Jerry Jones

Early life

Jones was born on October 13, 1942, in Los Angeles, California, to John "Pat" and Arminta Jones. The family moved back to North Little Rock, Arkansas, in 1945. His parents owned two branches of Pat's Super Market in the Rose City neighborhood of North Little Rock. Jones was a running back at North Little Rock High School, graduating in 1960. After his graduation, Jones' parents moved to Springfield, Missouri, where Pat was president and chairman of Modern Security Life Insurance Co. The company, which an advertisement billed as a "one in a million" company, saw its assets increase from $440,299.76 in its first statement in 1961 to $6,230,607 in 1965 ($4,643,041.96 to $62,365,606.91 in 2024). After graduating from the University of Arkansas, Jerral W. Jones was listed as an executive vice president. With the success of the company, the Joneses assembled the 5,500-acre (2,200 ha) Buena Vista Ranch east of Springfield in Rogersville, Missouri, in the Ozark Mountains. In 1971, after selling the insurance company, the couple carved out 400 acres (160 ha) of their ranch to start Buena Vista Animal Paradise, where tourists could visit exotic animals (now Wild Animal Safari in Strafford, Missouri).

Personal life

Jones married Eugenia Chambers in 1963, whom he met while both were college undergraduates. They have three children. Stephen is the Cowboys' chief operating officer, executive vice president, and director of player personnel. Charlotte is the Cowboys' executive vice president and chief brand officer. Jerry Jones Jr. is the Cowboys' chief sales and marketing officer/vice president. Jones splits his time between a home in Highland Park, Texas and a home in Destin, Florida. Jones was close friends and neighbors with Kansas City Chiefs owner Lamar Hunt. The two lived in an upscale neighborhood in Dallas. Since 1998, their teams have played for the Preston Road Trophy, which was commissioned by Hunt to add a competitive nature to their friendship. When the trophy changed hands, Hunt and Jones usually played pranks on the other. Jones revealed in July 2015 at a press conference before Cowboys training camp that he had undergone hip replacement surgery, joking that he would not start the season on the PUP list. As of November 2024, Jones' net worth is reported by Forbes to be $16.1 billion, the majority of which can be accounted for as being his ownership stake in the Cowboys who are currently valued by the same publication to be the world's most valuable sports team at $10.1 billion. In March 2022, Jones was served with legal action by a 25-year-old woman who claimed that he is her biological father. The woman is the daughter of a former airline employee that Jones met in Little Rock, Arkansas. Jones has paid nearly $3 million to the woman and her mother, which included the woman's full tuition at Southern Methodist University and a $70,000 Range Rover on her 16th birthday. Requests for money and other expenses exceeded the amount that Jones agreed to pay in the trust agreement between the parties by nearly $1 million over the years, including $33,000 for a "Sweet 16" birthday party, which was featured on the reality TV show Big Rich Texas. On February 29, 2024, a court decision required Jones to undergo a paternity test concerning the woman's claim. Concurrently, Jones filed a counter lawsuit for a breach of the original settlement agreement executed nearly two years after woman was born which included "If Mother or Child, or any person on behalf of Child, brings or commences any kind of legal proceeding seeking to establish the paternity of Child... , Putative Father may, in his sole discretion, elect to terminate the Agreement and the Funding Trust and the Distribution Trust, or either of them, and enforce any and all remedies available to him at law or in equity. A breach of this provision shall be considered a breach of the entire Agreement." During the trial in the countersuit, the trial abruptly ended as "Jones agreed to drop the countersuit if the women dismissed pending lawsuits against him, including one where the billionaire was ordered to take a DNA test". In November 2022, a 1957 photo surfaced depicting a 14-year-old Jones witnessing Whi

Career

Jones attended the University of Arkansas, where he was a member of Kappa Sigma fraternity. He was co-captain of Arkansas' 1964 national championship football team. He was an offensive lineman for College Football Hall of Fame coach Frank Broyles and a teammate of college football and NFL coach Jimmy Johnson, whom Jones hired as his first head coach after purchasing the Cowboys. Other notable teammates were Glen Ray Hines, a consensus All-American offensive tackle; Ken Hatfield, who went on to coach several major programs including Arkansas; Jim Lindsey; future Outland Trophy winner Loyd Phillips; and College Football Hall of Fame linebacker Ronnie Caveness. Several future head coaches were assistant coaches for Broyles on the Razorbacks' staff during Jones' college career in Fayetteville, including three more members of the College Football Hall of Fame: Hayden Fry (Southern Methodist University, North Texas State University, and the University of Iowa); Johnny Majors (Iowa State University, University of Pittsburgh, and the University of Tennessee), and Barry Switzer (University of Oklahoma, and later head coach of the Cowboys under Jones).

According to an interview with Jones on HBO, after graduating from college in 1965, he borrowed a million dollars from Jimmy Hoffa's Teamsters union to open up a string of Shakey's Pizza Parlor restaurants in Missouri. When that venture failed, Jones was given a job at his father's insurance company, Modern Security Life of Springfield, Missouri. He received his master's degree in business in 1970. After several other unsuccessful business ventures (including an attempt, again using Teamsters money, to purchase the American Football League's San Diego Chargers in 1966), he began an oil and gas exploration business in Arkansas, Jones Oil and Land Lease, which became successful. His privately held company currently does natural resource prospecting. In 2008, Jones formed a partnership with Yankee Global Enterprises to create Legends Hospitality, a food, beverage, merchandise, retail, and stadium operations corporation serving entertainment venues.