Faith + Reason = Truth

The old cliche from Field of Dreams is alive and well in Arlington, TX.  Driving through town yesterday, I was struck by a visually stunning sight:  there, on the great white water tower jutting over the low-rise suburban landscape, next to the south-facing "A" city logo, was a gigantic Official Logo of the Dallas Cowboys (a blue star with a thin blue outline around it) painted on the east side of the tower.  The Star looks off in the distance towards downtown Dallas, some 20 miles away, the city that had forsaken America's Team when Jerry Jones came calling for civic "help" in building his new $650M stadium a few years ago.  While the various Dallas-area suburbs vied for the right to build it without wanting to kick in too much in return, a simple radio announcement one day declared that a deal had been struck with a heretofore unannounced player:  Arlington, home of Major League Baseball in North Texas (the Rangers), Six Flags Over Texas, and a huge GM plant, all of which had been brought to this once desolate outpost halfway between Dallas and Fort Worth decades ago by its "Boy Mayor" Tom Vandergriff.  The Cowboys weren't an easy sell, believe it or not.  Jerry Jones, the owner, is a polarizing figure, illustrated by this quick story.  At a breakfast I attended early on in the "Touchdown Arlington" campaign, serving as the official kickoff to get the residents to vote in favor of funding the stadium, at least one prominent local attorney almost withdrew his support at the last minute.  He was extremely upset that Jerry Jones had made an appearance at a breakfast in Fort Worth, reportedly telling the organizing committee that Jerry better be nowhere near the city of Arlington when Paul Tagliabue and crew made their presentation at the Arlington Convention Center in support of the stadium deal.  So there we were at the breakfast, and EVERYONE was there:  Commissioner Tagliabue, Roger Staubach, Troy Aikman, the mayors of Arlington and Fort Worth (not Dallas)...everyone, that is, except Jerry Jones.  You see, as publicity hungry as he is (and has to be), he knows politics and dealmaking as well as anyone, and he knew that Arlington wanted the Cowboys DESPITE their owner, not BECAUSE of him.
A couple of years have passed, the stadium deal overwhelmingly passing with the voters long ago, and the price of the complex has now increased to $1B (Jerry's kicking in the difference, not the City of Arlington).  A couple of weeks ago Roger Staubach was named chairman of the committee to bring the Super Bowl to Arlington a year or two after the stadium opens in 2009.  Just yesterday, the front page story in the 2 local papers was "Cotton Bowl Coming to Arlington", and with it one day, almost certainly a slot in college football's BCS Championship rotation.  There's also talk of a future national convention (most likely Republican) and much, much more.  Apparently, if you build it, they will come.