Jerry Jones writes get well soon letter to arch rivals dad.

[Jeremiah_Johnson]

Most of you guys would like Dale Hansen, he's a loudmouth,opinionated idiot who hates all things sport, except his Cornhuskers of course. But this is a good read.

http://www.star-telegram.com/308/story/63429.html

Jim Reeves: Hansen, his dad will remember kindness

By JIM REEVES

IN MY OPINION

The phone call came out of the blue Friday, the last thing Dale Hansen was expecting.

It was his sister, Rhonda, calling from his dad's house in Logan, Iowa.

Their dad had received the letter.

What letter? Dale asked, perplexed.

The one from Jerry Jones.

"What?" Dale asked.

You know, Dale, she said. The one you set up for Mr. Jones to write.

"I don't know what you're talking about," Hansen said. "Put Dad on the phone and have him read it to me."

In the background Hansen could hear his 87-year-old father, Mervin, whose voice is somehow still louder than his son's even after a heart attack a week earlier, saying he couldn't do it.

"I'll just start crying again," Hansen heard him say.

"That got to me," Dale would tell his radio listeners on ESPN/103.3 last week, "because I've only known my dad to cry once in his life, when my mom died three years ago."

Six-foot-3, 280-pound truck drivers, which is what Mervin Hansen was in his prime, don't cry much. But they generally don't get many letters from the owner of the Dallas Cowboys, either.

This is what gets Dale. It gets me, too. This is the Jerry Jones too few people know. The one with a heart as big as that star in the middle of Texas Stadium.

Jones had happened to be listening to the radio when Dale was talking about his dad's heart attack 10 days ago. Hansen was trying to explain how he felt about his dad, their relationship, and how scared he is of losing him.

Jones, having lost his own father some years ago, could relate.

"It struck a chord," Jerry told me Monday. "There's certainly a special place there. Just in my little way, I wanted to kind of give his dad a pat on the back."

So Jones immediately dictated the letter. If you think the heart attack stunned Mervin, you should have seen his face when that letter arrived from Jerry Jones.

A week earlier Mervin had been sitting at the kitchen table in the house he's lived in for almost 50 years. He got up to get a glass of water and his heart stopped dead. When he keeled over and hit the floor, the impact kick-started his heart again.

Saved his life. If he'd still been sitting down when the attack hit, he would have died... still should have died right there, the doctor said later. Ninety-five percent of us would have, but not Mervin.

Still robust at 87, he picked himself up off the floor, got to the phone and called for help. His heart stopped again at the hospital, but a doctor beat on his chest until it began to flutter again. They operated, put in a pacemaker, and four days after what the doctor said was no less than a miracle, Mervin was back at home again.

The pacemaker is obviously doing its job. Mervin's heart somehow didn't stop when Jones' letter arrived in the mail.

When Rhonda read it to Dale over the phone, he couldn't stop the tears from pouring down his cheeks.

"I was crying like a son-of-a-gun," the longtime WFAA/Channel 8 sports anchor admitted.

Hansen isn't Jones' arch-enemy, by any means. But like the rest of us in this business, they've swapped their share of barbs. For Jones to reach out to Dale's father, like that... I don't want to say it'll change anything, but how can it not?

"Dad had been so depressed," Hansen said. "He's lonely on the one hand, and now they've told him he can't drive for six months. He can't stand losing his independence. I was afraid it might kill him.

"And then that letter came, and it's completely changed his attitude. Now he's laughing again, joking again and talking to everybody in town about this letter he got from Jerry Jones. My sister said he's done a 180."

Jones hit all the right spots with his letter.

"He started talking about his own dad and how important he was to him," Hansen said. "Then he said, 'Dale mentioned you can't drive,' and this is next part classic Jerry...

"He said, 'Now Mervin, don't worry about driving that car of yours, you just need to get better and you need to get stronger so you can yell at your son and tell him to quit picking on me on TV and on the radio.'

"Dad loved that part."

The letter stunned Hansen... until he thought about it a moment.

"I've always known there was that side to him," Hansen said. "It's what I've always liked about Jerry Jones. I just don't like him as the general manager of the football team I cover, and I stand by that. But there's a great deal to like about Jerry Jones, and I always have.

"It doesn't mean I won't criticize the hell out of him if they lose their first two games and, if he drafts some stiff, I'll be on him by the end of the month."

The best thing about it is that Jones understands that. He understands the difference between business and personal relationships, perhaps better than anyone I've ever known in sports.

"Life's just too short and when we start thinking about that relationship that men can have with their dads... his comments that day were meaningful to me, too," said Jones, who was surprised when Hansen talked about the letter on the radio, and even more surprised when I phoned him Monday to follow up on the story.

Jones didn't do this for the publicity. He's done many similar things over the years that you or I will never know about, like the time he made sure a group of writers got home from New York for Christmas by leaving his personal jet for them. Or the basket of food he sent to the hospital when I had my own heart attack more than a decade ago.

"Generally, in this area, we really have something in common. We love sports," Jerry said. "We spend a lot of our time, in different ways, pursuing some of the same things.

"It has everything to do with just being sensitive to someone who's having some pain, or having some concern, someone that you know like I know Dale."

And while Hansen, or me, or any of us in this business can't really pull our punches when it comes to doing our jobs, it doesn't mean that such gestures are unappreciated. Hansen, for his part, said he may even drop a particular joke from his banquet repertoire because he knows Jerry hates it so much.

"As corny as it may sound, he's given my old man an incredible lift. It means a great deal to me," Hansen said. "This gesture might not seem like much to some people, it might not be a big deal to some people, but it's a big deal to my dad, and it's just an incredibly nice thing for Jerry Jones to do."

I don't know how much longer 87-year-old Mervin Hansen will be with us. What I do know is that the years he has left will be a little brighter, a little happier, because he got a letter from the owner of the Dallas Cowboys.

Small gesture, yes, but it came from the heart. That's what makes it a big deal.

Jim Reeves, 817-390-7760 revo@star-telegram.com

[Jeremiah_Johnson]

Funny thing we human beings are.

Go to a thread about Pac Man being a thug and getting kicked out of the league for a year, or go to a thread where Irvin is accused of attacking a cripple and you have to beat the door down to get a word in edgewise.

Post a feelgood story, and get no comments.

And we wonder why the local news has a motto of "If it bleeds, it leads"

I guess its just how humans are programmed.

[bubba9497]

Poke propaganda threads don't go over to well here

[[[ghost]]]

First of all, It was a very nice thing of Jerruh to do. Regardless of who he owns.

Second, waiting one hour for a post on a board that is hardly the most popular on this site doesn't mean we're all heartless people hating on Jerruh.

[Jeremiah_Johnson]

]']

Second' date=' waiting one hour for a post on a board that is hardly the most popular on this site doesn't mean we're all heartless people hating on Jerruh.[/quote']

I never said anyone was heartless. Its just what sells. I'm not calling you out for it. I'm no different. But since I posted it, It just became more evident to me thats all.

[Califan007 The Constipated]

It would probably be similar on a Cowboys message board if one of us started a thread that portrayed Snyder in a heartwarming way lol...I don't think too many Dallas fans would be jumping at the chance to say "Aww, Snyder's A-OK afterall".

And for the record, I never doubted that Jerruh could be a sincerely warmhearted guy...as a human being, he's probably just fine. Same with Snyder.

Now, had Jerruh sent that letter to Joe Gibbs' grandson, you'd see this thread explode with posts, pretty much all of them favorable.

[No_Pressure]

portrayed Snyder in a heartwarming way

Thats pretty damn hard to do though...

I mean honestly...I don't think a Snyder thread like that on THIS forum would go over well...in fact it might just go over better on the Cowboys forum. :laugh:

[Califan007 The Constipated]

Thats pretty damn hard to do though...

I mean honestly...I don't think a Snyder thread like that on THIS forum would go over well...in fact it might just go over better on the Cowboys forum. :laugh:

:laugh: :laugh: SO damn true lol...

[HeHateMe]

Poke propaganda threads don't go over to well here

Still cant deny a class act when it happens.