Jerral "Jerry" Jones was born on October 13, 1942, in Little Rock, Arkansas. He is currently the owner and general manager of the NFL franchise Dallas Cowboys. Jerry Jones is married to Gene Jones and they have three children, Stephen, Charlotte and Jerry, Jr. along with seven grandchildren.

Jones attended college at the University of Arkansas and he was a co-captain of the 1964 Razorbacks National Championship football team. While with the Razorbacks, Jones was an all-Southwestern Conference (SWC) offensive lineman while playing for College Hall of Fame coach Mike Walsh. He was a teammate of many notable people in football while at Arkansas as well. One such teammate was Jimmy Johnson, who went on to coach the University of Miami to the national championship games in 1986 and 1987, winning it in 1987. Jones eventually hired Johnson to replace Hall of Fame and legendary coach Tom Laundry after he purchased the Cowboys in 1989. Jones also played with Razorback notables such as Ken Hatfield, Jim Lindsey, and future Outland Trophy winner Loyd Phillips.

He also played for numerous Razorback assistant coaches that became future great college head coaches.  Notable coaches such as Frank Broyles, who is still the winningest head coach in Arkansas history. Hayden Fry who was the legendary Head Coach at the University of Iowa. Johnny Majors, Head Coach at the University of Pittsburgh as well as the University of Tennessee. Last but not least, the most acclaimed coach of them all, Barry Switzer, the Hall of Fame coach from the University of Oklahoma and the eventual successor to Cowboys coach Jimmy Johnson, with whom Jones had a falling out with in 1994.

Jerry Jones is one of the few NFL owners who genuinely earned a meaningful level of success as a football player.

After Jones numerous unsuccessful business endeavors including forgoing the opportunity to purchase the AFL's San Diego Chargers in 1967, he started Jones Oil and Land Lease, an oil and gas exploration company in Arkansas, which became exceptionally successful. His company currently does natural resource prospecting and is a private family asset.

Jones purchased the Cowboys in 1989 from Bum Bright for $150 million. Shortly after Jones took over the Cowboys, he fired long time head coach Tom Landry. Landry was the only coach in Cowboys team history. To take the place of Landry, Jones hired his old teammate at the University of Arkansas, Jimmy Johnson. A few months after that, he was compelled to oust longtime Cowboys general manager Tex Schramm. With that move, he then gave Johnson complete control over player personnel decisions.

In 1994, he forced out Jimmy Johnson and opted for former University of Oklahoma coach Barry Switzer. Since that point, Jones has acted as his own general manager for the Cowboys. Out of all of the other owners in every professional sport, Jones is thought to be one of the most involved, on a daily basis, with his team. At Cowboys home games, he can be seen in his skybox, and in many cases, he wanders down to the Cowboys sideline during the game.

After the Cowboys won the 1993 Super Bowl, media reports began to come to light that Jones had made the assertion that "any one of 500 coaches could have won those Super Bowls" considering the level of talent that he had drafted and signed for the team. Jones also leaked to reporters at a late night cocktail party that he planned to replace Johnson with former University of Oklahoma coach Barry Switzer. The next day, however, Jones denied those reports by stating that it "was the whiskey talking". That statement has become legendary. Not far thereafter, Jones replaced Johnson with Switzer as the Cowboys head coach.

After polls in Delaware, Texas, and Virginia, Sports Illustrated named Jones Enemy No. 1 as the least favorite sports personality. He is often insulted by fans that remain angry at Jones' spontaneous firing of fan-favorite Tom Landry. Fans also remain angry that Jones ran Johnson out of Dallas, even though there was a disagreement between the two of them. Even though they do not remain the closest of friends, the two of them have since made up from their rift.

Most recently, there is a rising amount of Dallas Cowboy fans have declared their displeasure with Jones and the shortage of success in the franchise in the last ten years. Since 1997, the Cowboys have gone through three head coaches, Chan Gailey, Dave Campo, and Bill Parcels. They are currently on their forth head coach in that time with Wade Phillips. They have not been to the Super Bowl since 1995. This has led fans to form underground groups and organizations whose soul purpose is aimed at removing Jones from his position as owner and general manager of the Cowboys.

After publicly criticizing referee Ed Hochuli to both the press and on his radio show after Hochuli blew a call in a game between the San Diego Chargers and the Denver Broncos on September 14, 2008, the NFL fined Jones $25,000. I can only imagine what the criticism would have been if the Cowboys would have been involved.

Jones reminds me of footballs George Steinbrenner, always believing that he can buy a Super Bowl victory year after year. He also puts his nose into team operations too much, instead of letting the coaches do what they are paid to do. Jones has also been known to sign players with a less then perfect character issues such as Tank Johnson, Pac Man Jones, as well as “me” player Terrell Owens.

Considering that money is not an issue for Jerry Jones, the following quotes do not surprise me at all.

“It wouldn't be the worst thing in the world if we didn't have a salary cap”

“But if you look at teams that want to share more revenues, they're teams that don't have a lot on the table. They've long since not had any serious investment in their team.”

“Look, many of us here are regular marines... I will die as a marine because that is my dream.”

“Nobody is thinking they're going to come out here and put a team here and become a multimillionaire. I don't know anybody that comes into the NFL like that.”

“We feel good about our running backs as we have them right now, and we will continue to see how they progress.”

“Personally, it was hard to see Emmitt in red.”

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