By Don Williams | AVALANCHE-JOURNAL

DALLAS – Field Scovell never pulled rank on anyone. For decades, he more than anyone else made the deals that brought legends such as Bear Bryant and Joe Paterno to the Cotton Bowl. Come game day, however, after making the rounds to greet assorted dignitaries, he took his place among the other fans. Section 6, Row 46, first seat next to the aisle.

That was where he always could be found … except during one of the most famous moments in Cotton Bowl history.

As a flu-ridden Joe Montana, stoked with doses of chicken soup, led Notre Dame back from a 34-12 deficit to beat Houston, Field Scovell found the icy weather too cold to stay to the bitter end.

“That’s the only time I can remember my dad leaving the game early,” former Texas Tech quarterback John Scovell said this week. “He was about as tough as they get, but even that one got to him.”

Oh, the elder Scovell didn’t pack it in completely. Instead, he headed for the State Fair of Texas offices across from the stadium locker rooms. There, his son recalls, he watched the stirring conclusion – Notre Dame won 35-34 – on television from the office boardroom.

“I feel certain there were a few other people in there,” John Scovell said. “They had hot coffee and other things.”

These days, the Cotton Bowl is bigger – and perhaps better – than ever. The historic Dallas edifice holds more than 88,000 after a recent expansion. And, according to those who have been inside, visitors will be surprised at just how spruced up the place is with millions of dollars in renovations.

Alas, the grand old game is leaving the stadium.

The makeover might have saved Cotton Bowl, the stadium, but not Cotton Bowl, the traditional New Year’s Day game. Next winter, it will move to the state-of-the-art, $1.1 billion Dallas Cowboys stadium soon to open off Interstate 30 in Arlington.

“It’s bittersweet,” said Scovell, whose father died in 1992. “Of course, the reality is we need a roof to compete for a BCS game and to gain back (stature). If Jerry Jones had built that stadium in Waxahachie, then we’d be moving to Waxahachie. It’s a sentimental thing, this being the 73rd game there, to think of all its history.”

There’s time left, though, for a little more history to be made.

On Friday, Texas Tech and Mississippi fans will shatter the attendance record by a mile. Tech quarterback Graham Harrell, if he throws two touchdown passes against Ole Miss, will finish with the major-college record for career scoring strikes. It’s sure to be Harrell’s last game. Maybe it will also be the end for Tech wide receiver Mike Crabtree, he of the 40 touchdown receptions in a so-far spectacular 25-game career.

Thought to be a high first-round draft choice if he chooses to leave school early, Crabtree has dodged the subject this week in Dallas. Most, it seems, would be surprised if he stays.

The significance, though, of playing the last Cotton Bowl in its namesake stadium has hit home for those involved. Darcel McBath, a Tech fan all his life and a Tech safety now, remembers when he was 9 years old, wishing to come through the television set and cover Southern Cal wide receiver Keyshawn Johnson himself if the Red Raiders’ pass coverage could do no better. It was a 55-14 beating or, as McBath described it, “brutal.”

That was maybe his most vivid Cotton Bowl recollection, but not the only one.

“I watched all of them on TV, every year,” McBath said. “Never missed it. It’s crazy that I’m playing in it. It feels good. When I step on that field and soak it all in, we’ll be ready to go.”

Harrell said he’s “probably seen every Cotton Bowl since I’ve been alive.” Generally, the watching was done at home, in the company of his mom and dad.

Not just a Texas thing, that arrangement.

“The tradition in my family, my dad being a coach, mom had black-eyed peas going and cornbread and all that,” Ole Miss coach Houston Nutt said. “We were going to watch the Cotton Bowl. There was no question about that. I remember great games. Not good games, great games, all the way when we were growing up.”

Not to mention the biggest names in the sport. Doak Walker. Jim Brown. Roger Staubach. Earl Campbell. Jim Brown. All played in the Cotton Bowl.

For that, Nutt and Harrell and all the rest owe a debt of gratitude to Field Scovell. Known as “Mr. Cotton Bowl,” for almost four decades he chaired the team selection committee. This was before conference tie-ins slotted nearly every team for every bowl. More relationship building, and more legwork, was required.

For years, the Cotton Bowl had the Southwest Conference champion and, beyond that, whatever college football power it could charm into coming to Dallas. That’s where Scovell’s ample diplomacy skills came in.

“He just always had such a great rapport with all the people in college athletics and had just an incredible reputation of being so trustworthy,” John Scovell said.

Scovell traveled to college campuses during the spring to make friends of coaches and athletic directors. Once, he had stationery designed for Bear Bryant, the letterhead declaring the Alabama coach to be the Cotton Bowl’s team selection chairman.

“My dad always claimed Bear Bryant was chairman of all the football bowl selection committees,” Scovell said, “because Bear would literally decide who was going where. So much of it was governed by where he went. If he was going here, somebody else was going there or there. Nothing happened in the bowl business until Bear Bryant decided where he was going to play.”

Scovell’s crowning achievement might have come in the fall and winter of 1969. At the time, school policy had kept Notre Dame from taking part in any postseason since Jan. 1, 1925. In the intervening 45 seasons, the Fighting Irish accrued 11 national championships, nine undefeated seasons and six Heisman Trophy winners while never embarking on a bowl trip.

The thaw came in November and December of 1969, when the Fighting Irish agreed to show up New Year’s Day in Dallas to play Texas. Just before Christmas 1969, Sports Illustrated’s Dan Jenkins wrote that Scovell nervously greeted Notre Dame’s Father Edmund Joyce with the words, “The ring bearer is here, and I sure need a finger to put it on.”

The Irish accepted.

“They were just kind of the epitome of college football, the reputation and the history and legacy of that program,” John Scovell said. “At that point in time, it was best of the best. But part of that had never been tested on the bowl side of things.

“And we were competing with everybody (to get the Fighting Irish). Pop used to say, Here we are competing with Bourbon Street and palm trees,’ so he was selling people and good old Texas hospitality.”

Of course, the reality is we need a roof to compete for a BCS game … If Jerry Jones had built that stadium in Waxahachie, then we’d be moving to Waxahachie. …’

John Scovall

Former Texas Tech quarterback

Cotton Bowl memories

Twelve memorable moments in Cotton Bowl history:

• 1937, TCU with “Slingin’ Sammy” Baugh beats Marquette 16-6 in the first Cotton Bowl. A dream comes to fruition for founder J. Curtis Sanford, who had returned from a Rose Bowl years before intent on establishing a similar classic in Dallas.

• 1946, In one of the fantastic individual displays in bowl history, Bobby Layne accounts for all of his team’s points in Texas’ 40-27 victory over Missouri. He threw two touchdowns, ran for three, caught another and kicked four extra points.

• 1948 and 1949, With demand for tickets soaring from fans eager to see SMU star Doak Walker, Cotton Bowl officials added a second deck to the stadium on each side. SMU ties Penn State 13-13 in 1948 and beats Oregon 21-13 the following year.

• 1954, In the second quarter, Alabama’s Tommy Lewis bolts off the sideline to tackle Rice running back Dicky Maegle in the open field. Officials decide Maegle would have scored, and award the Owls a touchdown. Maegle, brother of longtime Monterey baseball coach Bobby Moegle, scored three TDs in the 28-6 victory.

• 1957, TCU wins a 28-27 thriller from Syracuse. The Horned Frogs convert four turnovers into a 28-14 lead and hold off the Orangemen and All-American running back Jim Brown, who runs for 132 yards and three touchdowns.

• 1964, Texas claims its first national championship, posting a 28-6 victory over Navy and its Heisman Trophy-winning quarterback, Roger Staubach.

• 1965, Arkansas completes an unbeaten, national-championship run with a 10-7 victory over Nebraska.

• 1968, In defeat, Alabama coach Bear Bryant lifts Texas A&M coach Gene Stallings off the ground with a congratulatory hug. Stallings had been one of Bryant’s famed “Junction Boys” at A&M 14 years before.

• 1970, Notre Dame ends a self-imposed, 45-year bowl absence by coming to Dallas to play No. 1 Texas. The Longhorns rally to win 21-17 on a 17-play, 76-yard drive in the final seven minutes.

• 1979, Notre Dame erases a 22-point fourth-quarter deficit to beat Houston 35-34. Joe Montana throws a touchdown pass to Kris Haines as time expires, and Dallas native Joe Unis kicks the extra point.

• 2006, Texas Tech and Alabama are tied at 10 until the final play. As time expires, Alabama’s Jamie Christensen kicks a career-long 45-yard field goal that barely clears the crossbar.

• 2008, Missouri senior Tony Temple runs for a record 281 yards and four touchdowns as the Tigers post a 38-7 rout of Arkansas and its two-time Heisman Trophy runnerup, Darren McFadden.

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