With the Dallas Cowboys falling short of the Super Bowl, Jerry Jones has had the opportunity to temporarily turn his eye -- and as it turns out, his checkbook -- towards his alma mater.
Arkansas announced Wednesday that the billionaire Cowboys owner and his family have given the athletics department a $10.65 million gift, one that will help complete the Razorbacks' Student-Athlete Success Center, improve the locker room at the Fred W. Smith Football Center and build a "Wild Band of Razorbacks" monument to Arkansas's 1964 national championship team -- a team of which Jones was famously a member.
“We are grateful to the Jones family for their extraordinary gift which will directly benefit the development of Razorback student-athletes for many years to come,” Razorbacks athletic director Jeff Long said in the announcement. “It is only fitting that the Jones family, which is committed to the ideals of higher education and has been so deeply intertwined with the University of Arkansas for decades, is an integral part of the most impactful intercollegiate athletics’ facility we will have on campus.”
The Student-Athlete Success Center, locker room and monument will each be named for Jones and members of the Jones family.
“The University of Arkansas is a special place and has meant so much to me and our entire family,” Jerry Jones said. “We are honored to have the opportunity to give back to an institution, an athletics program and a state that has been such an instrumental part of our lives. My experiences at the University of Arkansas as a student-athlete under the legendary Coach Frank Broyles helped shape me as a man and guide me on my future career path. I would not be where I am today without those life lessons learned as a student-athlete at the University of Arkansas."
The "Wild Band of Razorbacks" monument, meanwhile, sounds like it'll be something to see:
The “Wild Band of Razorbacks” monument, made possible by Jerry Jones, will consist of six Razorbacks, accented by custom lighting and water features. The bronze monument will be placed along Razorback Road on the northwest corner of the lawn of the Fred W. Smith Football Center, just south of Donald W. Reynolds Razorback Stadium. The full monument will be approximately 20 feet high and 30 feet wide, with bronze Razorback hogs six feet tall and 12 to 14 feet long.
The 1964 Razorbacks went 11-0, defeating Nebraska 10-7 in the Cotton Bowl. The AP and UPI polls were still naming their national champions before the bowls at the time, each opting for also-undefeated Alabama. But the Tide lost to Texas in the Orange Bowl, making the Razorbacks the FBS's only unbeaten team and earning Arkansas a national championship nod from the Football Writers Association of America.
