A Few Events That Made Training Camp Standable

During the past 22 years that the Dallas Cowboys have trained at Cal Lutheran College in Thousand Oaks, a number of events have marked their summer camp. Here are some highlights:

Kicker Toni Fritsch, fresh from Austria and attending his first training camp, came to Thousand Oaks in 1971 with a limited English vocabulary.

Says Doug Todd, director of public relations for Dallas: “The veterans sent Toni out for pizza. He was speeding back to the dorms to beat curfew and he was stopped by the police. The car wasn’t his and he had no identification. All he could say was, ‘Dallas Cowboys.’ They threw him in jail.” Fritsch was bailed out the next day.

There is a well-embellished story in Thousand Oaks that Tex Schramm, president of the Cowboys, pulled a drowning woman from a lake a few years ago. When asked about it, though, Schramm said, “Yeah, there was a gal out there all right. Some guy was yelling her name. I just saw her and just helped her out of the water. The fact that she had no clothes on had nothing to do with it, of course. I handed her a sheet--that was my major contribution.”

Two celebrated “window jumpers” at the camp were Lance Rentzel and Craig Morton, says Steve Perkins, editor of the Dallas Cowboy Weekly. “Those guys would always sneak out. Once Dick Nolan (a Dallas coach), saw two girls waiting out in the parking lot.”

He said, “What are you girls doing?”

“Waiting for Craig and Lance,” they said.

“You might as well go on home. It’s past curfew,” Nolan said.

“Nolan went up to Morton’s room and found those guys putting on Tuxedos.”

Perkins adds: “They were fined, but they got off the hook because Morton threw a bomb to Rentzel to win the next preseason game.”

Once, during CLC’s ‘Welcome Cowboys Dinner,’ Schramm thought the crowd wanted a little entertainment. He rustled up a Cowboy rookie who supposedly had a decent voice. The young Cowboy sang Texas favorites, much to the delight of the crowd. The singer’s name? Don Meredith.

And this from Dan Reeves, former Cowboy player and coach: “We had to laugh to keep from crying during camp. Walt Garrison kept us entertained by squirting lighter fluid in his mouth and blowing flames at players when they went to bed.

“We used to act like kids. Back before anybody knew who he was, Burt Reynolds used to come out to camp and we’d go out and ride horses and motorcycles and carry on. We tried to have fun, but nobody ever really enjoyed training camp.”