Lost trophy tells you all you need to know about ‘rivalry’
Missing: One silverplated Governor’s Cup, officially representing the winner of a reputed rivalry between the Great State of Texas’ two NFL teams.
Black base, opposing handles, classic loving cup design. Governor’s seal on front. If found before Sunday afternoon, please return to Jerryworld for postgame presentation.
Frankly, I don’t hold out much hope of the trophy’s return. No one even knew it was missing until I brought it up.
And this isn’t even the first time it’s been lost.
Probably tells you all you need to know about the rivalry.
Here in Dallas, the onagain, off-again series between the Cowboys and the team representing Houston at the time doesn’t stir any deep-seated emotions.
It’s not as if it’s onesided. The Cowboys hold a slight 11-9 regular-season edge over Bayou City teams. It’s not that the Oilers or Texans haven’t given the Cowboys good games. They may even do so Sunday, though it isn’t the smart bet.
Basically, the problem is that Dallas and not a few Houstonians fail to take the Bayou City’s football teams seriously.
Neither Tex Schramm nor Tom Landry thought it was a rivalry and weren’t shy about saying so. Landry said such a thing only really exists within a division. Schramm, typically, wasn’t as polite.
Bud Shrake, the legendary Texas sportswriter, accounted for it in a piece he wrote about the socalled rivalry for Sports Illustrated in 1969.
According to the story, Don Klosterman, one of Bud Adams’ collection of general managers in the ’60s, asked Tex about a home-and-home exhibition series. Tex anticipated the possibility when he told Klosterman that if they ever played a series, it would be at the Oilers’ end of I-45.
“We’ve got a lot fans in Houston,” Tex said. “You don’t have any fans in Dallas.”
In 2017, professors from Western Carolina and Northern Kentucky surveyed more than 1,600 NFL fans to determine their biggest rivals. Each fan was given 100 points to divvy up. The Cowboy fans’ biggest rival was Philadelphia, with 39.49 percent. Next came Washington, followed by the Giants, 49ers and Steelers.
Texan fans listed the Cowboys as their thirdbiggest rival with 17.61 percent of their vote.
And how many points did Cowboy fans afford the Texans? Less than 1 percent.
Retired Hearst Newspapers sports writer John Mcclain, honored by the Pro Football Hall of Fame with its Dick Mccann Memorial Award, covered football in Houston from 1978 to 2022. Over the decades, both Oilers and Texans have asked him why so many Houstonians pull for the Cowboys.
He told them that Dallas’ five Lombardi Trophies — as opposed to a city that hasn’t advanced past the divisional round since 1979 — might have something to do with it.
“Cowboys fans down here are like traffic, humidity and roaches,” Mcclain told them. “You just have to deal with ’em.”
Back in the ’70s, it was an especially sore subject with the Oilers. Mcclain once asked Carl Mauck, their colorful center, about the Cowboys fans in their midst. Mauck turned livid.
Veins bulging, he said they should move out of town. He’d help them pack. Elvin Bethea, the Hall of Fame defensive end, offered his services as well.
“The problem down here,” Mcclain said of the Texans, “isn’t that they hate the Cowboys. They hate the Cowboy fans.”
The rivalry hit its zenith in ’79, not that you would have known it leading up to the Thanksgiving Day game at Texas Stadium. Bum Phillips simply wouldn’t bite. The coach in the Stetson — author of more Texas-sized punchlines than anyone since Darrell Royal — suddenly sounded more like the buttoned-up guy in the fedora.
Until after the Oilers beat the Cowboys, that is.
“Remember how I told you guys last week this was just another game?” Bum asked, smiling. “I lied.”
He wasn’t finished. “Let them be America’s Team,” he said.
“I’d rather be Texas’ Team.”
And that they were, at least in ’79. It was a short reign. Football in the Bayou City would never be quite so good again. Houston’s loss to Pittsburgh in the AFC title game that season remains the high point of the city’s pro football experience.
No Houstonian is liable to be insulted by what happens Sunday, Mcclain said. He’s never seen fans as resigned to the inevitable. They can’t even “get a mad on about the Cowboys.” They just don’t care.
The Texans have done as much to make Houston a baseball town as the Astros have done in winning two World Series.
Come to think of it, celebrating a Texas rivalry with a traveling trophy might not be such a good idea at that. The first one the Rangers and Astros employed in the Silver Boot series ended up in pieces in the trunk of a Rangers’ official. Apparently, it’s a trend.
Mcclain once asked Adams about rumors that the original Governor’s Cup had been found in his closet in a similar state of disrepair. And that was after it had been lost and found in the late ’80s. The owner denied the rumor about the broken cup. But he couldn’t reveal the trophy’s location either.
Anyway, after Bud packed up the Oilers and took them to Tennessee, maybe with the original cup in his luggage, Gov. Rick Perry came up with a new trophy for the Texans’ inaugural season in ’02. There it is in the photo, presented after a game that, in Mcclain’s estimation, remains the organization’s signature win two decades later.
But if beating the Cowboys is such a big deal, you’d at least think someone could account for the award that comes with it. As it turns out, our cups runneth over.
Besides the original and the Perry reproduction, we got a new one in 2007 after Perry’s had been in the possession of the Cowboys the previous season. No explanations came with it.
A spokesperson for the Bullock Texas State History Museum, where some cup iteration was previously on loan, said it was returned to the Texans in 2015. A Cowboys spokesperson said because the Texans were the last team to win in both the regular and preseason, it technically should be in their possession.
A Texans spokesperson acted as if I were looking for Orson Welles’ sled.
“I haven’t heard about the cup in a long time,” he said.