Jerry Jones

Jerry Jones is an American businessman and the owner, president, and general manager of the Dallas Cowboys of the National Football League since 1989, under whose stewardship the franchise won three Super Bowls and became the most valuable sports team in the world. He was born Jerral Wayne Jones on October 13, 1942, in Los Angeles, California, to grocer J.W. "Pat" Jones and Arminta Jones, and raised in North Little Rock, Arkansas.

He played as a co-captain on the 1964 Arkansas Razorbacks football team that won a national championship under coach Frank Broyles, and graduated from the University of Arkansas with a master's degree in business in 1970.

After early ventures in pizza franchising and insurance, he turned to the oil and gas business in Arkansas and Oklahoma, building Jones Oil and Land Lease into the foundation of his fortune. In February 1989 he bought the Dallas Cowboys from H.R. "Bum" Bright for 140 million dollars and immediately fired head coach Tom Landry.

He hired Jimmy Johnson and assembled a roster around Troy Aikman, Emmitt Smith, and Michael Irvin that won Super Bowls XXVII, XXVIII, and XXX. He was inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 2017. He married Eugenia Chambers in 1963, and they have three children, all involved in the Cowboys organization.

Their name Jerry derives from a short form of Jerome, from the Greek Hieronymos meaning "sacred name," or from Gerald or Gerard, both based on the Germanic element ger meaning "spear." Jerry peaked in the United States in the 1940s and 1950s.