Walt Garrison, a Cowboy in football and rodeo, dies at 79

August 17, 2024

Walt Garrison, who was a star rusher for the Oklahoma State Cowboys, won a Super Bowl as a fullback with the Dallas Cowboys and competed as a rodeo cowboy, has died at 79.

A story posted Oct. 12 by the Cowboys on the organization’s website said Mr. Garrison died overnight. A cause of death was not given.

A fifth-round draft choice out of Oklahoma State, the 6-foot, 205-pound Mr. Garrison played nine years in Dallas and retired in 1974 as the No. 3 rusher and No. 4 receiver in franchise history. He remains fourth on Dallas’s career list with 4.32 yards per carry and ninth with 3,491 yards rushing.

But it was Mr. Garrison’s career in rodeo — which he called his first love — that made him the ultimate cowboy. He also was a longtime spokesman for U.S. Tobacco and its Skoal smokeless brand, with the phrase “Just a pinch between your cheek and gum is all it takes” becoming a staple of his 1970s television ads.

As a little-used backup during his rookie season, the Cowboys said he would go out after team meetings and compete in local rodeos as a steer wrestler, then get back to the hotel before the 11 p.m. team curfew.

“I wasn’t starting,” Mr. Garrison was quoted as saying. “I was returning punts and kicks and covering on the kamikaze squad, that’s all I was doing. And hell, you could get hurt worse on them than you can rodeoing. I didn’t think much about it, but the Cowboys did.”

Dallas Coach Tom Landry soon prohibited the moonlighting during the season. But Mr. Garrison continued in the offseason.

“Coach Landry pointed out that there was a clause in my contract that if I got hurt doing another sport, that my contract would be null and void,” Mr. Garrison said. “And I said, ‘Okay.’ I didn’t think rodeo was that dangerous.”

Mr. Garrison ran for 65 yards in a 16-13 loss to the Baltimore Colts in Super Bowl V after the 1970 season, and ran for 74 yards the next year in Super Bowl VI, when Roger Staubach led Dallas to a 24-3 victory over Miami. In 1972, Mr. Garrison made the Pro Bowl after running for 784 yards and seven touchdowns and adding 390 yards and three more scores receiving.

Mr. Garrison tore up his knee in 1975 while steer wrestling during an exhibition run at the U.S. Tobacco-sponsored national college rodeo in Bozeman, Mont., and had to retire from the National Football League at the age of 30.

“There’s a lot of similarities between rodeo and football,” Mr. Garrison said, comparing the three or four seconds it takes to wrestle a steer to the ground to the typical length of an NFL play. “And the amount of energy and the amount of focus you need to have in bulldogging is the same as in football.”

Walter Benton Garrison was born July 23, 1944, in Denton, Tex. He played football, basketball and baseball in high school and arrived at Oklahoma State as a linebacker but soon moved to running back. He led the Big Eight in rushing in 1964 — beating out a future NFL Hall of Famer, Gale Sayers of the University of Kansas — and had 924 yards and five touchdowns in 10 games in 1965.

Mr. Garrison was inducted into the Oklahoma Sports Hall of Fame and the Oklahoma State Athletics Hall of Honor. He was named to the Dallas Cowboys’ 25th-anniversary team, the Texas Cowboy Hall of Fame and the Texas Sports Hall of Fame.

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