1996: the Year Dallas Cowboys Played in El Paso at the Sun Bowl
Many years ago El Paso hosted a football scrimmage game between the Dallas Cowboys and Houston Oilers. I was around 12 years old when the Dallas Cowboys came to play at the Sun Bowl. I didn't attend the scrimmage but remember all of my family talking about it. Most of my family members on my dad's side are Dallas Cowboys fans. This game surprised a lot of people since it was planned in such short notice. But this game definitely showed how many Dallas Cowboys fans there are in El Paso. Of course, 51,118 fans headed out to see the Super Bowl Champion Dallas Cowboys that day at the Sun Bowl. If you're wondering who the Houston Oilers are they are now known as the Tennesse Titans. The Red Cross volunteers were the ones who made this happen in my opinion. The Red Cross volunteers would stand outside the gates of UTEP football games and ask for people to sign postcards.
All the John Hancocks they got from the people were from El Paso, Las Cruces, and Juarez. Their hard work paid off because they managed to get 100,000 postcards signed to send to Jerry Jones himself. Then after sending all those postcards to Jerry Jones they weren't done just yet. The volunteers had hired someone to fly banners over the Texas Stadium. Those banners read "Jerry, El Paso wants the Cowboys" and "Jerry, why haven't you called?" and after that phone calls were made. When the Sun Bowl was selected for the scrimmage it was short notice. But that didn't matter since 40,000 tickets sold within the first four days. Then eventually days after that, the game sold out to 51,118 people. After that scrimmage in 1996, the Dallas Cowboys returned to play at the Sun Bowl again.