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The Star, no matter how lavish, is no substitute for sweat equity; and the Cowboys are ready to work to win
By David Moore

FRISCO -- Hours before the high school band began to play, long before owner Jerry Jones, his family and city officials cut the ribbon to christen the official opening of the Cowboys' new headquarters, many of the players walked through the door at The Star for the first time.

The response was universal.

It's impressive.

It's state of the art.

It's a spectacular work environment but no substitute for the work this team must put in to be successful.

In Jason Garrett's world, Sunday was just another day of camp. The venue shifted from Oxnard to Frisco, but the routine remains the same.

But this wasn't just another day. For the first time in 31 years the team broke training camp to return to a facility other than Valley Ranch. Garrett didn't conduct any guided tours, but he did encourage the players to drop by Saturday or early Sunday morning to get their bearings before Sunday's team meeting at noon.

"It's pretty special," quarterback Tony Romo said. "I don't think I've seen anything like it.

"It's just beautiful. Until you set foot in this place, you can't appreciate it."

Defensive tackle Tyrone Crawford called it amazing and said the players were lucky.

"It's huge,'' defensive end Jack Crawford marveled.

Vernon Bryant/Staff Photographer

Dallas Cowboys Jason Witten smiles as he makes his way to the players area after looking at a photo of himself at the Dallas Cowboys new headquarters at The Star in Frisco on Sunday, August 21, 2016. The Star, is a joint project with the City of Frisco, and Frisco ISD. (Vernon Bryant/The Dallas Morning News)

Tight end Jason Witten called it unbelievable and state of the art before qualifying that, "words can't describe it." He also struggled to find the words for his thoughts of the huge mural that hangs over an entrance to the Ford Center.

The scene depicts the iconic play against Philadelphia when the Pro Bowl tight end lost his helmet yet continued to chug downfield.

"I just took a quick peek at it," Witten said. "I haven't been able to evaluate it thoroughly, but it looked pretty good to me."
Key moments from the franchise's rich history are part of the architecture. A player can't walk through the dining hall, down a hallway or into a meeting room without soaking in the Super Bowl accomplishments and great individual performances of the team's past.

"They did a great job capturing that and helping everyone understand what the standard is," Garrett said. "The standard has been set over the last 56 years and our players understand that, but there's also a great attention to how our players and coaches function in this day and age in 2016.

"The facilities are outstanding, everything that we could ask for to help us do our jobs as well as we could do them."

Romo said there are subtle, updated touches in place that weren't available at Valley Ranch that will aid the players in doing their jobs. Witten talked about how the Jones family made their lives easier and gave them the best chance to be successful.

"That's what cutting edge is all about," Witten said.

The bells and whistles and HydroWorx 2000, the underwater treadmill in the training room, are all significant upgrades. Garrett stressed this building doesn't take the place of the foundation the players put in place and have been building on since February.

Surroundings, no matter how lavish, are no substitute for sweat equity. As center Travis Frederick pointed out, the meetings are the same and the film work is the same regardless of the setting.

"We may be in a new place, but the same people are here," Frederick said. "It's all the same whether we're in Valley Ranch or moving to Oxnard or moving back here to Frisco.

"It's about the work you put in, not about the facility."

It's about winning, something the Cowboys didn't do much of last season.

"This is all nice and this is great, but if we don't win, this doesn't mean anything," cornerback Orlando Scandrick said. "This will be someone else's building, this will be someone else's locker soon if we don't win football games."

A quote from Jones greets the players in the hallway that leads from the parking lot to the locker room. It reads:
"We must win. We will win. Win is the name of the game."

Players and coaches will tell you what made Valley Ranch special had nothing to do with the facility. It had to do with the hard work that was put in on the way to championships.

The Star is spectacular. It's state of the art.

But a lot of hard work lies ahead before anyone can begin to think of this place as special. The next step, Witten said, is to win.

"This is first class," Scandrick said. "Now it's time to go win football games.

"I want to win, that's it. I love all of this, but I want to win."
 
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Cowboys settle into their new digs at The Star
Todd Archer
ESPN Staff Writer

FRISCO, Texas -- Tony Romo fiddled around with his locker, opened and closed one door, then another and finally a third.

“Where do I put my keys?” the Dallas Cowboys quarterback wondered.

The Cowboys opened The Star, their new practice facility home, on Sunday in Frisco, Texas. As audacious as AT&T Stadium was when it opened in 2009, The Star, complete with the 12,000-seat Ford Center that will serve as the Cowboys’ indoor practice facility and home to Frisco’s high school teams, is equally audacious.

“I can tell you walking in, I don’t think I’ve seen anything like it,” Romo said.

The Cowboys called Valley Ranch in Irving, Texas, their practice home for 31 years. It was quaint and filled with tradition, but it lacked the amenities most teams have across the NFL.

“I feel like I'm a tourist here right now,” running back Darren McFadden said. “Just trying to figure out the lay of the land and find my way around.”

Instead of calling outside catering for breakfast, lunch and dinner, the Cowboys have their own chef and training table. Instead of having to use the Dallas Mavericks' hydrotherapy, the Cowboys have their own, HydroWorx 2000, in which injured players can run or walk on an underwater treadmill complete with cameras to see a player's stride.

The old plastic chairs in the team meeting at Valley Ranch have been replaced by 156 leather chairs, complete with a star etched on the back, with pull-out tables. It looks more like a movie theater than team meeting room.

The weight room has new equipment and a small turf field. Outside the coaches’ offices, on the roof of the weight room, there will be a small turf field on which the coaches and players can do walk-through work.

“Once you hit the practice field, it’s the same old stuff: Go back to getting your winning edge,” tight end Jason Witten said. “But when you come in it’s just, ‘Where is my locker? Where do I park? How do I get in here? What exit do you get off of?’ and then just make yourself familiar with the things you use every day. I think everybody has done that -- whether you’ve been here 14 years or you got here yesterday, it’s the same for all of us. There’s an excitement to that. I think you’ve got to appreciate it, not just here is our facility, let’s go to work. You have to walk around and appreciate all that has gone into this and know above everything else, the Jones family did it to give us our best chance to be successful. They didn’t have to do that.”

Throughout the new facility are bits and pieces of the team’s history. There is a Nike walkway that features every uniform worn in team history. There is a wall dedicated to the Herschel Walker trade that helped make the dynasty of the 1990s. In the training table, Tom Landry’s fedora is under glass.

Near the draft room are the scouting reports of Michael Irvin, Troy Aikman and Emmitt Smith. Near the main entrance are the five Super Bowl trophies and replica Super Bowl rings.

“I think everything is pretty cool,” coach Jason Garrett said. “They’ve done an amazing job putting this place together and it does not surprise me or anybody else who’s been around the Joneses at all to see this place. They just do everything in such a first-class manner. We see that in our stadium. We’re so fortunate to play in what we believe is the best stadium in the world. And we believe this is as good a facility as there is. We try to express that to every player, and they didn’t need much convincing. They understand what this place is all about.”
 

cmd34

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It be awesome if this was going to be used to woo free agents instead of just rich businessmen and fans.
 

dbair1967

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It be awesome if this was going to be used to woo free agents instead of just rich businessmen and fans.

Benson Mayowa and Andrew Gachkar probably would have taken less money to come here had they seen this then. You should be impressed.
 

cmd34

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Benson Mayowa and Andrew Gachkar probably would have taken less money to come here had they seen this then. You should be impressed.

I just looked at next year's salary cap and we already over by an estimated $7M, and that's before draft picks. I know they will move some stuff around to fut under the cap but it looks like another lean year in signing impact free agents.
 

dbair1967

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I just looked at next year's salary cap and we already over by an estimated $7M, and that's before draft picks. I know they will move some stuff around to fut under the cap but it looks like another lean year in signing impact free agents.

Don't worry, we have The Star facility and Jerry World Stadium players will probably give back money to stay here.
 

yimyammer

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"This is first class," Scandrick said. "Now it's time to go win football games.

"I want to win, that's it. I love all of this, but I want to win."

I love Scandricks attitude

Did anyone see they had the gall to emblazon the jeri jones quote where he said "Win is the name of the game" prominently on the walls of that place?

Its a quote jeri made when it appeared winning was the most important thing to him:

Win is the name of the game - YouTube

His bullshit makes me want to puke and club him over the head like a baby seal
 

ThoughtExperiment

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Am I the only one who thinks the fancier and pimper the training facilities are, the worse it is for preparation?

Maybe I'm putting my own bias on it from my meager football experience, but football isn't a nice clean shiny game to play, so I don't know what good the prettiest locker and weight rooms do. I'm sure many of us have good memories of weight rooms that were old and grungy and locker rooms that weren't state of the art. But in this tough game that can be a good thing, not a bad one.
 
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I haven't seen the Ohio State football facilities, but I doubt they are old and grungy.

The Star is just the outlandish, ostentatious version of an SEC facility.

I'm not sure that having an outrageous facility seems so outrageous to today's players.
 

ThoughtExperiment

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I dunno, I remember seeing some pics of Alabama's new weight room, and of course it was nice, but it wasn't over the top fancy. It just had tons of great equipment. I loved this one photo of a line of about 20 glute-ham raise machines in a row.

To me that is substance over style.
 

yimyammer

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Am I the only one who thinks the fancier and pimper the training facilities are, the worse it is for preparation?

probably doesn't make much difference, if any. I suppose if the money is equal, then it could be a tipping point

its not how crappy or fancy the facilities are, its the hunger within the player and you tend to find more hungry, driven people in places like that Rocky video. Thats probably what drives a lot of players to make it to this level
 

ThoughtExperiment

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No, I'm not saying it would singlehandedly ruin the team or anything. It's not that big a factor.

But it won't help, either, just like Jerry's palace of a stadium hasn't helped. And it may even contribute to the culture of the team, which makes stars of players before they've even accomplished anything.
 

cmd34

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The thing that scares me is that if the Cowboys are ever really good, people have access to their practices. Not that anyone really needs to "spy" on the Cowboys to figure out Jason Garrett but there's a reason why NFL and NCAA practices are closed during the season.
 

theoneandonly

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Yea. A new status symbol, membership at Jerrys for those with more money than brains. To bad it will only affect the wrong bottom line.
 

theoneandonly

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I haven't seen the Ohio State football facilities, but I doubt they are old and grungy.

The Star is just the outlandish, ostentatious version of an SEC facility.

I'm not sure that having an outrageous facility seems so outrageous to today's players.

Its actually a real estate development under the guise of a football facility. Insures future generations of Joneses can run it into the ground for centuries to come.
 
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