban cared about this team in the exact same way any other fan would.
Tony Dorsett
Tony Dorsett played all but one of his 12 seasons in a Cowboys uniform and helped the team to a Super Bowl title. His 12,036 career rushing yards are second in the franchise record books behind Emmitt Smith, the NFL’s all-time leading rusher. One of Dorsett’s most memorable runs came in the strike-shortened 1982 season, when he scored a 99-yard touchdown against the Minnesota Vikings. Only Titans running back Derrick Henry, in 2018, has done it since. In addition to his professional accomplishments, Dorsett also won the Heisman Trophy in 1976 when he helped lead Pittsburgh to a national championship. He was later inducted to the Pro Football Hall of Fame and College Football Hall of Fame, leaving a legacy as one of the most decorated running backs in history.
Fifth ballot:
Michael Young
One thing that probably drops Young to the fifth ballot is that most of his best years came in seasons when the Rangers were not a very interesting team. From 2001-2008, the Rangers were 618-678 and put together just one winning season. Meanwhile, Young played 1,214 of his 1,823 career games as a Ranger in those years, going to five of his seven All-Star games in that stretch (including 2006, when he won the MVP award). The Rangers’ all-time hitting leaderboard looks like the results of the “most likely to…” voting for a homeschooling household. His quick hands, solid bat and strong clubhouse leadership made him the Rangers’ constant as they climbed from the mire of mediocrity into two consecutive World Series runs. Young now serves as a special assistant to the GM.
Jere Lehtinen
Jere Lehtinen was the first player who played his entire career in Dallas to get his number retired by the Stars. And No. 26 was more than deserving: The winger won three Selke Trophies as the NHL’s best defensive forward and probably should have won more. Lehtinen was known as Mr. Fix-It in Dallas. If a line was struggling, coaches inserted Lehtinen, and all of a sudden things got better.
Tony Romo
Although there are other Cowboys in the Pro Football Hall of Fame who might be more deserving of this spot, Romo gets the nod because of the position he played and how long he played it. Romo didn’t have the teams around him that Staubach did in the 1970s or Aikman in the 1990s. But he broke many of the franchise’s passing records during his 10 seasons as Dallas’ starter. Romo was named to the Pro Bowl four times. No Cowboy has passed for more yards (34,183) or thrown more touchdown passes (248). His 78 career wins are second to only Aikman (94) and Staubach (85). The team failed to reach an NFC Championship Game during his tenure, but Romo was an indelible part of the fabric of DFW sports.
Brett Hull
With all due respect to everyone also on this list, Brett Hull has the only walk-off championship-winning play in DFW history. Hull famously scored the game-winning goal in overtime against the Buffalo Sabres in 1999 that many fans in upstate New York still believe shouldn’t have counted. Hull’s time in Dallas wasn’t long, but in just three seasons, he scored 95 goals and became the finisher the Stars needed to finally win a title.
Rolando Blackman
Rolando Blackman was the Mavericks’ most consistent presence for about a decade, and when he left in the early 90s, the team tumbled straight into losing seasons. That, more than anything, demonstrated his importance to an infant franchise that was grabbing attention in the Dallas community. Blackman played in 865 of the team’s first 984 — and that’s despite not being drafted until its second season. Blackman served perhaps the most important role legitimizing and establishing the culture known as “MFFL” today.
Honorable mentions: Nastia Liukin, Doak Walker, Josh Hamilton, Jason Witten, Ed Belfour, Juan Gonzalez
