FRISCO, Texas -- Cowboys owner Jerry Jones was on hand Friday night as the 1992 Super Bowl team was honored at a dinner sponsored by one of the greatest players Jones has ever signed -- Emmitt Smith.
The majority of players that represented Jones' first Super Bowl title since purchasing the franchise in 1989 were also in attendance.
Jones and Smith took center stage near the end of the dinner portion of the evening, reminiscing of the day Smith was drafted 17th overall in 1990. Jones than recalled how the NFL's all-time leading rusher struggled early in his first season.
Following a game where Smith ran poorly and the Cowboys lost in the final minutes, Cowboys coach Jimmy Johnson yelled at Jones, saying: "And we're gonna have to play with him for the next 10 years."
The crowd erupted into laughter as Jones described the conversation with Johnson.
A few minutes later Jones got serious. He moved his attention to all of the players in the room that built the foundation for an organization that would go on to win three Super Bowls in four years.
"Since that particular time, without even blinking, what you did as a team, what you evolved into as an individualized team together, that's what built that stadium," Jones said, referring to the $1.2 billion venue in Arlington that the Cowboys currently call home.
"The Cowboys were special before I ever got here," Jones said. "And it is special. When you are in this country today ... when those Cowboys get on television we're going in a way that that's the most watched anything there is in sports in this country.
"When you go back to Drew [Pearson] and those great players ... they had everything to do with it as well. No one could ever believe that you'd have the visibility and the interest that you got, not only in sports, but in the NFL today. No one ever thought that it would be this and grow into this for the Dallas Cowboys."
Before exiting the stage, Jones added one final thought.
"As we go into the future, don't ever forget that you're a proprietary part of everything we're going to be about in the future," he said. "We couldn't have done it. We couldn't have driven the first nail on the stadium and we can't do the next TV contract had it not been for [all of the players]."
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