In 1976, dark-eyed, sultry Tina Jimenez was a Dallas Cowboys Cheerleader. In 1977, she found herself outside Texas Stadium, looking in. She was cut, she says, "for no good reason." So, too, were a lot of her friends. Why? Possibly because they didn't care to keep some of what Tina calls "the archaic rules of the club." Or maybe it was because the Cowboys wanted girls "who didn't ask questions."
Most pro-football clubs have a den mother for their cheerleaders to preserve the girl-next-door image. In Dallas, the den mother is Suzanne Mitchell, 32, unmarried and as severe with her girls as she is with members of the press and the public who want to meet them. She turns down, she says, 25 percent of all appearance requests and does not allow the girls to go anywhere where liquor is served. (One off-limits location: the Dallas Playboy Club.) "No popping out of cakes at bachelor parties, no disco openings for them," she says tersely. "The girls are a cross section of American womanhood. But they have more fun."
Tina laughs at that. "They said we shouldn't go where alcohol is served. So why did they allow us in Texas Stadium itself? Every other party in the stands had sneaked in a bottle."
The former Cowboys Cheerleaders didn't enjoy being outsiders. "After we were cut," says Tina, "we thought, Why go back to a nine-to-five job? Especially when you're beautiful and talented."
Tina and her friends found a solution. Using her savings, and with Tina as president and "mother hen," they formed a new group of ex-cheerleaders; called Texas Cowgirls, Inc. There are 25 in the group, no more, no fewer, all under 25. They won't cheer on the Cowboys in the stadium, but they won't miss that too much. One of their group got frostbite last year and lost all ten of her toenails.
Tina, who is so busy organizing things that she doesn't perform with the Cowgirls, says they've got the looks and the experience; and, naturally enough, they look a lot like the group from which they've spun off. They wear tight-fitting electric-blue body suits that zip down the front, (concluded on page 380) Texas Cowgirls (continued from page 162) with silver cuffs, silver belt and silver boots. Sensational.
By August of this year, the Cowgirls already had a calendar full of bookings. They helped open some record stores. They were at an Apparel Mart T-shirt party. They opened two department stores. They played a charity softball game against a group of doctors. They even helped celebrate a millionaire's birthday party at an exclusive Dallas country club. (Liquor was served.)
The girls claim the Dallas Cowboys have made enough money off their famous cheerleaders' poster "to pay for Tony Dorsett's entire multimillion-dollar contract"--but shared very little of it with them. "They made us buy our own boots," Tina adds, "and pay for the special nail polish they wanted us to use. They didn't even pay for our trip to the Super Bowl. A local radio station and Dr Pepper did it."
In any event, she says, posters pay-- so she and her 24 Cowgirls have produced a sexy poster of their own.
"Suzanne Mitchell has stated publicly that she didn't want the girls to use the Cowboys as a 'steppingstone to stardom,' " says Tina. "Well, we want to become somebody. And without the organization holding us back, we think we can. After all, we're the pros, they're the rookies. And, anyway, who can buy all the b.s. the club hands out? Get this: Last year, Suzanne Mitchell actually wanted Debbie Kepley to wear pigtails. That's what she wanted: pigtails and the virgin look. Well, Debbie cut off her hair so she wouldn't have to wear pigtails and so she could be herself. That's why she quit and joined us."
