If Texas Stadium General Manager Bruce Hardy had his way, the entire field might have been covered with sand and volleyball courts.
That's what he once promised Jimmy Buffett, in the first of six straight years of begging the beach-bum musician to perform in the open-roofed arena. Finally the event happened, and Buffett personally autographed a guitar for Hardy.
"He signed a guitar, 'We did it,'" Hardy says. "Well it was Jimmy and me talking and me begging a lot. I told him it would be great to put sand on the floor and put volleyball nets up when I first started talking to him about it. Well then, he got out here the first night up on stage during sound check, and hollered at me to say, 'Where's the sand?' I just told him to talk to his promoter. It wasn't my fault."
The Buffett guitar sits to the right of two more, autographed by Garth Brooks and George Strait, respectively, both of whom were courted by Hardy to perform major concerts at Texas Stadium.
On this very field, where Cowboys and Ravens meet tonight, Bruce Hardy estimates he's seen some 700 football games over the last 25 years, and countless other spectacles, from concerts to Billy Graham crusades.
The walls in Hardy's office are proof of the variety of events Texas Stadium has hosted since Hardy became GM in 1984. Signed footballs are everywhere, but there is also an original clapperboard from the filming of Oliver Stone's "Any Given Sunday."
"I don't have much up there," Hardy says, glancing at all the autographs with a sly smile. "I've just got a couple Presidents, I've got Dr. Graham, the Garth Brooks guitar."
The memory is the real souvenir from each event, and Hardy can quickly recall specifics from any occasion he helped arrange. There's the Brooks concert from 1993 - the one where he used the guitar signed, "This even happened because of you."
"Well, the stage collapsed and Garth and I got together and really redesigned the whole show so he could perform," Hardy says. "He did three nights in the round for 210,000 people, the largest Country & Western concert ever."
And the last time Rev. Graham's Crusade for Christ was in town, back in 2002?
"We had 90,000 people in the parking lot," Hardy recalls, stopping to mention one of Graham's crusades was actually the first event the stadium ever held, back in the summer of 1971. "They were in the parking lots just to watch the event on screens. Every highway to the stadium was shut down two hours before. They filled up all the parking lots on restaurant row."
At 62, Hardy is getting set for a less hands-on role at the new stadium in Arlington, Texas, where he expects to be a senior advisor to the Jones family on the stadium. Jack Hill, who is currently heading construction efforts at the new park, is expected to fill Hardy's position as general manager. For now, Hardy is a key figure in the transition team, traveling to Arlington every Thursday, and sometimes twice a week to lend his expertise.
"It's more busy (than usual) because I'm spending time here and spending time in Arlington looking at all that," Hardy says. "We're having meetings and trying to make it the best there is for our fans. You can look at the building. They're starting to pave the lots, they're paving the sidewalks, the seats are going in. You get the feel of a football stadium. You walk out and look up and sort of get excited."
Of course, it's not hard to get Hardy excited anyway. For a while, it was screen-printing. Hardy and a friend were partners in Image Builders, the largest promotional advertising business in the Southwest for nearly a decade starting in the mid-1970s.
"I don't know if you remember the Texas dress shirt - it was the t-shirt with a tie on it."
That was Bruce Hardy.
"We designed that when Gov. (Bill) Clements came out with the no-coat, no-tie summer," he says. "The opening of the Dallas Mavericks, we did coins for them. We were crazy, we did a lot of different things.
"It was on a quirk, one of my friends and I were sitting around one night and said it would be kind of fun to go out and start this, see what we could do in the t-shirt business. We went to some local bars and said we would beat anybody's price. And then we started working with some ad agencies and different companies and it grew and grew."
Eventually though, Hardy burned out on silkscreen printing.
"A guy I grew up with, we were backing out (of the driveway). Every morning we would see each other about 7 a.m. and it was a fluke deal," Hardy says. "I had decided I wanted to change what I was doing, and he stopped and took my résumé, and the rest is history."
In early 1984, Hardy took over from Tommy Hodges, becoming the fourth general manager of the stadium. During his first year, the Crown Suites, the level of luxury boxes closest to the roof, were being added. Hardy oversaw construction and sold suite space at the Cowboys home - quite the thrill for a guy who attended Cowboys games at the Cotton Bowl with his father back when an adult and five kids could get in for $6.
"You were in awe that you worked for Texas Stadium and the Dallas Cowboys," he says. "You were on cloud nine every morning to be a part of the organization. It was just the excitement that you would ride in an elevator with Tom Landry. My office was in the basement and I would ride with him before every game. The thrill of a Randy White getting taped five hours early before the game, and coming in my office and laying down on my couch. And here's an all-world football player who's lying down on my couch and kicking me out of my own office so he can get psyched up for a game.
"To grow up in Dallas, Texas and have three Super Bowl rings, I've lived a childhood dream."
If it was a childhood dream to make it where he has, Hardy's four grandchildren are his current passion, and love for the Cowboys apparently runs in the family.
"It thrills me when I see my six-year-old and four-year-old and two-year-old all walk in with Cowboys jerseys on, and they all stand up and yell for the Cowboys to win."
For Hardy, things have changed over the years, but the Cowboys and family have remained a constant.
Players and coaches come and go. Ownership has changed hands, too. But the blue star, the Cowboys endure. Each generation has a Cowboys stadium all its own, and Bruce Hardy has been there for both parks so far, and the next to come.
"That's what life's about," Hardy says. "You have kids and they grow up and reward you with grandchildren and that's the greatest thing in the world. My children grew up with the Dallas Cowboys, and now their children can grow up with the Dallas Cowboys. Every morning I get up and I'm excited to come to work. I think I am more excited today than I was 25 years ago."
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