I started reading Landry’s Boys: An Oral History of a Team and an Era by Peter Golenbock a few weeks ago, and I’ve found the football discussion to be quite fascinating. But that was before I learned of the little history behind former owner Clint Murchison, Jr., former director of personnel Gil Brandt, and Brandt’s one-time (low-life?…aw, no) wife Anne Ferrell Brandt. Here’s the excerpt:
In 1972, [Murchison's] wife Jane divorced him. After the divorce Murchison admitted that his womanizing wasn’t as much fun.
By the midseventies Clint found he was having some difficulty making love to his lady of the night, so he added cocaine to his vices when he discovered its power to aid him in lovemaking. Like some of his players who were chastised for their drug use, by the midseventies Clint Murchison was also acting erratically. He had tongues wagging when he started seeing Anne Ferrell Brandt, the wife of his chief scout, Gil Brandt, and the tongue ran faster when Anne divorced Gil and in June 1975 Anne and Clint announced they would marry. Clint became Anne’s fourth husband. And though Gil lost his wife, he didn’t lose his job.
So what does Mrs. Ferrell-Brandt-Murchison do with her life? She writes Christian books! Of course! You can read all about it at AnneMurchison.com. But I’m not going to read her books. Something about the adultery part that bugs me. I’m sure she’s forgiven, though.
I was quite a bit less excited to discover that Skip Bayless already tried to cover this, for Skip Bayless is one of four or five people whom I would like to see get run over by a truck. But here is what ESPN noted:
Bayless probed the relationship in his book. What caught his attention was a curious coincidence that later became an issue when the club was sold. “As Mrs. Gil Brandt became Mrs. Clint Murchison in 1975,” he reported, “Murchison promised Brandt lifetime security as the Cowboys’ personnel director.” Insiders had it that the young woman, before marrying Brandt, had been one of Murchison’s many mistresses and that she’d continued to see him during the marriage. Did Brandt know what was going on? “Gil was always very eager to please Clint,” Bayless was told by a Murchison associate.
Grrrr… I’ve been scooped.
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I was a little bit quicker to note the other day something about Terry Glenn’s fourth-quarter fumble. Here is what I wrote:
It probably would have been better to have given up a touchdown on the Terry Glenn fumble in the fourth quarter than to have given up a safety. That cut the Dallas lead to 20-15, and the Seahawks ensuing touchdown gave them a one-point lead. If the score had been tied at 20, it would have been a slightly different story when the Cowboys got the ball back.
Well, Mickey Spagnola gave a little bit better explanation, albeit a full day later:
Now some food for thought: The Cowboys in the end would have been better off if they had never challenged the ruling or if [referee Walt] Anderson had decided “the ruling on the field stands.” That way Seattle would only have scored seven points to tie the game, not the eventual eight following the missed two-point conversion to take a one-point lead . . . .
That proved to be the difference in the game.
Sometimes you just can’t win.
Nope, not this decade.
I didn’t know she was an author — thanx for posting the link to her website. I’ll check it out.