Silver Age Sets in Thousand Oaks : Cowboys Have Watched a Generation Pass in 25 Years With Town

The teen-ager stood on the sideline, watching the Dallas Cowboys’ workout and criticizing every move of 36-year-old defensive lineman John Dutton. “God, he’s like so slow,” said the youngster with the bad haircut. “He’s, I guess, just too old.”

About that time, Dutton was sent sprawling by teammate Phil Pozderac. An enraged Dutton charged the 6-9, 285-pound Pozderac, grabbed his helmet and ripped it from his head. Just before he commenced beating his teammate over the head with it, other players interceded and soon the rage ebbed.

And then practice was over and the players began filing back to their dormitories at Cal Lutheran and the young man who had been blasting Dutton to his friends with equally bad haircuts suddenly found himself in the path of the 6-7, 261-pound Dutton, an angry and sweaty Dutton who just moments earlier was known by this kid as Dutton the Jerk.

“Ah, like, excuse me Mr. Dutton. Could I get your autograph, you know?”

Dutton signed a scrap of paper and kept moving. The kid stayed behind, showing his friends the scrawled signature of one Mr. Dutton, who began training with the Cowboys at the Thousand Oaks university at about the same time most of those kids were born. Fourteen years ago.

Three young girls stand quietly on the sideline. All are focused on the player in the red jersey, the quarterback, Danny White. The girls are excited but are trying desperately to maintain their composure, more than likely in an effort to impress the boys with the bad haircuts. But a giggle escapes every once in a while as they stare and point at the quarterback.

When the workout is over, the girls angle toward the point where they think they’ll be able to intercept the man in the red jersey. They arrive as he does and the leader of the pack steps forward and these words come out: “Danny White. Can we have your autograph? Are you married to Vanna White?”

Danny White signs a piece of paper, smiling as he writes. Smiling, perhaps, at the thought of being married to Vanna White. Smiling, perhaps, at the thought of having a wife who turns over lighted letters for a living.

“No,” White said, “I’m not.”

When White began coming to Thousand Oaks with the Cowboys 13 years ago, these girls weren’t wearing tight jeans and synthetic ankle boots with tassels on them. They were wearing diapers.

The Cowboys have been training at Cal Lutheran for 25 years, since, like, before Rob Lowe was born, you know? And before Tom Landry lost all of his hair. Thousand Oaks ain’t what it used to be, either.

“It just doesn’t seem possible that it’s been 25 years,” said Landry, the Cowboys’ coach. “It seems like yesterday was the first time. But when we first came here, this was the wild West. There weren’t many people or houses. The town of Westlake wasn’t here at all. It was just hills, not hills with houses built on them.

“We used to run these hills as part of our workouts. Up and down the mountains to get in shape. We don’t do that anymore. If you tried to run these hills now you might run into someone’s swimming pool.”

But even as Thousand Oaks became a town and underwent enormous transformations in the past decade, it always remained the only place the Dallas Cowboys have ever trained in the summer. And that, Landry said, isn’t going to change.

“This is the best training camp I’ve ever been in because of the temperature and the weather,” he said. “There’s no precipitation at all, and a breeze blows every day to cool you off. It’s just ideal. It’s hot enough get the group in shape but cool enough at night to sleep and with that breeze during the day it makes it ideal. And the Cal Lutheran facility is perfect. I’ve never thought about going anyplace else. We’d never find anyplace else as good as this.”

Part of the reason the Cowboys have ventured so far away from Dallas every year is to escape the skin-shriveling heat and humidity of Texas in August. Another reason is to escape the family bonds that can take a player’s mind off of football.

“They call it Fort Landry out there,” longtime camp follower Blackie Sherrod, a Dallas newspaper columnist, has said. “He wants to cut out distractions. There’s no question he wants his players’ undivided attention.”

In the old days, it wasn’t hard to find a Cowboy roaming the town at night. Lance Rentzel and Craig Morton and Don Meredith and others treated curfew like an obnoxious mother-in-law. They knew it was always going to be there, but they tried to ignore it. Today, though, it doesn’t seem to be quite the same.

In conversations with nearly 20 customers and employees in several taverns in the Thousand Oaks and Westlake areas, only one person ever recalled seeing any of the Cowboys drinking.

“There were three of them,” said Eddie Laffner of Westlake. “I don’t know who they were, but they were real big.”

Ah. That narrows it down to about 75 possibilities.

Don’t get the idea that the Dallas Cowboys are a church group. You can bet the house that some of the players head out of camp on a regular basis. But with the spotlight of substance abuse and the revolving doors of rehabilitation centers always on their minds, players are much more aware of how big a shadow they now cast in a bar. Six-packs in dormitory rooms are probably more common than a night of romping through the bars.

And, while it isn’t a church group, it also isn’t the Raiders.

“We feel like this our home away from home out here,” said Landry. “The people of Thousand Oaks have always been extremely nice to us and so I tell players it is our responsibility to live up to the image we have on the Cowboys. We’ve always had the image, not of everyone being perfect, but we try to act like gentlemen should act. We don’t tell them exactly how to behave, but I appeal to a man’s character. If he responds, great. If he doesn’t, he’ll probably drift on to some other team.”

Defensive tackle Randy White is in his 14th Thousand Oaks camp. He says he considers it much like a nail sticking through a shoe. It’s not comfortable, but you can get used to it.

“It’s just a job,” he said. “Certainly if I had a choice I’d rather be home with my family than here most of the summer, but in case no one told you, we don’t have a choice. Thousand Oaks has changed a lot, but it’s still Thousand Oaks, know what I mean? All in all this place just isn’t very exciting, but I guess that’s why we’re here. It’s a place to come and get ready for the season. The fewer distractions the better.”

Danny White, no relation to Randy or Vanna, said a training camp wouldn’t work at all if there were too many temptations nearby.

“This place sure is quiet,” he said. “But that’s what we need. No distractions. We go out once in a while, to a bar or for a pizza. But for the most part, no one knows us and no one bothers us. That’s another nice part about being away from home. Being able to go out once in a while without people coming around to talk to you is a nice switch from Dallas.”

Contrary to what White said, defensive lineman Ed Jones said he can’t go anywhere without people recognizing him.

“People don’t really know me, but they figure something’s up when I walk into a restaurant,” he said. “I guess there aren’t too many guys like me walking into restaurants out here.”

Jones, of course, is Too Tall. And no, there probably haven’t been more than, let’s say a half-dozen 6-9, 280-pound black guys walking into any one restaurant in Thousand Oaks in the past few weeks.

Thousand Oaks Mayor Frank Schillo wishes there were 200 Dallas Cowboys walking around his town.

“They add a lot to the town,” he said. “The Dallas Cowboys put us on the map from a sports standpoint. I was in Washington recently at a mayors conference and the first person I introduced myself to said, ‘Thousand Oaks? That’s where the Dallas Cowboys train, right?’ Everybody who follows football in this country knows about Thousand Oaks, and because of the Cowboys they know about what a nice place it is and all about our beautiful weather. They’ve done a lot for our town.”

Once you get over the shock of seeing a platoon of giants.

“When I moved here in 1971 I didn’t know the Cowboys trained here,” Schillo said. “The first week I was here I went into a barber shop and three of the biggest guys I’d ever seen in my life were sitting in the chairs. I mean giant guys. I thought to myself, ‘Geez, what kind of place is this?’ ”

Well, it is Thousand OAKS, isn’t it? Not Thousand Shrubs.