Sports & Recreation

The highest-paid running back in Dallas Cowboys' franchise history received a seven-year, $45 million contract in the spring despite starting just one game and never producing a 1,000-yard season. How's that, you ask? Because Marion Barber is a badass, forged out of muscle, menace and downright mean. He's the NFL's toughest, scariest runner, fueled by the disposition of a traveler about to check six pieces of luggage on an American Airlines flight. Proof? Barber made a habit last year of violently stiff-arming potential tacklers in the kisser. So effective, and so unfair, was the move that the NFL Competition Committee deemed it illegal for the upcoming season. Told of the league's new "Barber Rule," prohibiting him from going for opponents' facemasks, the Barbarian never looked up and immediately growled "What about the throat?" Shiver.

Kenny Cooper just may save American soccer or at least take it to the next level. At just 23, Cooper has all the skills to develop into a premier-level striker, the one thing the U.S. National Team has always lacked to go from middling to elite status. Unlike Landon Donovan, the current poster boy for American soccer, Cooper has not just speed, but also brawn, making his game a good fit for the bruising international stage. This year Cooper is an MLS All-Star and one of the league's leading scorers.

We assume it's easier to part with an Olympic gold medal when you have four more on your mantel, but still, the legendary Dallas sprinter made us all proud when he dashed toward integrity in June. After learning that four of his U.S. 1,600-meter relay teammates had admitted to taking steroids in preparation for the Sydney Games in 2000, Johnson announced he would return his medal because "I know the medal was not fairly won and that it is dirty." Johnson, who maintains he's never doped, still owns the world record in the 200 and 400 meters and still has a burgeoning training facility in Mc-Kinney. Thanks to his class act, he also still possesses his good name.

SMU's AD, turns out, could sell green bananas to an astronaut headed for the International Space Station. After all, he's got the Methodists again believing in big-time sports. In his two-year reign, SMU has constructed the $13 million Crum Center basketball practice facility, spent $1 million upgrading Moody Coliseum, splashed Dallas with a $750,000 "Pony Up" marketing campaign, drawn blueprints for a new outdoor tennis center, eased admission standards, maintained a 97 percent graduation rate and hired former national coaches of the year in basketball (Matt Doherty) and football (June Jones). To pay for Jones' unprecedented five-year, $10 million contract, Orsini persuaded a "Circle of Champions" to invest $100,000 for five years. Miracle on Mockingbird, indeed.

It's OK. Your heroes can still be Cowboys. Best buddy Tony Romo has more famous girlfriends, and Terrell Owens has more shiny endorsements, but no player was more important to the Cowboys last season than Witten. Already with a spot reserved in the Ring of Honor as the franchise's all-time best tight end, the Pro Bowler caught everything thrown his way and yanked us off the couch with his helmet-less gallop against the Philadelphia Eagles. Precise routes. Nimble feet. Pillowy hands. But the best reason to be smitten with Witten: He balances his $28 million contract with a 28-cent ego. A night after rubbing elbows with Jamie Foxx and Serena Williams at T.O.'s birthday party last December, Witten spent the day making friends at Carrollton's Rainwater Elementary School. Oh, and also, Witten's smart enough to realize it's not a good idea to sing at Wrigley Field when you can't, in fact, sing. Right, Tony?

By all accounts, the manager was as good as gone in late April. His team had baseball's worst record (9-18). The Bad News Bears displayed better fundamentals. Washington was this close to getting axed. Owner Tom Hicks admitted it was "pretty close." But just as management began constructing a contingency plan and even a list of potential successors, the Rangers suffered injuries to front-line veterans, began getting production from unheralded youngsters and shockingly climbed back into playoff contention by the All-Star break. One of Washington's strengths is his patience and his unflappable demeanor. The Rangers deserve credit—albeit barely—for giving him the chance to display it.

Next to Jimmy Johnson vs. Jerry Jones, and Mark Cuban vs. Don Nelson, the divorce of Dallas' most popular sports talk radio duo proved one of the most compelling in recent memory. Williams initiated the destruction with Rhyner—his longtime host on The Ticket's The Hardline—via habitual lying and drug use. But the dismissive treatment of Williams by station management and former co-workers escalated the story from a regional phenomenon into national news. The feeding frenzy was unprecedented, generating almost 400 reader comments on our Web site. Or, about 400 more than the following week's dissection of the Rangers. In the final analysis, Williams ruined his career, a radio show and almost his life through reckless, selfish actions. But 15-year friends ignoring him only inflamed the situation. And two wrongs don't make a right. They just make us all sad. For everybody involved.

Justin Leonard may have the best résumé of any pro golfer living in Dallas (two majors and 11 PGA victories), but nobody in the area has had the year Anthony Kim has had. In May, Kim won his first PGA Tour tournament, the Wachovia Championship, with the lowest score (-16) in the tournament's history. Two months later, he won the AT&T National, becoming the first American younger than 25 to win twice in one year on the PGA Tour since Tiger Woods in 2000. Plus, he wears belt buckles on the tour with his initials AK inscribed on them. Now that's Texas.

Unless we're totally cross-eyed on this one, SMU football coach June Jones will be accepting this hardware multiple times in the future. But for now, no personnel transaction has positively affected a franchise like the return of Big Tex to Arlington. While it's difficult to accurately quantify Ryan's influence, there's no denying the Rangers are pitching quicker, playing harder and winning more with him as team president. Attendance isn't exactly overflowing at Rangers Ballpark, and the stagnation of Glory Park doesn't sit well, but don't we all feel a little better with Ryan calling the shots rather than John Hart? Ryan doesn't get all the credit for Josh Hamilton's homers or C.J. Wilson's dramatic saves, but he is the main reason the Rangers are again becoming a relevant franchise with undeniable credibility and, dare we say it, even a bright future.

Questions about doping aside, there's no taking away from what Steve Asmussen's done in the last year. He's gone from the guy who takes the leading trainer crown every year at Lone Star Park to the guy who's training the best horse in the world. That horse would be Curlin, and earlier this year, after the 4-year-old had won just about every race Asmussen put him in, he decided to run him on grass, just for the hell of it, against some of the best turf runners this side of the pond. The big chestnut came up just short. It won't be the last we hear from him or Asmussen. Expect to see the Arlington resident in the winner's circle for years to come.

This just in: Dallas has moved to Arlington. Inexplicably, it left us with only John Wiley Price's "black hole" and half-assed plans for the Trinity River. Thanks a lot. If you're keeping score, the new $1 billion stadium once targeted for Fair Park will now host Cowboys games starting in 2009, the Cotton Bowl starting in '10, the Big 12 football championship game in '09 and '10, an annual Arkansas-Texas A&M football game starting in '09, a Notre Dame-Arizona State game in '13, a potential NBA All-Star Game in 2010 and, of course, Super Bowl XLV in '11. Don't look now, but our sports epicenter has moved 20 miles west. Dallas, last we checked, was rolling out the red carpet for Division II football between East Central State (Oklahoma) and Texas A&M-Commerce. No shit. Couldn't make up something that lame.

You can only chuckle at the Fort Worth Star-Telegram's Randy Galloway referring to Deion Sanders as "nine toe"—yeah, still—so many times, right? Cowlishaw has developed a definitive, authoritative voice as the lead columnist at The Dallas Morning News. Already with strong backgrounds in hockey and football, he even tuned up on NASCAR to the point where ESPN values his opinions on left turns. And, of course, his daily jousts on Around the Horn make him a bit of a cult hero in some frat circles. But most important, he's added some color—some pizzazz—to his daily writing. In describing the tribulations of Pacman Jones, Cowlishaw suggested the Cowboy carry no more than $10 in his wallet. "Pretty hard to make it rain in a club," he wrote, "with a pair of fives." Bravo.

We wanted to crown Duncanville boxer Luis Yanez. No, really. If you only knew. But it's hard to argue with the five medals— one gold, three silvers and a bronze—that the 18-year-old gymnast won in Beijing in August. Plus, the bouncy blonde from Parker, who trains at the same World Olympics Gymnastics Academy in Plano that gave us Carly Patterson in '04, will grace a Wheaties box coming soon to your kitchen table. Which is more than we can say for Yanez, who got temporarily kicked off the U.S. boxing team before being reinstated, only to lose. Gymnastics 1, Boxing 0.

Honorable mention to a strong debut by ESPN Radio's Michael Irvin, who lands news-making interviews with controversial subjects such as Pacman Jones and Josh Howard. Still, we can't reward a show whose co-host is homosexual. (Wink.) Given Greg Williams' departure from The Hardline, the most consistently entertaining/informative show belongs to George Dunham, Craig Miller and Gordon Keith, 5:30-10 a.m. on The Ticket. Over the years they've developed the perfect recipe for morning radio with tasty pinches of interviews with substantial sports guests like Jerry Jones, topical headlines via "Muse in the News" and heady, though sometimes Homerish takes across our sports smorgasbord. Editor's note: Your love life will greatly improve if you make time for the "Ladies Day" segment Thursdays at 9:10 a.m. Editor's note 2: You ladies are more perverted than we ever knew.

WFAA-Channel 8's Dale Hansen may have pushed our policy on term limits had his banter with weatherman Pete Delkus not deteriorated from witty to warped. Doocy has the advantage of batting first in the sports wrap-up show game each Sunday night, and more often than not he takes advantage with a solid, often spectacular Sports Sunday on KDFW-Channel 4. His highlights are comprehensive. His graphics are by far the best on local TV. He provides one-on-one interviews. And his popular "Open Mike" segment gives a voice to everyone from Steve Busby to Greg Williams. Furthermore, we know Hansen is secretly jealous of Doocy's perfectly coiffed hair. Actually, that's not a secret.

Last year he didn't push his team to the NBA Finals as in 2006 or win Most Valuable Player as in 2007, but the giant German is now and will be into the foreseeable future the heart and soul of the Mavs. Plus, anyone who bit his lip under Avery Johnson's reign deserves some sort of plaque, right? Nowitzki again was an All-Star and an All-NBA selection with his nightly 20 points and 10 rebounds, but his guts were better than ever. He suffered a horrific fall against the Spurs in March, seemingly breaking a leg or at least shredding a knee. But there he was less than a week later, willing the Mavs to a playoff spot. Never call him soft again.

There are teams with wackier names (the Grand Prairie AirHogs) and teams that play in more obscure leagues (the Dallas Diamonds of the Independent Women's Football League), but nobody does small ball like the Frisco RoughRiders. There's a pool in the outfield, a cowboy mascot that rides a black horse, and the baseball ain't bad either. If you're looking for a night at the ballpark but don't want to watch the Texas Rangers, the Roughriders are a nice alternative. Plus, unlike some of those other franchises, you may see a future star in Frisco.

We suppose you instead wanted Tom Hicks? Didn't think so. Sure, the Cowboys' owner is asking for your family's DNA in return for a seat at his new Jonestown coliseum in Arlington, but you can't deny the guy's unyielding desire to win. This offseason alone, he paid about $70 million in guaranteed salaries to retain players such as Flozell Adams, Marion Barber, Terrell Owens, Terence Newman and Ken Hamlin. The Cowboys are profitable. The new stadium will no doubt be a financial windfall. But unlike Hicks, Jones reinvests his money in the team in an attempt to improve the product. And, who knows, he might even convince Mark Cuban to host a future NBA All-Star Game.

We all know that golf is less a sport than a Zen exercise in patience, but who's got time for that? At TopGolf Dallas, you don't have to endure a four-hour, 18-hole marathon in order to get your duffer's competitive juices flowing. TopGolf is a huge complex that at first glance looks like nothing more than your usual double-decker driving range. But it's really the coolest way to practice your game. Here's why (and, bear with us, it's a new concept, after all): See, each range ball contains a little microchip inside it. When you buy a bucket of balls, the chip registers your name for each ball. The driving range isn't your usual burr-laden wasteland; it's actually a huge swath of targets, expanding in concentric circles out from different flagsticks. When you hit a target, you get a certain number of points, all of which are tallied up on a computer right next to you. It sounds confusing, but it's not, and it's damn fun. You are welcome to bring your own clubs, try out TopGolf's loaner sets or check out a new driver at the pro shop. The complex is enormous too, with meeting spaces, executive suites, outdoor misters, bars, a restaurant with an actual executive chef, a 54-hole Disney-scale mini-golf course...it is, really and truly, fun for the whole family. Oh, and one more thing. There are "caddies"—OK, really, they're hot lady servers—who'll bring you beer while you play. It's like being in a videogame. But with beer.

As much as we respect Jason Kidd, man, we really miss the former Mavericks point guard of the future. Don't you? He was young. Had impeccable character. He was a one-man fast break. Sure he didn't hyper-develop like Deron Williams or Chris Paul, but you get the feeling all Harris needs to become an elite point guard is the addition of a jumper and the subtraction of Avery Johnson's handcuffs. Never liked the trade that brought Dallas Kidd in exchange for half its team and all its future. While Harris continues to develop as a New Jersey Net, the Mavs are left with a tiny window and an older, slower leader. Could be wrong, but giving up on Harris may turn out to be owner Mark Cuban's worst move since he climaxed The Benefactor with Jenga.

Kinda by default, admittedly. Avery Johnson got fired. Ron Washington almost got fired. And the only reason Dave Tippett didn't get fired is because everyone forgot about hockey. Phillips basically generated action from inaction. His laid-back, country-fried persona was just what the Cowboys needed in the wake of a Sergeant Asshole named Bill Parcells. Phillips set the tone immediately, referring to his best receiver as "Terrell Owens" instead of merely "the player." Geez, it ain't rocket science. Shackles removed and pressure evacuated, the Cowboys won 13 games and produced a record 13 Pro Bowlers. His "the best team didn't win" whine/rant after the playoff loss to the Giants wasn't very becoming, but it still feels like Phillips is the right guy at the right time. Of course, if the Cowboys don't win the Super Bowl this season, the son of a Bum will find himself winning "Best Coach to be Fired" in next year's issue.

When you're a fledgling independent minor league baseball franchise trying to carve a niche in the metroplex's saturated sports landscape, nothing is off limits. At least that's how the Grand Prairie AirHogs tried to justify tempting karma by giving away a $10,000 funeral—complete with plot, headstone and casket—at a game in June. The genius promotion, highlighted by fans dressed in black and pallbearer races between innings, received publicity on ESPN and in publications across the country. Ironically, the funeral was won by a 60-year-old woman who had undergone 20 surgeries for various medical ailments. Toldja God works in mysterious ways.

It pales in comparison to Jerry Jones' new $1 billion stadium in Arlington, but for a mere $184.95 you can hack it around one of Texas' premier tracks. If you don't mind the constant stream of thunderous airplanes that use Cowboys' 18th fairway to line up a runway, you can almost convince yourself you've left the city. Dramatic elevation changes. Unique views. And, far as we can tell, not a blade of grass out of place. Even the putting green—shaped like a star, of course—is immaculate. Inside the clubhouse are replica Super Bowl trophies. Outside, you might just run into Cowboys such as Tony Romo or Terry Glenn. For your exorbitant fee, you get range balls, golf and all the food and non-alcoholic drinks you can inhale. Sample the jalapeño sausage near the 14th tee. You won't be sorry. Until the next day.

Though his arrival cost the Rangers a National League Cy Young candidate in Edinson Volquez, Hamilton's impact and future have overshadowed even the return of Nolan Ryan. The slugger has overcome his well-chronicled drug demons—hope you're taking notes, Pacman Jones and Josh Howard—to become the face of the Rangers franchise and baseball's best story of the season. Hamilton had 95 RBI at the All-Star Break, had the Rangers above .500 into August and had us goose-bumping during an unforgettable, 28-dinger performance at the Home Run Derby in Yankee Stadium. Most impressive, the center fielder landed on the cover of Sports Illustrated, attracted the national media to Arlington and made the Rangers again relevant. For all the right reasons.

In another year in which most of our teams cock-teased us with regular-season foreplay and playoff impotence, the Stars finally gave us reason to explode. On a Sunday night in early May, the Stars advanced to the NHL Western Conference Finals with a classic 2-1 victory over the San Jose Sharks at American Airlines Center. In an epic hockey game that climaxed a fantastic series and prompted lots of bleary eyes, Brenden Morrow scored in the fourth overtime—at 1:23 a.m., thank you very much. After goalies Marty Turco and Evgeni Nabokov traded unfathomable saves for more than five hours, Stephane Robidas sent a nifty pass in the crease to Morrow, who tapped in the Game 6 series clincher and the goal that ended the eighth-longest game in NHL history and the third-longest in Stars' history. The game reminded us again that there's nothing in sports quite like playoff overtime hockey. Screw David Blaine, Stars fans can hold their breath 20 minutes at a time.

Before JerryWorld opens its doors and grabs this title for the next decade, Quik-Trip Park in Grand Prairie stands as the best place to catch a ballgame. Sure, it's minor league baseball, but this team is good (the AirHogs made it to the championship series this season), and the fan experience at the park offers the most variety and bang for the buck. There's not a bad seat in the house, and with tickets ranging from $6 to $12, it doesn't set you back a couple hundred bucks just to have a night out with the wife and kids. Speaking of the kiddos, they'll enjoy shooting hoops, playing Wiffle ball and golfing in the park attached to the stadium while you head out to the sports bar or cigar bar in left field for a cocktail.

Once upon a time he sheepishly accepted the team's "C" from longtime icon Mike Modano. But this spring he unceremoniously shoved ol' Mo' to the third line and clearly ascended to one of our best two-way athletes. In Dallas' spirited three-series playoff run, captain Morrow was like the legendary Mark Messier, physically checking opponents off their skates at one end and using his finesse to slip pucks past goalies at the other. Modano is the franchise's all-time leading scorer, and there's a spot reserved for his No. 9 in American Airlines Center's rafters, but the face of the franchise now belongs to Morrow.

After a year of boot camp workouts elsewhere, we thought we were ready for this. Then the CrossFight class started. Running, crawling, kicking, punching, push-ups, sit-ups, jump-rope, weights. It's a killer 90 minutes that tests every muscle in the body and produces more sweat than a group hug at NFL training camp. At a dojo tucked into a woodsy corner of Bachman Lake, martial arts master Dr. Nick Chamberlain and Canadian Olympic boxer Martin Mazzera take students through an intense, well-thought-out program of exercise that combines aerobics, plyometrics, interval training, self-defense, kickboxing and martial arts. Halfway through each class, everyone heads toward the lake for a "horse and rider" run (or in our case, slog) up and down a steep hill. In 90 days the training significantly pares fat, improves conditioning and strength, and takes students from slugs to sluggers. Sounds grueling—and it is—but it's also surprisingly fun. And the friendly atmosphere at the studio makes out-of-shape newcomers feel welcome. Students range from schoolkids to women in their 60s. Best part of the workout? When it's over you feel like you've really taken that first step toward getting in the best shape of your life.

Assume that one day humans overcome physics' celestial speed limit and head to the stars. What shape will commercial space travel take?

If predicting the future were as simple as extrapolating from the present, we could make a few educated guesses: Checking a bag will cost you $1.7 million; you will be scanned by a jaded, cranky robot before you board; and your personal hibernation pod will be situated immediately in front of one cradling a colicky baby.

And the spaceport you fly from? It will probably resemble the new billion-dollar-plus Cowboys stadium rising on the Arlington landscape. It's certainly big enough and packed with enough gee-whiz gadgetry.

When we met Bryan Trubey, design principal for the stadium with HKS Architects Sports and Entertainment Group, we intended to talk about its futuristic, high-tech touches. The stadium's two monumental arches, for instance, weigh 3,255 tons each and span 1,290 feet, rising 320 feet above the playing field—high enough to hold the Statue of Liberty upright. The arches will support the world's largest domed roof, which will cover about 661,000 square feet and include twin-paneled doors that retract to reveal a 105,000-square-foot opening that mimics the opening in Texas Stadium, left there so God can still watch his favorite team. Massive, clear 180-foot-wide doors cap the end zones. A canted glass exterior wall floods the interior with light. The world's largest video boards hang 110 feet above the field.

And so on. The tally proves that the stadium will be, as promised, one of a kind. But what the numbers don't capture is its sleek, futuristic beauty. For all its massiveness, the dome's sweeping arches and canted glass give it the air of a spacecraft. In artist's renderings, the dome appears to be waiting to leap into flight.

That's a long way from the industrial, men-at-work feel of today's Texas Stadium—but then so are today's Cowboys. And that's the point. For Trubey, designing the Cowboys' home was a process that began with defining the team's brand.

"My thing has always been context," he says. "For me, it was never about what my personal expression would be and applying that on every project I get so that I have a branded look. "

That becomes clear when you compare the Cowboys' stadium plans with the recently opened Lucas Oil Stadium in Indianapolis, another HKS project on which Trubey was design principal. Where the Pokes' home is a sleek, modernistic ellipse, the Colts' new $720 million digs, with its red-brick exterior, gable roof and exterior trusses, have the air of a Midwestern factory, evoking that city's blue-collar manufacturing history.

For the Cowboys, Trubey and the HKS team had to look beyond the obvious, namely, the team's name. Anyone familiar with the hip, money-making enterprise that Jerry Jones and family have assembled knows that the team that Terrell Owens calls home isn't about Stetsons, piped shirts and pointy boots. The Cowboys are a world icon for sport, says Trubey, whose family has lived in Oak Cliff for a century. Like the New York Yankees and Great Britain's Manchester United, Dallas Cowboys is a name recognizable internationally.

"When companies want to project to the international audience...they choose when they build something to project an image in a very progressive, modern, edgy way," Trubey says. "And so that led us toward a modernist expression for the stadium itself. We wanted the building to project all those characteristics...all under the context of modern architecture."

The Jones family was also committed to building "an important piece of civic architecture," he says, and were willing to commit the money to create it (as were voters in Arlington, which will kick in $100 million toward building the dome.)

Art and marketing. Corporate branding, modernism and football's grungy, high-tech glitz. All of it is blended together and brought to life on a gargantuan scale to create a vision that looks distinctly toward the future while keeping one foot in tradition. You can't get much more "Dallas" than that, and the fact that the stadium will open next year in a suburb midway between Dallas and Fort Worth somehow just seems that much more appropriate.

"Sports teams globally, when they build a building, they're not like a retailer. They don't have 1,500 chances to get it right," Trubey says. "The building will be the dominant physical expression of the team worldwide, especially with a brand like Cowboys."

It could very well be the dominant expression of Texas in the world. Rome has its Coliseum, the icon of Roman power for two millennia. We ask Trubey if he felt extra pressure from the idea that he could be not just creating a really big building—and helping spend more than a billion bucks—but defining a culture for centuries.

Trubey modestly demurs. He knows he's been blessed with the chance to work on major projects in a profession he loves. He emphasizes the role of patrons like the Joneses in supporting massive projects such as the stadium.

"Well-maintained," he says simply, "the building could last indefinitely."Patrick Williams