One of the NFL’s most legendary rivalries didn’t start on the field or between players. It started with owners Clint Murchison Jr., son of a Texas oil tycoon, and George Preston Marshall, owner of the Washington Redskins at the time.
The feud between the two wealthy men was notable for its pranks, including an attempt to release free-range chickens onto the grounds, and some old-fashioned racism. The following anecdotes are taken from The Dallas Morning News archives and interviews with Burk Murchison (Clint’s son) and former News editor Michael Granberry, authors of the book “Hole in the roof.”
Murchison made his first foray as an NFL team owner eight years before the Dallas Cowboys franchise was established in 1960.
He looked at the books of the Dallas Texans, who had played the 1952 season in Dallas. Murchison was rejected in his attempt to purchase the Texans, who eventually became the Baltimore Colts. He also attempted to purchase the San Francisco 49ers. Then-NFL commissioner Bert Bell suggested that Murchison buy the Chicago Cardinals, but for some reason he never had interest in the Cardinals.
In 1958, Murchison thought he finally had his NFL team. He and Marshall were in negotiations over a deal to sell the Redskins and move the team to Dallas. With the sale almost complete, Marshall changed the terms and the deal was canceled.
After the failure of the Washington Accord, Murchison proposed forming a new team called Dallas Cowboys. He needed the unanimous approval of all NFL owners.
Owners of the Giants, Eagles, Browns, Steelers, Cardinals, Colts, Bears, 49ers, Packers, Rams and Lions all approved the deal.
The only owner to vote against it was Marshall. At the NFL owners meeting, Marshall denounced Murchison, 36. as “personally unpleasant”.
Today, many remember Marshall for his overt racism. He was the only NFL owner to refuse to sign black players.
“We will begin recruiting blacks when the Harlem Globetrotters begin recruiting whites,” Marshall said in a statement. Fortune magazine article published in 1953.
Marshall’s broadcast monopoly
By 1959, Marshall owned a chain of television and radio stations and had a near monopoly on NFL broadcasting in the Deep South. One of the reasons he opposed the Cowboys entering the league was that he did not want to give up any part of his radio territory, which included North Texas.
Undeterred from bringing the Cowboys to the NFL, Murchison decided to take matters into his own hands. The book Hole in the roof explains that he purchased the copyright to the fight song “Hail to the Redskins” as a bargaining chip. The song was played on Redskins television and radio, as well as at every Washington home game. Marshall loved the song.
Washington band director Barnee Breeskin wrote the music for “Hail to the Redskins.” Corrine Griffith, Marshall’s then-wife, wrote the lyrics for the song, but the couple divorced in 1958. Griffith began calling him the “Marshall without a plan.”
Breeskin’s relationship with Marshall had also deteriorated, and he sold the rights to the song to Murchison for $2,500 (about $27,000 in today’s money).
Marshall eventually relented and agreed to allow the expansion Cowboys to join the NFL – after Murchison returned the rights to the song to him.
The song has been updated and edited in “Hail to the commanders” and is still sung by some fans at matches today,
The Redskins had just moved into their brand new stadium in the District of Columbia, which would later be renamed RFK Stadium. Ironically, this was the same stadium in which the MLB’s Washington Senators played. The Senators would later move to Texas and become the Rangers in 1972.
Murchison decided to have a little more fun with Marshall for being such a jerk to him when he was trying to buy the team, according to Hole in the roof.
He and a few of his friends concocted a prank to turn the halftime show of the Redskins’ 1961 Christmas extravaganza into complete chaos.
The day before the game, Murchison’s agents sneaked into DC Stadium and spread chicken feed all over the field. The next day, the halftime show would be highlighted by an unassuming Santa being pulled on a sleigh by Alaskan sled dogs, while a group of hungry chickens would be released onto the field.
CBS broadcast the festivities live. The idea of chickens wandering around while the sled dogs entered the field would be maddening. It was going to be Magnificent.
On the day of the game, the chickens were smuggled into the stadium in two crates and hidden in a dugout and covered with a tarp. There were 75 white chickens and one black chicken. The one black chicken symbolized that Marshall was a “chicken” because he was the only owner in the NFL who did not draft a black player.
The plan was thwarted by a security guard who heard the chickens clucking beneath the stadium.
Unfazed, Murchison and his drinking buddies would play pranks on Marshall in the middle of the night, imitating chicken clucks when he answered the phone.
Marshall became frustrated by the prank calls and had his number changed and deleted.
Later that year, Murchison’s pranksters sneaked into Marshall’s lavish hotel suite and inserted a large live turkey into the bathroom. What followed was apparently not a pleasant experience.
“Chickens are good,” Marshall said, “but a man shouldn’t mess around with a crazy turkey.”
The federal government asked Marshall to end his racist ownership practices in 1962. The stadium was located on federal land, so in fact President John F. Kennedy’s Secretary of the Interior, Stewart Udall, was de facto owner of DC Stadium. Udall gave Marshall an ultimatum:
“If you don’t integrate in 1962, you won’t be able to use the stadium,” Udall told Marshall, according to Hole in the roof.
Marshall eventually capitulated and Washington signed its first black player, Bobby Mitchell, to its roster in 1962. Mitchell had an outstanding career and was inducted into the NFL Hall of Fame in 1983.
Segregation was also a major problem in Dallas in the early 1960s. even within the Cowboys organization. But early in the team’s existence, the Cowboys ended the policy of segregation, and Tex Schramm and Tom Landry focused on teamwork.
Murchison created a football team that compiled a record 20 consecutive winning seasons, from 1966 to 1985; appeared in five Super Bowls, winning two; and became known as America’s Team.
In 2014, the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office canceled six trademark designations of the Washington Redskins football team, calling them “derogatory to Native Americans.” The team eventually changed its name to Washington Football Team in 2020, then Washington Commanders in 2022.
In 2020, shortly after the George Floyd protests erupted across the country, the Washington Football Team responded by removing a memorial to Marshall that had stood outside RFK Stadium for years. Additionally, they removed Marshall’s name from all official team materials, including their Ring of Fame, wall of history and website, according to Hole in the roof.
Marshall’s granddaughter, Jordan Wright, said The Washington Post that she did not object to the memorial being removed. “No, not at all, not at all,” she said. “I was happy to see him go down. It is high time to see it disappear.
Championship droughts
Ironically, both traditional teams in Washington and Dallas entered the 2024-25 season with the two longest NFC championship game droughts, with the Commanders having the longest streak at 33 years.
If Washington manages to advance to the NFC title game this year, the Cowboys will hold the dubious distinction 30 years after reaching an NFC title game.
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