The Agent: My 40-Year Career Making Deals and Changing the Game Hardcover by Leigh Steinberg

Author:Leigh Steinberg
Language: eng
Format: mobi
ISBN: 9781250030429
Publisher: Thomas Dunne Books
Published: 2014-01-20T14:00:00+00:00

9

TROY AND JERRY

They both came into my life at roughly the same time, both of them tenacious and ultracompetitive, driven to bring a franchise in decline back to prominence. They collided on occasion, as most people with strong wills do, but there is little doubt neither would have succeeded without the other.

I met Troy Aikman in the late winter of 1989 when he was living in an apartment about a half mile from my parents’ house. After years of taking planes and renting cars, to travel by foot to visit a potential client was a refreshing change. In that initial meeting, I came away as impressed with Troy as I had been with Warren and Steve. Not only was he the premier quarterback prospect in America, he was, like the other two, brighter than a twenty-two-year-old had the right to be. He had a wry sense of humor and might have possessed the least tolerance for phoniness of any athlete I ever met.

He also surrounded himself with astute advisers. Many of my quarterbacks did. Playing the position with the highest profile, they constantly befriended alums on campus and in the community who, well connected in business, law, and other professions, adopted a keen interest in the players’ futures. In Troy’s case, these men, from the oil and gas industries, acted as a screening committee, and among their most critical tasks in the early days was to select the right agent. The wrong one could set Troy back for years.

I met with them in Oklahoma City and knew I had to be in top form. They would interview me as if I were applying for a job, which I was.

The questions kept coming. “How would you cope with the pressure in Dallas?”

“Have you ever been fired?”

“What is the size of your practice?”

“Do you handle endorsements?”

On and on the interview went, Troy sitting quietly, ignoring the barrage by reading a newspaper. I couldn’t decide if that was a good sign or a bad sign. For all I knew, I could have been just one of four or five agents going through the process. Only later did I conclude Troy had already made up his mind. The job was mine as long as I cleared this one last hurdle, and I did.

In early 1989, it became increasingly clear that the Cowboys, after a disastrous 3-13 season, needed a franchise quarterback desperately. They had not had one since Roger Staubach left the game in 1980. That’s a long drought for any team, let alone America’s Team.

However, it would not be the triumvirate that had ruled Cowboy Nation forever making the final call—coach Tom Landry, president and general manager Tex Schramm, and vice president of player personnel Gil Brandt. Each of them had favored drafting Troy, creating something called “Aikmania” to rally Dallas fans after he completed 19 of 27 passes for 172 yards in leading the Bruins to a convincing 17–3 triumph over a very talented Arkansas squad in the Cotton Bowl.

Now there would be only one man in charge, Jerry Jones, and he would be in charge, all right.

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