The Star is born: Cowboys host first camp practice at home facility

FRISCO, TEXAS » Jason Witten has practiced in front of thousands of Dallas Cowboys fans during training camp plenty of times in his 15 seasons.

Just never a few paces and a left turn from the locker in his home away from home — team headquarters, with the 12,000seat stadium that serves as an indoor practice field for America’s Team at its posh year-old facility.

The same could be said for the 16 members of the team’s ring of honor who attended a ceremony a few hours before the Cowboys opened practice to the public at their home base for what is believed to be the first time Monday.

Dallas has held camp practices at its stadium about 35 miles to the southwest, and the Alamodome in San Antonio. The Cowboys have trained in California off and on (mostly on) since soon after their inception in 1960, including about four weeks in Oxnard this year.

While the crowd of 6,052 wasn’t quite as big as expected for this kind of first for a storied franchise, it was notable nonetheless.

“It really was a function that we dreamed out when we were putting The Star together,” owner Jerry Jones said, using the team’s name for its complex in Frisco, 30 miles north of Dallas.

“That this would be an excellent experience that so many fans in the Dallas area haven’t gotten to be part of, the training camp. We didn’t have the facilities for it.”

That was the case in the early days of the Cowboys, when they trained at a nofrills facility in Dallas until the mid-1980s. And it was still the case at the Valley Ranch complex in Irving, which was also home to Texas Stadium. Jones built $1.2 billion AT&T Stadium in Arlington, where team moved in 2009.

The Cowboys moved into their new practice place last year, and knew it was just a matter of time before they’d hold full-scale workouts in front of the home folks.

“I think it’s the neat thing about this, it sounds like that’s what it’ll be like as it moves forward,” said Witten. they