September 7, 2021 • 40 mins
It’s great to interview childhood heroes, and Roger Staubach a.k.a “Captain America,” was a big one for a young Alec Baldwin. Stuabach was a Dallas Cowboy quarterback for eleven seasons, 1969 and 1980, and he led the team to the Super Bowl wins in 1972 and 1978. Staubach earned Super Bowl MVP in 1972. Growing up an only child in Cincinnati, Roger Staubach loved sports but didn’t start playing quarterback until high school. He went on to the Naval Academy, where he received the Heisman Trophy. He then served four years in the Navy, including a tour in Vietnam. Roger Staubach was inducted into the Football Hall of Fame in 1985, and he was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2018.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:02):
I'm Alec Baldwin and you're listening to Here's the Thing
from my Heart Radio. Professional sports have a way of
turning mere mortals into legends. As a football obsessed kid
myself in the nineteen seventies, there were a few players
more exciting to watch than Dallas Cowboys quarterback Roger Staubach.
(00:23):
He was nimble, strong, and man could he throw a football.
Starbuck earned the nickname Captain America in part because of
his four years of service in the Navy, including a
tour in Vietnam. He won a Heisman Trophy while at
the Naval Academy. He was inducted into the Football Hall
of Fame in and he was awarded the Presidential Medal
(00:46):
of Freedom in two thousand eighteen. Roger star Back played
eleven seasons with the Cowboys, leading them to the Super
Bowl four times. They won under Starbuck in seventy two
and seventy eight, and Roger was Super Bowl m v
P in nineteen seventy two. Starbucks Cowboys had nearly two
dozen comeback wins in the fourth quarter, many of them
(01:09):
in the final two minutes of a game or in overtime.
When he retired in nineteen eighty, Roger Starbuck had one
of the highest career passer ratings in NFL history. After
he left pro ball, he built the Starbuck Company, one
of the most successful corporate real estate companies in the country.
Competition comes naturally to Roger Starbuck. Well, you know, the
(01:34):
competitive side. Looking back, people have said a lot about
you know that that knew me when I was growing
up and everything. And I was an only child, lived
in Cincinnati, Ohio, and my parents were great, and they
you know, really I kept saying that, you know, I
like to have a brother or a sister, because all
(01:55):
of our neighbors had, like the Bean family down the street.
There was nine Beans and and everybody they were brothers
and sisters. So I wanted to be an athlete, and
I started playing basketball. I started playing baseball and football.
I didn't get started until I was in the seventh grade.
And I really wanted to do it to have my
(02:15):
parents proud of me, and so it was. Uh so
I really was competitive on trying to be the best
that I could be at what I was going to do.
And you know, there's an old saying there's no traffic
jams on the extra mile, And I always feel that
I've given that extra in sports. And it started that way,
and it started because of my parents and I wanted
(02:37):
them to be proud of me. And so I was
a pretty decent baseball player and basketball player. And then
in the seventh grade I went out and made the
football team. I was a running back and then I
was a receiver and and then the coach at in
our high school switched me to be quarterback and changed
my life. I didn't really want to be a quarterback,
but my dad told me as a baseball player, one
(02:58):
time the catcher got hurt and they were gonna put
me then a catcher, and I said, I don't know
put that equipment on. It's you know, too hot out here.
And he just said, just try to be the best
catcher you can be. And so so I caught for
about nine years after that. And I had the same
thing when when coach McCarthy wanted me to be the quarterback,
(03:19):
I said, you know, I'm going to try to be
the best quarterback I can be because I and and
it really changed my life because I don't think i'd
be here on the show, I like if I hadn't
started to play quarterback. So I was very competitive, and
a lot of that was because I wanted my parents
to really be proud of me as far as what
I did in sports. And was it also a case
(03:40):
because I know that in my childhood I'm the opposite.
I got three brothers and we would be There was
a nine whole public golf course, very famous, little spot
in our in our neighborhood, but there were little seams
along the fairway where the lay of the of the
whole would leave a little margin of land off to
the side, and they had a tree line that would
(04:02):
keep the balls from going into people's houses and going
through their windows, you know, over the fence and in
this spit of land that was our Dallas Stadium. That
was our meadow lands. That was where we played football.
And my mother would scream at us. She'd scream because
if she if she stuck her head out the door
of our house, we were right across the streets. She
yelled for us to come home because we would play
(04:22):
football till it was dark. But it was me and
my brothers, and like the beans. We had other neighbors
who had a lot of kids, and we don't get
together and play touch pick up football we were football junkies,
you know what I mean. Was it also for you
of things where this is where you could hang out
with other guys, This is where you could have brothers,
This is where you could have the kids in your
life more regularly that you didn't have at home. Oh,
(04:44):
sure it was. When I went to St. John's grade school,
sports were away for us to be together is uh
and and even on the playground, you know, we would
play tackle the man with the ball, and I was
always uh heart. I really was hard to tackle sometimes
with the ball. So I went to St. John at Banship,
(05:06):
so it was a grade school, was a Catholic grade school,
and I had a nun in the third grade. I
learned right away, I better get with it. Sister Ala
Wishes got me up against the wall and had me
hold my hands out and I had to hold something
in my hands, and she was tough, but she really
made a difference in my life and taught me that
I better get with it. I better make sure I
do my homework and and so it really helped to
(05:29):
have people that made a difference in your life. And
she was making sure that I was doing what I
was supposed to do, and my mom and dad were
both working, and uh I had a really strong influence
with the nuns at St. John's Evangelists, especially sister Ella Wishes.
I still can see her. I can still see her
(05:49):
pushing me against Roger. Roger, you you better, you better
do this, or you're gonna stand holding your hands out
in this wall all day. And and anyway that that.
Those were the good things that helped helped me a
whole lot. And it carried over into sports because I
was going to try to do the best I could
(06:10):
possibly do in sports, and we had our grade school teams.
I think we really cared about each other and I
learned a lot about teamwork. So it was really kind
of growing up and trying to do the best that
I could do based on what people were telling me,
and and also making my parents proud of me. So
I stayed with it. And when I was switched a
(06:30):
quarterback in football, my life changed. I um, I did
okay at quarterball. Yeah you did okay at quarterball? Just okay,
by the way, Yeah, I don't want you to get
too big ahead. Well you know we lost a Super
Bowl too, Well, we don't we want us to me,
We don't remember that I've been very humbled in in
my life and sports too. So if you're playing a
(06:53):
different position, if you're running back, throwing is such an art.
It's such an art. And when my arm wasn't so
messed up my old I used to love to throw
a football. I used to carry a football in my
car in Los Angeles and with my brother Stephen was
with me. If we were in a traffic jam on
the then tour, if we get out of the car
and throw the football in the highway, just out a
boardom with it would be like, you know, some pile
(07:13):
up somewhere. Throwing a football was something that I was
obsessed with most of my youth. So when you were
a running back, what was you weren't a picturer in baseball?
What was throwing for you? Had you been throwing before
the gave you the nod to be a quarterback? You know,
we we haven't rehearsed anything before. We're talking here and well,
you're Alex, You're you're right on the change in my
(07:36):
life when I they switched me to quarterback is because
coach McCarthy and coach Cincheck I saw that I was
a really good baseball player. I could throw the baseball
and and he just said, he said, Roger, sometimes it
seems like the players listened to you, but we, uh,
we know you've got a good arm, and we want
you to play quarterback. And so it was my senior
in high school when I when I really first played quarterback.
(07:59):
My junior year I played. I was all defense, and
but it was because of my arm. He saw it
me playing baseball and he's the one that uh talked
me into playing quarterback. And he didn't talk me into it.
He said, hey, you're you're gonna work at quarterback. For you,
I'll never forget. Montana came to the set of a
(08:20):
TV show. I was working on thirty Rock with Tina
fe for years and Montana came on the show and
they brought him to my room to meet me. And
I said, to my goh my god, what did you
do to train your arm? Was it? Was it waits?
What was your thing? And and if I think he
was being serious, I don't think he was messing with me.
He said he got a length of medical tubing, like
(08:42):
some kind of flexible rubbery tubing and had that fastened
with a handle with a grip of some kind into
a doorway and he would stand in a doorway and
just rotate his arm and that throwing motion back and
forth to condition me do like a thousand reps of
that just to strength and literally the throwing motion. What
was back then your physical conditioning? Like during the season,
(09:05):
were you weight lifting, were you what was what did
you do to strengthen your arm? Well, back in those days,
it really wasn't in vogue as far as weightlifting and
sports where you just went out and played. We had
baseball practice all the time. We had basketball practice, and
and of course we had football practices. So it was
really at the practices and in the What what I
(09:25):
had was was I did have a baseball arm, and
I kind of when I threw, I had a little,
you know, a motion whereas a quarterback you want to
get rid of the ball, you get keep it up
by the ear. And I didn't really achieve that as
as well as I should. But I had a good
throwing motion, uh, And I had I had a good
velocity on the ball. That made up for maybe that
(09:47):
little hitch I had thrown the ball. But I uh,
you know, learned to throw on a bit on my
own and uh and coaches did work with me on
trying to keep the ball up a little bit, you know,
instead dropping it. But that was from baseball. But it
still comes down to whatever you do and how you throw.
You've got to believe in yourself. And uh and there's
(10:10):
some you know, quarterbacks that are great passers that don't
actually you know, throw the way they're supposed to. And
I was in kind of in the middle of not
exactly throwing the way I should as a quarterback. I
threw more as a baseball player. But it worked, and I, uh,
I really started to to really fall in love with
(10:33):
being a quarterback. I all of a sudden, I really
liked being a quarterback. Now, when you were people I've
spoken to uh in in the modern era, they would
say that throwing a ball was as much engaging their
core and exercising their strengthening their core and their legs.
They strengthened their legs that well, I'll never forget one
guy said that my favorite line. He said, you can't
(10:55):
shoot a cannon out of a canoe and you got
a strengthen your leg get your your legs all nice
and strong, and get a good base below you and
a good foundation below you in your core. And he goes,
and you and you just launched that thing, he says.
He said, I'll never forget this guy said to me.
He goes, I closed my eyes, and you stand twenty
yards away from me, and I'll throw the ball to you.
(11:16):
I'll throw a few to get the whole timing, and
I'll sense where you are, because then I'll close my
eyes and I'll be able to tell you whether the
past was good or not by the way it felt
coming out of my hand, he said. I can tell
I could feel the way my body torud and way
my arm would come, the way I could throw, you know,
to say all that, Alec, the thing that I did,
(11:38):
I worked out all the time, and I was careful
on throwing. You didn't want to over overdo it. And
you know, I warmed up and I tried to, you know,
make sure my arm was ready. I worked out. I
was crazy about working out, and I used to go
out if there was just one other receiver, I would
still act like I was taking a snap and dropping back.
I just didn't just didn't stand there to row the ball.
(12:00):
I really, uh, no, matter what you what, you have
to do in life. You gotta work hard to get there. Yeah. Now,
everybody who's an NFL fan its every detail of your story.
And when it came time for you to go into
the Naval Academy, you must have known, of course that
you owe them the service at the end. Correct, you
knew that was coming. Yes, So when you go to
the Naval Academy and you win the title, and you
(12:23):
the Big Game and you get the Heisman Trophy and
the NFL comes calling, was that all a big surprise
to you? Well, going to the Naval Academy, I wasn't
sure what, you know. I did have some scholarship offers
after high school, but I really played that just that
one year. It was my first year at quarterback, and
we didn't throw a whole lot. We I actually ran
(12:44):
more um and so I wanted to get more experience.
And I wasn't sure what I wanted to do, but
I liked the Naval Cademy. I visited there and then
they told me they said, hey, Roger, you know, we
would like for you to go to junior college one year.
And when the best things I ever did, I went
to Roswald in Mexico and I went to New Mexico
Military Institute. I shot a film It to Me, which
(13:06):
is a really fine school, and it's it's a military
It gave me the at least the warning about the
things I had to do in the military when I
became a plea at the Naval Academy. But it also
I played another year at quarterback and we really had
a good football team. We were a junior college team.
We had a coach named Robert Shaw, who was a
(13:27):
former NFL player and he and he really helped me
a lot at my quarterback position, and and I got
better Instead of level and offer or something, I got
better there and I had a real good, uh junior
college period, and I decided I definitely wanted to go
to the Naval Academy. And I wasn't looking at someday
(13:47):
I was going to play pro football. I was I
wanted to get an education and also be able to
play sports. And I figured that someone better better stay
on me to make sure I got the education. And
I was fortunate to be able to get a chance
to go there and play football, and I actually played
baseball there. For all four years at Navy, I played
(14:09):
baseball and football, and obviously I got a great education,
and I got to learn a lot about the military,
and I spent four years in the military before I
joined the Dallas Cowboys. Now, what year do you enter Annapolis?
You go to the Naval Academy? What year? I went
in sixty one? So when I graduated high school in
sixty I went from high school to the New Mexico
(14:32):
Military and Student and I went to the Naval Academy
and in nineteen sixty one. So when you're there in
sixty one, the Vietnam War is not what it was
about to become. When you go into the Naval Academy,
you go in one end and you come out that
tunnel on the other end in Vietnam becomes a very
very real thing. And so when you go in, I
guess it's sixty five, I'm assuming you start your service.
(14:56):
But when you come out of the Naval Academy and
you're a star collegiate a fleet, will you sit there
kind of going oh God? You know, like I got
to go to Vietnam? Now for four years? Was it?
We were you less than smiling about that? You know?
I went to Vietnam just for one year. Where'd you
go after that? I went to the Penncacal Naval Air Station.
I was a logistics officer, a supply officer. I was
(15:18):
partially color blind, and that limited me. I was not
able to go Navy line or be a be a pilot.
But I was very fortunate I became a Navy logistics
officer and when I went to Vietnam, I wasn't out
there getting shot at. I was in the Dunang and
Chula and we we at that time the Marines occupied
the I Corps area South Vietnam, and those early years there,
(15:42):
we supported the Marines and took care of the Marines.
And in fact I lived at Camp Tinshaw and I
had a couple of my teammates. They were Navy seals.
The seals are pretty new at that time. We were
living together in Camp Tinshaw, right and near to Dunang,
and so I asked him they were coming back one
day and I said, where have you guys been? What
(16:03):
are you doing? Said, hey, listen, stop back. You are
our quarterback, and we listened to you. You were our leader.
But we cannot tell you where we've been, but we
know we're doing a hell of a lot more than
you're doing right now, And so I said, well, yeah, thanks, guys,
(16:24):
I said, I'm quite a bit, but I I admit
I wasn't out there right smack in the middle of everything.
But I wanted to serve that year in Vietnam because
we were at war there and you know, the troops
that were there, and being able to serve them and
being with them meant a lot to me in the
(16:44):
four years I had in the service. Now you go
to Dunangu there for a year, you come back to Pensacola,
you said, correct, Pensacola in Pensacola, and then your military
service is over. Your four years out of your term
in the academy. So I'm guessing you're twenty six years old.
How old were you at that point? I was twenty
(17:06):
six and when I joined the Cowboys. Yeah, right, So
in the seam in between, you finish your military service
and you're gonna go join the Cowboys. Who tells you
that the NFL wants you to come back and start again.
After my junior at Navy, I was drafted, uh, which
was a kind of a surprise by Dallas in Kansas
City that the league hadn't merged yet, and you know,
(17:27):
I was drafted late. You know, they were just betting
on the fact that that I might try to play
again or something. But they both drafted me. And then
when I graduated, my wife and I we got we
get married then, and I was stationed at the Naval
Academy for a few months, and I got a call
from Lamar Hunt who said, Roger, I would like to
come up and talk to you. And I said yes,
(17:49):
Mr Hunting. He said yeah. I said, if you, if
you ever decide you want to play football someday, we
want you to play for the Kansas City Chiefs. And
and because I was drafted by Dallas, I guess there
was you know, there was that that that issue. And
so he came and what a nice person he was.
You know, at the time, I was getting like four
d and twenty dollars a month as an encon and
(18:11):
and uh he offered me a five hundred a month,
ten thousand dollar check, hundred thousand dollar bonus if I
left after my four years and played for Kansas City.
So he was looking to the future. And so I
told Navy a captain who was a legal officer, Navy
Captain Paul Borden, and I said, Captain Born, can I
do this? And I you know if I signed this,
and he said, let me look into it. He came back.
(18:33):
He said, Roger, you have to give your four years
and you can do whatever you want after those four years.
And nothing wrong with you know, taking the money now
if they want to give it to you, you don't
have to You don't have to leave the service. And
he said, but did you have you talked to Dallas
and he and I said no, and he said, well,
let me call him. So he called gil Brandt or
(18:56):
he got ahold of guil It was Gil brand He
talked to who was guilbrand for as soon as they
don't know. Lamar Hunt was the owner of the Chiefs
who wanted the Cowboys then Clint Murkison, and Gil Brandt
was his right hand. Gil's was really uh Mr Football
that and he was in charge of all the drafting
and everything. And so he said, yeah, we we loved
(19:17):
we we'd like to talk to you. So Captain Borden
went and met with the Cowboys and they offered to
say they said they do the same thing. So I agreed.
Then if I ever played again, I'd play for Dallas.
And then I called Mr Hunt back and you know,
told him, and he said, well, Roger, we were just beginning.
I wanted to talk to you more. And I said, well,
I think he was kidding when he said that. He
(19:38):
just said because it wasn't he big. It really wasn't
that big of a deal I had four years ago.
I wasn't sure I was going to ever play again.
When I got back and I was stationed at Pensacola,
I took leave and want to Dallas training camp the
year before I was able to if I was going
to leave the service of it been my fourth year.
(19:59):
I was with the rookies and people there for two weeks.
I really did fine, and Coach Landry gave me a playbook,
which was amazing. So that's when I realized I was
going to play again. And and then I told the
Navy that after my four years, I was going to
go play with the Dallas Cowboys. I went back to
Pensacola for a year and I studied my playbook on
(20:21):
when I could, and I joined the Cowboys in n
Did you contemplate staying in the Service, Oh, I did.
I enjoyed the service, and I felt a little guilty
of but but I I served the time I was
responsible for my four years. I felt I was a
lucky person to get to get that, and at seven
I was still was able to play eleven years in
(20:42):
the NFL. NFL Hall of Famer Roger Starbuck. If you're
fascinated by what it takes to be a world we
now an athlete, check out my conversation with tennis legend
John McEnroe. It turned out that I wanted it lot
more than I realized, or I was able to do
(21:03):
more than I thought I was capable of in terms
of digging deeper and emotionally sort of accepting the challenges
step by step. It took me a long time, you know.
Part of the reason I acted the way I did.
Let's be honest, it's like that fear of failure. Guys
don't cry type of thing, and if you show that,
that's a sign of weakness. So it was sort of
(21:23):
to protect myself so they'd be like, what is this
guy's crazy? Here More of my conversation with John McEnroe
at Here's the Thing dot Org. More with Dallas Cowboys
quarterback Roger Staubach. After this, I'm Alec Baldwin and you're
(21:55):
listening to. Here's the thing. Dallas Cowboys quarterback Roger Staubach
retired in the NFL and its players have changed a
lot since then, but Roger Starbucks says if he were
starting now, he'd still have it. Oh no, no, no,
I definitely feel I could play today. I mean if
I was, if you're starting, yeah, yeah, I would really
(22:19):
enjoy the NFL. They really have gone to trying to
make sure that there's more passing. Back in our era,
the blitzes and the things that they did, we ran
the ball more, we didn't. We didn't throw it, and
you could hit receivers. The ball wasn't in the air.
You could hit them, you know, knock them around. And
so they made the rules change that did improve the
(22:40):
passing game. The players are bigger than faster, but the
position like quarterback. I mean in my year, I could
us throwing the ball as hard as these guys are today.
And I was a runner to you know, I didn't
have crazy speed or anything, but but I knew how
to run in So I I think I could have
fit in fine with today's rules. But I but I
(23:04):
guess in some sense that never goes away, does it?
Like someone said to me, I mean, and I was
not a great football player. You mean like I was
a wide receiver. I was a skinny kid. And as
the guys that I played high school football with, and
they were the stars of my football team. They were
the gods of my high school. Steve Forenza, who was
(23:24):
the quarterback of our football team, who won two championships
in a row. He beat our cross town rival, which
was I'm from Massapequa, Long Island, and they had two
high schools. My father taught at one and was a
football coach of the freshman football program. My dad played
football at s U. He was like a third string
fullback at SU. He played a boys high in Brooklyn.
He was a running back. And my dad was a
big football person. And my point is is that I
(23:46):
go to dinner with these guys and they said to me,
you know, you didn't have a chance when you stepped
on the field to play football as a freshman in
ninth grade. We'd all already played a hundred games of
peewee football. We'd already played a hundred games before you
put the pads on to play your first game. And
I went out there and I played football and these
guys hit each other like they were grown And the
(24:08):
brutality and the and the and I don't want to
say viciousness, but the but the the commitment. These guys
would go flying through the air and stick their forehead
and the other guys stern him and knock him on
the ground. The tackling and the hitting. Forget about the
running and the grace and the athleticism and the throwing
and catching and stuff within the timing, the toughness, the
physical toughness of this guy, these guys was just absolutely
(24:31):
mesmerizing to me. However, I don't start. I don't play
high school football. Well, I'm I'm not good enough to
play to start with these guys. But my point is
I still can't watch an NFL game where my legs
starts to twitch and my toe starts to tap. And
I turned to some let's go outside the street and
go throw the football like you makes you you never
lose the desire to play, am I right? Yeah, that's correct?
(24:54):
And I still, uh, my right arm is still in
pretty decent shapes. I can't throw the ball as cars
I used to, but I can still throw decently. Some
people are you know when you're seventy nine years old.
I still throw with our our kids and grandkids. Now
you play in the NFL, and obviously everything is in
(25:14):
the records. You win two Super Bowls. And my friends
who have won Oscars, the first thing they say when
they go home and they process the euphoria of winning
an Academy award, this pinnacle in your career. Supposedly they
lay their head down on the pillow and the and
the thing that they're thinking is they're going to sleep
that night. Is I gotta get my hands on a
second Oscar because a lot of people have an Oscar,
(25:35):
but not many people have two Oscars. I want to
be in the the two Oscar club, the double club.
Now the same is true for you when you won
the Super Bowl? Was it sweeter for you and more
gratifying when you won the second time? Well that I
think the first time was it was you know, Coach
Landry was when I was stilling in the service, when
they were you know, they lost those tough ones to
(25:58):
Green Bay and Don Meredith was really a fine quarterback
and uh, in fact, he retired when when I joined
the Cowboys, or else I wouldn't have I don't know
what it would have happened if if Don Mereth would
have stayed there with the Cowboys, because I played behind
Craig Morton and for for a while, you know, looking
back on there were some really tough losses that that
(26:19):
the Cowboys had, and so I think the first Super
Bowl win because we were you know, coach Landry was
criticized he couldn't win the big game and the Cowboys
couldn't win the Big game. Winn't winning that game. It
really made a difference in in Cowboy history more than
the second time we won the Super Bowl. That that
(26:40):
that was great. That too, We almost had a different
team than too. We had some just great players that
won the first one, and we uh, we've we added
some a lot of guys retired and we added some
other players when we won the second one against Denver,
and we had in between we had the Steelers twice.
Steelers were really good in the seventies and we lost
twenty one to seventeen and thirty five to thirty one,
(27:02):
and uh, those were almost as bad as losing the
Army Navy game. Steve Kirk. Yeah, so we we were
a winning team the whole eleven years. We we were
in the playoffs every year but one. And uh so
we were in five Super Bowls, and the first one
I was on the bench, but you know we were in.
(27:23):
I did play during the season at times, but the
other two that we won were big deals. I mean,
coach Landry's greatness really showed and how he built a
team from scratch to to winning a couple of Super Bowls.
So it would have been nice when we want a
few more. But you know, winning too wasn't all that bad.
(27:45):
Roger the Dodgers Starbuck. If you're enjoying this conversation, be
sure to follow Here's the Thing on the I Heart
radio apps, Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts when
we come back. Rogers Starbuck was about life after the NFL.
(28:13):
I'm Alec Baldwin and you're listening to Here's the Thing.
In seventy one, the Dallas Cowboys had a quarterback controversy
with its two starters, Craig Morton and Roger Staubach. Long
time Cowboys coach Tom Landry went so far as to
have Morton and Starbuck alternate plays. I asked Starbuck if
(28:33):
this was common back then, No, it wasn't, and I
you know, quarterbacks have a responsibility of not only physically
about throwing and all what they have to do, but
their leaders. And uh so our team was a bit divided.
You know. Craig was a real fine quarterback and very
tall courter. H We actually played each other in college,
and so he was on the Cowboys for four years
(28:55):
and when Don Meredith retired, Craig took over. And so
really it it just came down to making a decision
that you know, the quarterback is not just going in
and out throwing the football, and their leaders and so
the team was a bit divided. We had really a
good team, that's seventy one team. If he would have said, okay,
Craig is going to be the starting quarterback, we still
would have been successful. It's just that one thing. I
(29:18):
love coach Landry, So that was a bit confusing, uh
to Craig and I when he made that decision to
we actually alternated plays. It wasn't just the game itself,
and that was not a I don't think that was
a great decision, but coach Landry. But in the in
the television program Football Life, the One about You, Landry
(29:40):
asked Morton to come to his house and then in
a pretty clipped way to a pretty kind of direct
and cut to the chase way, says, we're going with Roger.
Thank you drive. He wants to say to a man
to man, face to face. I mean, was Morton just
do you think he was just stupefied? What do you
think he knew it was coming? Well, first of all,
(30:02):
Craig Morton is a classy guy. He I'm sure it
hurt him. He did not. He supported me the whole time.
And the next year I got hurt, I separated my shoulder,
and he took over and we really had a good year.
We went to playoffs. So Craig was, I think we
had a mutual respect for each other. He sure, he
(30:23):
sure supported me when coach Landry made that that tough
decision that allowed me to play the starting quarterback. So,
you know, Craig was. I can't say enough nice things
about Craig. Well, I'm assuming though, that you you educate
me about this that that you come in and it's
kind of the advent of the more mobile quarterback. You
were more mobile than Morton? Correct, Yeah, I would say, yeah,
(30:44):
I was. You know, I mean I ran a lot
so a lot. Craig was not no runner. Yeah, and
I you know that that probably helped, but uh, it
still was a passing game. And I think coach just
said we can't have two quarterbacks. That that that this
dividing the team. I I think half the team was
behind me and probably half the team was behind Craig.
And you want the whole team behind somebody, one leader,
(31:07):
one leader. Now, what do you think it was that
made Landry a great coach? Give me a couple of
things about him. His qualities had made him so great? Well,
the coach was really creative. And he when he was
with the Giants as a player, and he I think
he was a defensive coach there back then that you
had the great teams like the Green Bay Packers and others,
(31:28):
they they would have a three man backfield. Maybe one
person would would line up on in a tight situation,
but most of it was three people backfield. And when
he took over for the Cowboys, he really was creative.
And what he said, I need to put together an
offense that really messes up the defense. And that's when
we put in the slot formations and and the people
(31:52):
in motion in the five. We put in the shotgun
formation that we used on third down and down by
the goal line. Everybody thought we were crazy, and I
love that shotgun and I but it helped me because
if I did run, I could at least see, you know,
instead of dropping back, and if I had the ball,
I could so So Coach Landry was really creative as
(32:14):
far as what he did, and he still was in
charge of the offense and the defense, and I think
his creativity was unsurpassed in the NFL. I think a
lot of teams end up copying some of the things
that the coach Landry initiated. He was a very very smart,
great coach, and he was also really a fine human being.
(32:37):
You know some sometimes uh He and I had a
few disagreements now and then, but he always wanted what's
funny is I mean, I would imagine some of your
success is due to a good coach, Like if a
guy comes up, it's a combination of your physical gifts,
it's a combination of your ethic, it's a combination of
your teammates. But then on top of that, there's a
there's another layer, which is coaching. If it really helps,
(33:00):
it's hard to go all the way it's hard to
win the big game. It's hard to have a great
season if you don't have a good coach. Is that true?
That's correct. Yeah. And just like my senior in high school,
coach changed my life when he when he put me
in a quarterback, and uh, we were a winning team
and uh can's you know, our coaches had had a
lot to do with it, and uh and we had
(33:22):
some great players that both on offense and the defense.
It was it was. The seventies were good time for
the Cowboys, except when we were playing the Steelers. I
grew up where it was like the game was coaching.
Like you'd see Stram on the side and you go, God,
I love this guy. The kind of anomaly like Tarkington,
(33:44):
who was a little guy running around. You ran around,
and you ran effectively. I mean, being a football junkie,
I'm always playing these games. Starbuck versus Tarkington two great scramblers.
Now if Starbuck runs effectively and Tarkington ran out of
desperate ation. He was desperate not to get smashed because
he was so small, you know. But any player, you know,
(34:05):
the Dolphins and and Marino who never got a ring,
and I worshiped him and kicking Zonka. These teams of
guys and Mercury Morris, I mean, teams that just get
the wind under their wings. They just take off and
have a great season, you know what I mean. But
what I want to ask you is, who's a quarterback
among many? I'm sure, but dude, who's a quarterback that
you always admired their throwing motion? Who somebody you thought, God,
(34:27):
look at that guy throw that ball. Well, I don't
have anyone on like throwing motion. But in today's quarterback world,
we can we cannot deny what Tom Brady has been doing.
I mean, uh, not only was successful with Patriots, but
in one year he goes to Tampa Bay and takes
(34:49):
him to the super Bowl and wins the Super Bowl.
So I can't argue with anybody that says Brady inconceivable.
Actually what he's done for week quarterbacks? Uh, he he's
something special. Well for for us who are New York fans,
who always have even if it's a kind of a
measured and more subtle, uh you know, feeling towards Boston
(35:11):
and toward New England. I've always been kind of ridding
my teeth about the Patriots and when he was there.
For New Yorkers, we always say to ourselves that Brady
went into the devil in the men's room at an
airport somewhere, and some transaction was made in that men's room.
I don't I agree with you. And I'm a fan
of Bill Belichick's and his his dad coached at Navy.
(35:32):
And I remember Bill when he was he was just
a kid. I was used to be out there throwing
the football sometimes. I think he was at practice after school.
And and so I, uh of course followed him and
followed Brady through. Uh I'm you know, I'm the Cowboys
are my my favorite team. I just want to throw
that in there. But but but I've I've I was.
(35:55):
I've been a fan of Bill Belichick's also, and and
so I don't know what happened there. Some deal was
made with the devil. Gotta be Now, let me ask
you this, married to the same woman for fifty years,
five kids, super Bowl champion, Heisman Trophy winner. I mean,
you are probably one of the two or three most
heroic sized football players, if not athletes, in history. And
(36:19):
here you are this amazing person who I'm told you
went into the real estate business, initially because you wanted
to make some money. You weren't getting paid all that
much money in the football game. And is that correct.
You started in real estate as a side job. Well,
I I did, yes, but I it wasn't just strictly
in the off season. And that's how I got started.
And then I when I retired, I started my own company.
(36:41):
And yeah, I got involved with real estate. And part
of it was the fact is that we had three
children born in the Navy, and we added two more
on Texas soil, so we had a family of five.
And my first year's salary with the Cowboys was twenty
five dollars, which back then it was it was okay.
But I I did work in the off season for
(37:01):
h for the Henry Miller company. You're right and that,
but I understand that since then the real estate game
has gone quite well for you. Correct, Yes, it uh yeah,
but it was it was over, you know, thirty forty
years we we sold our company to the Starbuck Company,
was sold to Jones Lying Less Hole, which is j
l L. But you build a good company, we did, yeah,
(37:22):
and and and the Starbuck people that are they're working
at JLL have done great there and it's uh so,
I spent ten years with when we sold the company,
and uh so, I've been involved real estate a long
long time, and but it's you know, it's part of
my life and making sure I could My wife and
I we we've been married, actually fifty six years. She
(37:44):
she's gonna say, hey, Alex and fifty six I apologize.
Tell your wife, I apologize for Let me just say this,
which is that with your legendary image, Captain America, all
this stuff with your legendary image is a sports figure
and just a style with citizen everybody. Just I'm sure
it was I saw this on the show. They were
(38:04):
all hectoring you about going into politics and running for office,
and you said that that didn't interest interest you. Were
you ever tempted? Now? I mean, you know, I really
when I started working in the off season, I was
committed to work in the real estate. And then I
started my own company, and and uh I said, well,
you know, what can I run for politics? What am
(38:25):
I gonna do walk away from my company? And uh
so I had a game plan that was outside of politics,
and that was to participate in the business world. Well, listen,
I want to say to you, And I really mean this.
I mean sports occupy a place in people's lives which
enters their lives in a very unique way. As you know.
I mean, even though movies became very important to me
(38:47):
and loving movies, but before that, you asked somebody, I
didn't want to be Humphrey Bogart. I didn't want to
be Carry Grant. I wanted to be Nameth. I wanted
to be uh, Jimmy Brown. I wanted to be uh,
you know, United, And I wanted to be you. And
you know that the way that sports get into your
blood and get into your in terms of the excitement
(39:08):
watching a great NFL game, even with a team that's
not a great team. You know, any given Sunday, you
know they can rise up and they can beat that
other guy. All these NFL teams there's some parody there,
some have the upper hand. And watching you over these
years and watching your career from when I was very young,
you really are one of your You're probably one of
the three or four greatest sports figures in history. I mean,
(39:30):
you really are such an inspiration to people. How you
lived your life. You know, the Catholic boy from Cincinnati
who goes on to marry. We're married to the same woman,
five kids, Naval Academy, Heisman, two Super Bowls, the whole,
the company, the whole shebang. You've had such a great,
great life. I hope you're as content as people imagine
you would be with what you've done with your life. Well,
(39:53):
I thank you, Alec. It's I've been fortunate with the
people in my life, and UH still feel that way.
I got lot of a lot of great friends, and
you're sure appreciative of just being around. Dallas Cowboys quarterback
Roger Staubach. We're produced by Kathleen Russo, Carrie donohue, and
(40:14):
Zach McNeice. Our engineer is Frank Imperial. I'm Alec Baldwin.
Here's the thing. Is brought to you by my Heart Radio.
I'm Alec Baldwin and you're listening to Here's the Thing
from my Heart Radio. Professional sports have a way of
turning mere mortals into legends. As a football obsessed kid
myself in the nineteen seventies, there were a few players
more exciting to watch than Dallas Cowboys quarterback Roger Staubach.
(00:23):
He was nimble, strong, and man could he throw a football.
Starbuck earned the nickname Captain America in part because of
his four years of service in the Navy, including a
tour in Vietnam. He won a Heisman Trophy while at
the Naval Academy. He was inducted into the Football Hall
of Fame in and he was awarded the Presidential Medal
(00:46):
of Freedom in two thousand eighteen. Roger star Back played
eleven seasons with the Cowboys, leading them to the Super
Bowl four times. They won under Starbuck in seventy two
and seventy eight, and Roger was Super Bowl m v
P in nineteen seventy two. Starbucks Cowboys had nearly two
dozen comeback wins in the fourth quarter, many of them
(01:09):
in the final two minutes of a game or in overtime.
When he retired in nineteen eighty, Roger Starbuck had one
of the highest career passer ratings in NFL history. After
he left pro ball, he built the Starbuck Company, one
of the most successful corporate real estate companies in the country.
Competition comes naturally to Roger Starbuck. Well, you know, the
(01:34):
competitive side. Looking back, people have said a lot about
you know that that knew me when I was growing
up and everything. And I was an only child, lived
in Cincinnati, Ohio, and my parents were great, and they
you know, really I kept saying that, you know, I
like to have a brother or a sister, because all
(01:55):
of our neighbors had, like the Bean family down the street.
There was nine Beans and and everybody they were brothers
and sisters. So I wanted to be an athlete, and
I started playing basketball. I started playing baseball and football.
I didn't get started until I was in the seventh grade.
And I really wanted to do it to have my
(02:15):
parents proud of me, and so it was. Uh so
I really was competitive on trying to be the best
that I could be at what I was going to do.
And you know, there's an old saying there's no traffic
jams on the extra mile, And I always feel that
I've given that extra in sports. And it started that way,
and it started because of my parents and I wanted
(02:37):
them to be proud of me. And so I was
a pretty decent baseball player and basketball player. And then
in the seventh grade I went out and made the
football team. I was a running back and then I
was a receiver and and then the coach at in
our high school switched me to be quarterback and changed
my life. I didn't really want to be a quarterback,
but my dad told me as a baseball player, one
(02:58):
time the catcher got hurt and they were gonna put
me then a catcher, and I said, I don't know
put that equipment on. It's you know, too hot out here.
And he just said, just try to be the best
catcher you can be. And so so I caught for
about nine years after that. And I had the same
thing when when coach McCarthy wanted me to be the quarterback,
(03:19):
I said, you know, I'm going to try to be
the best quarterback I can be because I and and
it really changed my life because I don't think i'd
be here on the show, I like if I hadn't
started to play quarterback. So I was very competitive, and
a lot of that was because I wanted my parents
to really be proud of me as far as what
I did in sports. And was it also a case
(03:40):
because I know that in my childhood I'm the opposite.
I got three brothers and we would be There was
a nine whole public golf course, very famous, little spot
in our in our neighborhood, but there were little seams
along the fairway where the lay of the of the
whole would leave a little margin of land off to
the side, and they had a tree line that would
(04:02):
keep the balls from going into people's houses and going
through their windows, you know, over the fence and in
this spit of land that was our Dallas Stadium. That
was our meadow lands. That was where we played football.
And my mother would scream at us. She'd scream because
if she if she stuck her head out the door
of our house, we were right across the streets. She
yelled for us to come home because we would play
(04:22):
football till it was dark. But it was me and
my brothers, and like the beans. We had other neighbors
who had a lot of kids, and we don't get
together and play touch pick up football we were football junkies,
you know what I mean. Was it also for you
of things where this is where you could hang out
with other guys, This is where you could have brothers,
This is where you could have the kids in your
life more regularly that you didn't have at home. Oh,
(04:44):
sure it was. When I went to St. John's grade school,
sports were away for us to be together is uh
and and even on the playground, you know, we would
play tackle the man with the ball, and I was
always uh heart. I really was hard to tackle sometimes
with the ball. So I went to St. John at Banship,
(05:06):
so it was a grade school, was a Catholic grade school,
and I had a nun in the third grade. I
learned right away, I better get with it. Sister Ala
Wishes got me up against the wall and had me
hold my hands out and I had to hold something
in my hands, and she was tough, but she really
made a difference in my life and taught me that
I better get with it. I better make sure I
do my homework and and so it really helped to
(05:29):
have people that made a difference in your life. And
she was making sure that I was doing what I
was supposed to do, and my mom and dad were
both working, and uh I had a really strong influence
with the nuns at St. John's Evangelists, especially sister Ella Wishes.
I still can see her. I can still see her
(05:49):
pushing me against Roger. Roger, you you better, you better
do this, or you're gonna stand holding your hands out
in this wall all day. And and anyway that that.
Those were the good things that helped helped me a
whole lot. And it carried over into sports because I
was going to try to do the best I could
(06:10):
possibly do in sports, and we had our grade school teams.
I think we really cared about each other and I
learned a lot about teamwork. So it was really kind
of growing up and trying to do the best that
I could do based on what people were telling me,
and and also making my parents proud of me. So
I stayed with it. And when I was switched a
(06:30):
quarterback in football, my life changed. I um, I did
okay at quarterball. Yeah you did okay at quarterball? Just okay,
by the way, Yeah, I don't want you to get
too big ahead. Well you know we lost a Super
Bowl too, Well, we don't we want us to me,
We don't remember that I've been very humbled in in
my life and sports too. So if you're playing a
(06:53):
different position, if you're running back, throwing is such an art.
It's such an art. And when my arm wasn't so
messed up my old I used to love to throw
a football. I used to carry a football in my
car in Los Angeles and with my brother Stephen was
with me. If we were in a traffic jam on
the then tour, if we get out of the car
and throw the football in the highway, just out a
boardom with it would be like, you know, some pile
(07:13):
up somewhere. Throwing a football was something that I was
obsessed with most of my youth. So when you were
a running back, what was you weren't a picturer in baseball?
What was throwing for you? Had you been throwing before
the gave you the nod to be a quarterback? You know,
we we haven't rehearsed anything before. We're talking here and well,
you're Alex, You're you're right on the change in my
(07:36):
life when I they switched me to quarterback is because
coach McCarthy and coach Cincheck I saw that I was
a really good baseball player. I could throw the baseball
and and he just said, he said, Roger, sometimes it
seems like the players listened to you, but we, uh,
we know you've got a good arm, and we want
you to play quarterback. And so it was my senior
in high school when I when I really first played quarterback.
(07:59):
My junior year I played. I was all defense, and
but it was because of my arm. He saw it
me playing baseball and he's the one that uh talked
me into playing quarterback. And he didn't talk me into it.
He said, hey, you're you're gonna work at quarterback. For you,
I'll never forget. Montana came to the set of a
(08:20):
TV show. I was working on thirty Rock with Tina
fe for years and Montana came on the show and
they brought him to my room to meet me. And
I said, to my goh my god, what did you
do to train your arm? Was it? Was it waits?
What was your thing? And and if I think he
was being serious, I don't think he was messing with me.
He said he got a length of medical tubing, like
(08:42):
some kind of flexible rubbery tubing and had that fastened
with a handle with a grip of some kind into
a doorway and he would stand in a doorway and
just rotate his arm and that throwing motion back and
forth to condition me do like a thousand reps of
that just to strength and literally the throwing motion. What
was back then your physical conditioning? Like during the season,
(09:05):
were you weight lifting, were you what was what did
you do to strengthen your arm? Well, back in those days,
it really wasn't in vogue as far as weightlifting and
sports where you just went out and played. We had
baseball practice all the time. We had basketball practice, and
and of course we had football practices. So it was
really at the practices and in the What what I
(09:25):
had was was I did have a baseball arm, and
I kind of when I threw, I had a little,
you know, a motion whereas a quarterback you want to
get rid of the ball, you get keep it up
by the ear. And I didn't really achieve that as
as well as I should. But I had a good
throwing motion, uh, And I had I had a good
velocity on the ball. That made up for maybe that
(09:47):
little hitch I had thrown the ball. But I uh,
you know, learned to throw on a bit on my
own and uh and coaches did work with me on
trying to keep the ball up a little bit, you know,
instead dropping it. But that was from baseball. But it
still comes down to whatever you do and how you throw.
You've got to believe in yourself. And uh and there's
(10:10):
some you know, quarterbacks that are great passers that don't
actually you know, throw the way they're supposed to. And
I was in kind of in the middle of not
exactly throwing the way I should as a quarterback. I
threw more as a baseball player. But it worked, and I, uh,
I really started to to really fall in love with
(10:33):
being a quarterback. I all of a sudden, I really
liked being a quarterback. Now, when you were people I've
spoken to uh in in the modern era, they would
say that throwing a ball was as much engaging their
core and exercising their strengthening their core and their legs.
They strengthened their legs that well, I'll never forget one
guy said that my favorite line. He said, you can't
(10:55):
shoot a cannon out of a canoe and you got
a strengthen your leg get your your legs all nice
and strong, and get a good base below you and
a good foundation below you in your core. And he goes,
and you and you just launched that thing, he says.
He said, I'll never forget this guy said to me.
He goes, I closed my eyes, and you stand twenty
yards away from me, and I'll throw the ball to you.
(11:16):
I'll throw a few to get the whole timing, and
I'll sense where you are, because then I'll close my
eyes and I'll be able to tell you whether the
past was good or not by the way it felt
coming out of my hand, he said. I can tell
I could feel the way my body torud and way
my arm would come, the way I could throw, you know,
to say all that, Alec, the thing that I did,
(11:38):
I worked out all the time, and I was careful
on throwing. You didn't want to over overdo it. And
you know, I warmed up and I tried to, you know,
make sure my arm was ready. I worked out. I
was crazy about working out, and I used to go
out if there was just one other receiver, I would
still act like I was taking a snap and dropping back.
I just didn't just didn't stand there to row the ball.
(12:00):
I really, uh, no, matter what you what, you have
to do in life. You gotta work hard to get there. Yeah. Now,
everybody who's an NFL fan its every detail of your story.
And when it came time for you to go into
the Naval Academy, you must have known, of course that
you owe them the service at the end. Correct, you
knew that was coming. Yes, So when you go to
the Naval Academy and you win the title, and you
(12:23):
the Big Game and you get the Heisman Trophy and
the NFL comes calling, was that all a big surprise
to you? Well, going to the Naval Academy, I wasn't
sure what, you know. I did have some scholarship offers
after high school, but I really played that just that
one year. It was my first year at quarterback, and
we didn't throw a whole lot. We I actually ran
(12:44):
more um and so I wanted to get more experience.
And I wasn't sure what I wanted to do, but
I liked the Naval Cademy. I visited there and then
they told me they said, hey, Roger, you know, we
would like for you to go to junior college one year.
And when the best things I ever did, I went
to Roswald in Mexico and I went to New Mexico
Military Institute. I shot a film It to Me, which
(13:06):
is a really fine school, and it's it's a military
It gave me the at least the warning about the
things I had to do in the military when I
became a plea at the Naval Academy. But it also
I played another year at quarterback and we really had
a good football team. We were a junior college team.
We had a coach named Robert Shaw, who was a
(13:27):
former NFL player and he and he really helped me
a lot at my quarterback position, and and I got
better Instead of level and offer or something, I got
better there and I had a real good, uh junior
college period, and I decided I definitely wanted to go
to the Naval Academy. And I wasn't looking at someday
(13:47):
I was going to play pro football. I was I
wanted to get an education and also be able to
play sports. And I figured that someone better better stay
on me to make sure I got the education. And
I was fortunate to be able to get a chance
to go there and play football, and I actually played
baseball there. For all four years at Navy, I played
(14:09):
baseball and football, and obviously I got a great education,
and I got to learn a lot about the military,
and I spent four years in the military before I
joined the Dallas Cowboys. Now, what year do you enter Annapolis?
You go to the Naval Academy? What year? I went
in sixty one? So when I graduated high school in
sixty I went from high school to the New Mexico
(14:32):
Military and Student and I went to the Naval Academy
and in nineteen sixty one. So when you're there in
sixty one, the Vietnam War is not what it was
about to become. When you go into the Naval Academy,
you go in one end and you come out that
tunnel on the other end in Vietnam becomes a very
very real thing. And so when you go in, I
guess it's sixty five, I'm assuming you start your service.
(14:56):
But when you come out of the Naval Academy and
you're a star collegiate a fleet, will you sit there
kind of going oh God? You know, like I got
to go to Vietnam? Now for four years? Was it?
We were you less than smiling about that? You know?
I went to Vietnam just for one year. Where'd you
go after that? I went to the Penncacal Naval Air Station.
I was a logistics officer, a supply officer. I was
(15:18):
partially color blind, and that limited me. I was not
able to go Navy line or be a be a pilot.
But I was very fortunate I became a Navy logistics
officer and when I went to Vietnam, I wasn't out
there getting shot at. I was in the Dunang and
Chula and we we at that time the Marines occupied
the I Corps area South Vietnam, and those early years there,
(15:42):
we supported the Marines and took care of the Marines.
And in fact I lived at Camp Tinshaw and I
had a couple of my teammates. They were Navy seals.
The seals are pretty new at that time. We were
living together in Camp Tinshaw, right and near to Dunang,
and so I asked him they were coming back one
day and I said, where have you guys been? What
(16:03):
are you doing? Said, hey, listen, stop back. You are
our quarterback, and we listened to you. You were our leader.
But we cannot tell you where we've been, but we
know we're doing a hell of a lot more than
you're doing right now, And so I said, well, yeah, thanks, guys,
(16:24):
I said, I'm quite a bit, but I I admit
I wasn't out there right smack in the middle of everything.
But I wanted to serve that year in Vietnam because
we were at war there and you know, the troops
that were there, and being able to serve them and
being with them meant a lot to me in the
(16:44):
four years I had in the service. Now you go
to Dunangu there for a year, you come back to Pensacola,
you said, correct, Pensacola in Pensacola, and then your military
service is over. Your four years out of your term
in the academy. So I'm guessing you're twenty six years old.
How old were you at that point? I was twenty
(17:06):
six and when I joined the Cowboys. Yeah, right, So
in the seam in between, you finish your military service
and you're gonna go join the Cowboys. Who tells you
that the NFL wants you to come back and start again.
After my junior at Navy, I was drafted, uh, which
was a kind of a surprise by Dallas in Kansas
City that the league hadn't merged yet, and you know,
(17:27):
I was drafted late. You know, they were just betting
on the fact that that I might try to play
again or something. But they both drafted me. And then
when I graduated, my wife and I we got we
get married then, and I was stationed at the Naval
Academy for a few months, and I got a call
from Lamar Hunt who said, Roger, I would like to
come up and talk to you. And I said yes,
(17:49):
Mr Hunting. He said yeah. I said, if you, if
you ever decide you want to play football someday, we
want you to play for the Kansas City Chiefs. And
and because I was drafted by Dallas, I guess there
was you know, there was that that that issue. And
so he came and what a nice person he was.
You know, at the time, I was getting like four
d and twenty dollars a month as an encon and
(18:11):
and uh he offered me a five hundred a month,
ten thousand dollar check, hundred thousand dollar bonus if I
left after my four years and played for Kansas City.
So he was looking to the future. And so I
told Navy a captain who was a legal officer, Navy
Captain Paul Borden, and I said, Captain Born, can I
do this? And I you know if I signed this,
and he said, let me look into it. He came back.
(18:33):
He said, Roger, you have to give your four years
and you can do whatever you want after those four years.
And nothing wrong with you know, taking the money now
if they want to give it to you, you don't
have to You don't have to leave the service. And
he said, but did you have you talked to Dallas
and he and I said no, and he said, well,
let me call him. So he called gil Brandt or
(18:56):
he got ahold of guil It was Gil brand He
talked to who was guilbrand for as soon as they
don't know. Lamar Hunt was the owner of the Chiefs
who wanted the Cowboys then Clint Murkison, and Gil Brandt
was his right hand. Gil's was really uh Mr Football
that and he was in charge of all the drafting
and everything. And so he said, yeah, we we loved
(19:17):
we we'd like to talk to you. So Captain Borden
went and met with the Cowboys and they offered to
say they said they do the same thing. So I agreed.
Then if I ever played again, I'd play for Dallas.
And then I called Mr Hunt back and you know,
told him, and he said, well, Roger, we were just beginning.
I wanted to talk to you more. And I said, well,
I think he was kidding when he said that. He
(19:38):
just said because it wasn't he big. It really wasn't
that big of a deal I had four years ago.
I wasn't sure I was going to ever play again.
When I got back and I was stationed at Pensacola,
I took leave and want to Dallas training camp the
year before I was able to if I was going
to leave the service of it been my fourth year.
(19:59):
I was with the rookies and people there for two weeks.
I really did fine, and Coach Landry gave me a playbook,
which was amazing. So that's when I realized I was
going to play again. And and then I told the
Navy that after my four years, I was going to
go play with the Dallas Cowboys. I went back to
Pensacola for a year and I studied my playbook on
(20:21):
when I could, and I joined the Cowboys in n
Did you contemplate staying in the Service, Oh, I did.
I enjoyed the service, and I felt a little guilty
of but but I I served the time I was
responsible for my four years. I felt I was a
lucky person to get to get that, and at seven
I was still was able to play eleven years in
(20:42):
the NFL. NFL Hall of Famer Roger Starbuck. If you're
fascinated by what it takes to be a world we
now an athlete, check out my conversation with tennis legend
John McEnroe. It turned out that I wanted it lot
more than I realized, or I was able to do
(21:03):
more than I thought I was capable of in terms
of digging deeper and emotionally sort of accepting the challenges
step by step. It took me a long time, you know.
Part of the reason I acted the way I did.
Let's be honest, it's like that fear of failure. Guys
don't cry type of thing, and if you show that,
that's a sign of weakness. So it was sort of
(21:23):
to protect myself so they'd be like, what is this
guy's crazy? Here More of my conversation with John McEnroe
at Here's the Thing dot Org. More with Dallas Cowboys
quarterback Roger Staubach. After this, I'm Alec Baldwin and you're
(21:55):
listening to. Here's the thing. Dallas Cowboys quarterback Roger Staubach
retired in the NFL and its players have changed a
lot since then, but Roger Starbucks says if he were
starting now, he'd still have it. Oh no, no, no,
I definitely feel I could play today. I mean if
I was, if you're starting, yeah, yeah, I would really
(22:19):
enjoy the NFL. They really have gone to trying to
make sure that there's more passing. Back in our era,
the blitzes and the things that they did, we ran
the ball more, we didn't. We didn't throw it, and
you could hit receivers. The ball wasn't in the air.
You could hit them, you know, knock them around. And
so they made the rules change that did improve the
(22:40):
passing game. The players are bigger than faster, but the
position like quarterback. I mean in my year, I could
us throwing the ball as hard as these guys are today.
And I was a runner to you know, I didn't
have crazy speed or anything, but but I knew how
to run in So I I think I could have
fit in fine with today's rules. But I but I
(23:04):
guess in some sense that never goes away, does it?
Like someone said to me, I mean, and I was
not a great football player. You mean like I was
a wide receiver. I was a skinny kid. And as
the guys that I played high school football with, and
they were the stars of my football team. They were
the gods of my high school. Steve Forenza, who was
(23:24):
the quarterback of our football team, who won two championships
in a row. He beat our cross town rival, which
was I'm from Massapequa, Long Island, and they had two
high schools. My father taught at one and was a
football coach of the freshman football program. My dad played
football at s U. He was like a third string
fullback at SU. He played a boys high in Brooklyn.
He was a running back. And my dad was a
big football person. And my point is is that I
(23:46):
go to dinner with these guys and they said to me,
you know, you didn't have a chance when you stepped
on the field to play football as a freshman in
ninth grade. We'd all already played a hundred games of
peewee football. We'd already played a hundred games before you
put the pads on to play your first game. And
I went out there and I played football and these
guys hit each other like they were grown And the
(24:08):
brutality and the and the and I don't want to
say viciousness, but the but the the commitment. These guys
would go flying through the air and stick their forehead
and the other guys stern him and knock him on
the ground. The tackling and the hitting. Forget about the
running and the grace and the athleticism and the throwing
and catching and stuff within the timing, the toughness, the
physical toughness of this guy, these guys was just absolutely
(24:31):
mesmerizing to me. However, I don't start. I don't play
high school football. Well, I'm I'm not good enough to
play to start with these guys. But my point is
I still can't watch an NFL game where my legs
starts to twitch and my toe starts to tap. And
I turned to some let's go outside the street and
go throw the football like you makes you you never
lose the desire to play, am I right? Yeah, that's correct?
(24:54):
And I still, uh, my right arm is still in
pretty decent shapes. I can't throw the ball as cars
I used to, but I can still throw decently. Some
people are you know when you're seventy nine years old.
I still throw with our our kids and grandkids. Now
you play in the NFL, and obviously everything is in
(25:14):
the records. You win two Super Bowls. And my friends
who have won Oscars, the first thing they say when
they go home and they process the euphoria of winning
an Academy award, this pinnacle in your career. Supposedly they
lay their head down on the pillow and the and
the thing that they're thinking is they're going to sleep
that night. Is I gotta get my hands on a
second Oscar because a lot of people have an Oscar,
(25:35):
but not many people have two Oscars. I want to
be in the the two Oscar club, the double club.
Now the same is true for you when you won
the Super Bowl? Was it sweeter for you and more
gratifying when you won the second time? Well that I
think the first time was it was you know, Coach
Landry was when I was stilling in the service, when
they were you know, they lost those tough ones to
(25:58):
Green Bay and Don Meredith was really a fine quarterback
and uh, in fact, he retired when when I joined
the Cowboys, or else I wouldn't have I don't know
what it would have happened if if Don Mereth would
have stayed there with the Cowboys, because I played behind
Craig Morton and for for a while, you know, looking
back on there were some really tough losses that that
(26:19):
the Cowboys had, and so I think the first Super
Bowl win because we were you know, coach Landry was
criticized he couldn't win the big game and the Cowboys
couldn't win the Big game. Winn't winning that game. It
really made a difference in in Cowboy history more than
the second time we won the Super Bowl. That that
(26:40):
that was great. That too, We almost had a different
team than too. We had some just great players that
won the first one, and we uh, we've we added
some a lot of guys retired and we added some
other players when we won the second one against Denver,
and we had in between we had the Steelers twice.
Steelers were really good in the seventies and we lost
twenty one to seventeen and thirty five to thirty one,
(27:02):
and uh, those were almost as bad as losing the
Army Navy game. Steve Kirk. Yeah, so we we were
a winning team the whole eleven years. We we were
in the playoffs every year but one. And uh so
we were in five Super Bowls, and the first one
I was on the bench, but you know we were in.
(27:23):
I did play during the season at times, but the
other two that we won were big deals. I mean,
coach Landry's greatness really showed and how he built a
team from scratch to to winning a couple of Super Bowls.
So it would have been nice when we want a
few more. But you know, winning too wasn't all that bad.
(27:45):
Roger the Dodgers Starbuck. If you're enjoying this conversation, be
sure to follow Here's the Thing on the I Heart
radio apps, Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts when
we come back. Rogers Starbuck was about life after the NFL.
(28:13):
I'm Alec Baldwin and you're listening to Here's the Thing.
In seventy one, the Dallas Cowboys had a quarterback controversy
with its two starters, Craig Morton and Roger Staubach. Long
time Cowboys coach Tom Landry went so far as to
have Morton and Starbuck alternate plays. I asked Starbuck if
(28:33):
this was common back then, No, it wasn't, and I
you know, quarterbacks have a responsibility of not only physically
about throwing and all what they have to do, but
their leaders. And uh so our team was a bit divided.
You know. Craig was a real fine quarterback and very
tall courter. H We actually played each other in college,
and so he was on the Cowboys for four years
(28:55):
and when Don Meredith retired, Craig took over. And so
really it it just came down to making a decision
that you know, the quarterback is not just going in
and out throwing the football, and their leaders and so
the team was a bit divided. We had really a
good team, that's seventy one team. If he would have said, okay,
Craig is going to be the starting quarterback, we still
would have been successful. It's just that one thing. I
(29:18):
love coach Landry, So that was a bit confusing, uh
to Craig and I when he made that decision to
we actually alternated plays. It wasn't just the game itself,
and that was not a I don't think that was
a great decision, but coach Landry. But in the in
the television program Football Life, the One about You, Landry
(29:40):
asked Morton to come to his house and then in
a pretty clipped way to a pretty kind of direct
and cut to the chase way, says, we're going with Roger.
Thank you drive. He wants to say to a man
to man, face to face. I mean, was Morton just
do you think he was just stupefied? What do you
think he knew it was coming? Well, first of all,
(30:02):
Craig Morton is a classy guy. He I'm sure it
hurt him. He did not. He supported me the whole time.
And the next year I got hurt, I separated my shoulder,
and he took over and we really had a good year.
We went to playoffs. So Craig was, I think we
had a mutual respect for each other. He sure, he
(30:23):
sure supported me when coach Landry made that that tough
decision that allowed me to play the starting quarterback. So,
you know, Craig was. I can't say enough nice things
about Craig. Well, I'm assuming though, that you you educate
me about this that that you come in and it's
kind of the advent of the more mobile quarterback. You
were more mobile than Morton? Correct, Yeah, I would say, yeah,
(30:44):
I was. You know, I mean I ran a lot
so a lot. Craig was not no runner. Yeah, and
I you know that that probably helped, but uh, it
still was a passing game. And I think coach just
said we can't have two quarterbacks. That that that this
dividing the team. I I think half the team was
behind me and probably half the team was behind Craig.
And you want the whole team behind somebody, one leader,
(31:07):
one leader. Now, what do you think it was that
made Landry a great coach? Give me a couple of
things about him. His qualities had made him so great? Well,
the coach was really creative. And he when he was
with the Giants as a player, and he I think
he was a defensive coach there back then that you
had the great teams like the Green Bay Packers and others,
(31:28):
they they would have a three man backfield. Maybe one
person would would line up on in a tight situation,
but most of it was three people backfield. And when
he took over for the Cowboys, he really was creative.
And what he said, I need to put together an
offense that really messes up the defense. And that's when
we put in the slot formations and and the people
(31:52):
in motion in the five. We put in the shotgun
formation that we used on third down and down by
the goal line. Everybody thought we were crazy, and I
love that shotgun and I but it helped me because
if I did run, I could at least see, you know,
instead of dropping back, and if I had the ball,
I could so So Coach Landry was really creative as
(32:14):
far as what he did, and he still was in
charge of the offense and the defense, and I think
his creativity was unsurpassed in the NFL. I think a
lot of teams end up copying some of the things
that the coach Landry initiated. He was a very very smart,
great coach, and he was also really a fine human being.
(32:37):
You know some sometimes uh He and I had a
few disagreements now and then, but he always wanted what's
funny is I mean, I would imagine some of your
success is due to a good coach, Like if a
guy comes up, it's a combination of your physical gifts,
it's a combination of your ethic, it's a combination of
your teammates. But then on top of that, there's a
there's another layer, which is coaching. If it really helps,
(33:00):
it's hard to go all the way it's hard to
win the big game. It's hard to have a great
season if you don't have a good coach. Is that true?
That's correct. Yeah. And just like my senior in high school,
coach changed my life when he when he put me
in a quarterback, and uh, we were a winning team
and uh can's you know, our coaches had had a
lot to do with it, and uh and we had
(33:22):
some great players that both on offense and the defense.
It was it was. The seventies were good time for
the Cowboys, except when we were playing the Steelers. I
grew up where it was like the game was coaching.
Like you'd see Stram on the side and you go, God,
I love this guy. The kind of anomaly like Tarkington,
(33:44):
who was a little guy running around. You ran around,
and you ran effectively. I mean, being a football junkie,
I'm always playing these games. Starbuck versus Tarkington two great scramblers.
Now if Starbuck runs effectively and Tarkington ran out of
desperate ation. He was desperate not to get smashed because
he was so small, you know. But any player, you know,
(34:05):
the Dolphins and and Marino who never got a ring,
and I worshiped him and kicking Zonka. These teams of
guys and Mercury Morris, I mean, teams that just get
the wind under their wings. They just take off and
have a great season, you know what I mean. But
what I want to ask you is, who's a quarterback
among many? I'm sure, but dude, who's a quarterback that
you always admired their throwing motion? Who somebody you thought, God,
(34:27):
look at that guy throw that ball. Well, I don't
have anyone on like throwing motion. But in today's quarterback world,
we can we cannot deny what Tom Brady has been doing.
I mean, uh, not only was successful with Patriots, but
in one year he goes to Tampa Bay and takes
(34:49):
him to the super Bowl and wins the Super Bowl.
So I can't argue with anybody that says Brady inconceivable.
Actually what he's done for week quarterbacks? Uh, he he's
something special. Well for for us who are New York fans,
who always have even if it's a kind of a
measured and more subtle, uh you know, feeling towards Boston
(35:11):
and toward New England. I've always been kind of ridding
my teeth about the Patriots and when he was there.
For New Yorkers, we always say to ourselves that Brady
went into the devil in the men's room at an
airport somewhere, and some transaction was made in that men's room.
I don't I agree with you. And I'm a fan
of Bill Belichick's and his his dad coached at Navy.
(35:32):
And I remember Bill when he was he was just
a kid. I was used to be out there throwing
the football sometimes. I think he was at practice after school.
And and so I, uh of course followed him and
followed Brady through. Uh I'm you know, I'm the Cowboys
are my my favorite team. I just want to throw
that in there. But but but I've I've I was.
(35:55):
I've been a fan of Bill Belichick's also, and and
so I don't know what happened there. Some deal was
made with the devil. Gotta be Now, let me ask
you this, married to the same woman for fifty years,
five kids, super Bowl champion, Heisman Trophy winner. I mean,
you are probably one of the two or three most
heroic sized football players, if not athletes, in history. And
(36:19):
here you are this amazing person who I'm told you
went into the real estate business, initially because you wanted
to make some money. You weren't getting paid all that
much money in the football game. And is that correct.
You started in real estate as a side job. Well,
I I did, yes, but I it wasn't just strictly
in the off season. And that's how I got started.
And then I when I retired, I started my own company.
(36:41):
And yeah, I got involved with real estate. And part
of it was the fact is that we had three
children born in the Navy, and we added two more
on Texas soil, so we had a family of five.
And my first year's salary with the Cowboys was twenty
five dollars, which back then it was it was okay.
But I I did work in the off season for
(37:01):
h for the Henry Miller company. You're right and that,
but I understand that since then the real estate game
has gone quite well for you. Correct, Yes, it uh yeah,
but it was it was over, you know, thirty forty
years we we sold our company to the Starbuck Company,
was sold to Jones Lying Less Hole, which is j
l L. But you build a good company, we did, yeah,
(37:22):
and and and the Starbuck people that are they're working
at JLL have done great there and it's uh so,
I spent ten years with when we sold the company,
and uh so, I've been involved real estate a long
long time, and but it's you know, it's part of
my life and making sure I could My wife and
I we we've been married, actually fifty six years. She
(37:44):
she's gonna say, hey, Alex and fifty six I apologize.
Tell your wife, I apologize for Let me just say this,
which is that with your legendary image, Captain America, all
this stuff with your legendary image is a sports figure
and just a style with citizen everybody. Just I'm sure
it was I saw this on the show. They were
(38:04):
all hectoring you about going into politics and running for office,
and you said that that didn't interest interest you. Were
you ever tempted? Now? I mean, you know, I really
when I started working in the off season, I was
committed to work in the real estate. And then I
started my own company, and and uh I said, well,
you know, what can I run for politics? What am
(38:25):
I gonna do walk away from my company? And uh
so I had a game plan that was outside of politics,
and that was to participate in the business world. Well, listen,
I want to say to you, And I really mean this.
I mean sports occupy a place in people's lives which
enters their lives in a very unique way. As you know.
I mean, even though movies became very important to me
(38:47):
and loving movies, but before that, you asked somebody, I
didn't want to be Humphrey Bogart. I didn't want to
be Carry Grant. I wanted to be Nameth. I wanted
to be uh, Jimmy Brown. I wanted to be uh,
you know, United, And I wanted to be you. And
you know that the way that sports get into your
blood and get into your in terms of the excitement
(39:08):
watching a great NFL game, even with a team that's
not a great team. You know, any given Sunday, you
know they can rise up and they can beat that
other guy. All these NFL teams there's some parody there,
some have the upper hand. And watching you over these
years and watching your career from when I was very young,
you really are one of your You're probably one of
the three or four greatest sports figures in history. I mean,
(39:30):
you really are such an inspiration to people. How you
lived your life. You know, the Catholic boy from Cincinnati
who goes on to marry. We're married to the same woman,
five kids, Naval Academy, Heisman, two Super Bowls, the whole,
the company, the whole shebang. You've had such a great,
great life. I hope you're as content as people imagine
you would be with what you've done with your life. Well,
(39:53):
I thank you, Alec. It's I've been fortunate with the
people in my life, and UH still feel that way.
I got lot of a lot of great friends, and
you're sure appreciative of just being around. Dallas Cowboys quarterback
Roger Staubach. We're produced by Kathleen Russo, Carrie donohue, and
(40:14):
Zach McNeice. Our engineer is Frank Imperial. I'm Alec Baldwin.
Here's the thing. Is brought to you by my Heart Radio.
Host
Alec Baldwin
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