Colorado University Athletics
Brooks: Buffs Eye Return Trip
July 29, 2009 | Football, B.G. Brooks
ARLINGTON, Texas - Dan Hawkins is heavily into visualization - the "if you can see it, you can be it" kind of motivation that goes hand-in-glove with his and his football team's vision of where it hopes to be on Saturday, Dec. 5.
That would be right back here, thank you, in spanking new Cowboys Stadium as North Division champions playing someone, anyone from the South in the Big 12 Conference championship game.
So Tuesday afternoon, Hawkins, linebackers coach Brian Cabral and Marcus Burton and Jeff Smart, both linebackers, and tight end Riar Geer joined a mostly media tour of "Jerryland" - Cowboys owner Jerry Jones' $1.15 billion edifice to himself and his city's mostly loving relationship with his NFL team.
Halfway through the tour, lavish leaning hard toward obscene was the first term that came to mind, but we will digress in that direction later.
Hawkins and his guys generally were as open-mouthed as most in the media.
"Pretty amazing," Smart said, gazing at the world's largest video board, a suspended behemoth that weighs 1.2 million pounds and cost $40 million - a sum our tour guide said exceeds the total cost of the Cowboys' old home, Texas Stadium, by $5 million.
"An absolutely unbelievable place," Geer added.
Said Burton: "You can definitely picture yourself coming back here."
Ah, on a screen that size, what can't you picture?
Hawkins, Cabral and the Buffs trio were the only coaches/players involved in Big 12 preseason media days to tour the stadium, and Hawkins - again underscoring the visualization thing - would have liked more of his players to see the sights.
"If I could get the whole team here, I would," he said. "I'm into that ... if you have a chance to see something, the more chance you have of reaching it."
There are plenty of examples of that being done, and none more appropriate here than what CU did in this state in 2001.
At that summer's Big 12 media days in Dallas, former coach Gary Barnett took offensive lineman Andre Gurode and safety Michael Lewis - both now in the NFL - to Texas Stadium, the site of that season's conference championship game.
Explaining the side trip, Barnett said, "We're on a mission to get (back) there. Anything less we'll consider a failure."
Mission accomplished. The Buffs, coming off a 3-8 season, earned a second trip to the home of Jones' NFL team, winning the North Division, then stunning favored Texas 39-37 to win the Big 12.
The CU contingent, which takes its turn in front of the assembled media Wednesday, believes if early momentum is established and a break (not the broken bones of 2008) is realized here or there, the Buffs can contend for the North Division championship.
A return trip to Arlington doesn't stretch Smart's imagination - "It's definitely possible" - and Burton noted, "Getting here and seeing the stadium, you can picture yourself coming back here . . . it fires me up a ton. If you don't get fired up, something's wrong with you.
"We set the bar high the last couple of seasons, but we also kind of had a lot of potential that didn't really flourish ... the sky's the limit (in 2009) for where we can go. I don't think it's unrealistic at all."
Geer, a senior Hawkins believes is primed for a monster season, got even more gushy about the posh surroundings. Playing in Cowboys Stadium, he said, "would be the best experience of my life.
"Playing in front of packed house here, in front of our fans here, it can't get any better than that. This is the best stadium in the nation, no doubt about that.
"I want to play right now. I wish I was a Dallas Cowboy. Seeing stuff like this just blows your mind."
And while on the subject of blown minds, consider:
-+ Luxury suites in "Jerryland" start at $400,000 a season and top out at $1.5 million - and those prices don't include tickets;
-+ A pizza in one of those suites will cost $90, a 12-pack of beer will cost $66, a bottle of water $8. Like someone said of something else, if you have to ask the price, you couldn't afford it anyway.
The suites, obviously, aren't for the light of wallet. And for those falling into that broadening category, there will be 625 concession stands to feed the hungry and thirsty, presumably all with access to some of the 3,000 television monitors donated by Sony (2,000 more sets will be added), hopefully assuring that none of Jones' patrons miss a play.
Hearing the play-by-play anywhere in the stadium - concourses, concessions, restrooms, etc. - shouldn't be a problem; speaker banks suspended from the roof are the size of the flat beds hauled by 18-wheelers.
On game-days, operating the 80,000-seat stadium (110,000 capacity with standing room) will require 6,250 employees.
As gaping tourists assembled Tuesday in an expansive Cowboys gift shop, it was impossible not to notice one prominently displayed T-shirt.
Printed on the front in bold lettering: "OURS IS BIGGER."
Did anyone expect anything more subtle? This is not some Coloradans' favorite state, but the Buffs here and their teammates at home still hope it can be a December destination.
Contact: BG.Brooks@Colorado.EDU
