Deep in the heat of
Texas
 This is the fifth in a series of postcards Sports
Illustrated's Peter King will e-mail from his annual NFL
training-camp
tour.
Posted: Tue July 28,
1998
July
27: Wichita Falls,
Texas
TEAM: Dallas
Cowboys
SITE: Midwestern State University in Wichita Falls, a town of
96,000 in north Texas, 140 miles northwest of Dallas. A
classic midsized campus with stately brick buildings, MSU
is scarred by the security fencing that rings and bisects
the place so football
heroes can live in relative
peace.
FOOD: One of the best chow lines for players in the league. (You
expected maybe Hardee's?) I had the linguini with tomato
sauce, a side of steamed vegetables, a garlic roll and a
slice of cheese-and-chicken pizza, with the Minute Maid
raspberry lemonade.
Rumor has it the soft-serve twist cones are delicious. I
wouldn't know. I had the plain
vanilla.
Dear
NFL Junkie:
Texas. Oven. Same
thing.
On the drive here (Wow! Speed limit 75 on country
highways!), fields are brown and cows are slim. Ranchers
have got to be in a very bad way ... More beef jerky stands
beside the road than in convenience stores ... Watched The
Weather Channel last night
in the Wichita Falls Fairfield Inn. The local forecast read:
"Highs Monday around 106.'' ... Security officer at
the Cowboys dorm said: "But it's a dry heat. If this
was humid, like Houston, we'd all be falling down.'' Dry
heat, schmy heat. We stand
outside, and we bake ... Wichita Falls radio guy reminds
listeners: "It hasn't been under 80 degrees, even at
night, for 23 days.'' ... Crowd of 2,300 for the 95-degree
morning practice (with a heat index of 99). A 5-mph breeze
from the south barely makes it
tolerable ... I watch practice for a while with ace
Atlanta
Journal-Constitution NFL writer
Len
Pasquarelli and CNN football expert
Ron
Meyer, the former Colts and Patriots coach. Meyer scans the
stands and says: "We wish we'd have had this size a
crowd in Indianapolis—for home games.'' ... I have to
find shade, so I stand in the only shady spot that is not a
VIP tent—the 25-foot high Pepsi
ball—for the last half-hour of practice ... Oh, things
are so much better in the afternoon, when the players come
out in shorts and light shoulder pads and light jerseys.
It's 104, with a heat index of
106.
But it's a dry heat.
—P.K.
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