Dee Brock was a high school teacher who used to model as a hobby. Former Cowboys general manager Tex Schramm had reached out to her for help, having initially planned to recruit models to stand on the sidelines. Brock, in a conversation with Texas Monthly, knew it would fail: no model would want to stand in the Texas heat for free.
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Brock then figured to recruit high school girls, who would be willing to do it for free. Schramm then gave the franchise what would go on to be the most prominent cheerleading squad: The Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders, of which Brock was put in charge.
Sadly, the franchise and the DCC community had to bid this visionary a farewell. Kelli Finglass, who has led the Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders since 1991, broke the news of Dee Brock’s passing on Wednesday, per KLTV. She was 96 years old.
“Dee’s leadership, imagination, and unwavering commitment to excellence shaped far more than a team. She created a standard, a spirit, and a symbol that have inspired generations and earned recognition around the world,” Finglass wrote in a heartfelt post. “Her influence lives on in every performance, every dream pursued, and every woman who has worn the uniform with pride. We are deeply grateful for her vision, her courage, and the extraordinary legacy she leave with the Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders.”
Brock’s story starts long before the pom poms and Super Bowl sidelines. Born June 7, 1930, in Covington, Oklahoma, she grew up in Wright City, Texas, the daughter of a union organizer at Sinclair Oil who later ran a jukebox business and owned a drugstore.
She cheered for her own high school squad in New London before heading off to the University of North Texas, where she earned a bachelor’s degree in 1950 and a master’s in English six years later.
Leading the Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders was, clearly, never on her mind at this point in her life.
Brock used to run this high school squad until 1965. She then met Frances Roberson, a local high school drill-team instructor, and invited him to add some routines. Later, with choreographer Texie Waterman and some help from Schramm, Brock steered away from a college style of cheering and chants for more mature jazz-inspired high kicks and pirouettes.
Brock got to see just how far her creation had traveled in June, during the week of her 96th birthday, when the organization honored her with a Lifetime Achievement Award, presenting her with a rhinestone football to mark a career spent opening doors for other women.
“I hadn’t realized I had made such a good impression,” she told Texas news station KETK at the time. “I am so happy about that.”
She stayed humble about it all the way through, crediting the women who came after her rather than dwelling on her own role.
“It makes me very proud to know I got it started, and they’ve taken it on, and doing a great job,” Brock said. “So, I would say just keep on loving the Cowboys, and keep on cheering all you can.”
Though what most people don’t realize is how this whole thing started.
Dee Brock’s vision
Before Brock became a legend on the sidelines, she was just modeling around Dallas, and a friend with Cowboys connections put her in touch with team president Tex Schramm.
Schramm brought her on board in the early 1960s to build a squad from the ground up, and by 1961 she was running the show as founder and director of what was originally known as the “Cowbelles and Beaux,” a co-ed group of high schoolers performing fairly standard cheers.
By 1969, following eight seasons as a mixed squad, the guys were dropped altogether, and the team became the all-female group people know today.
Brock kept pushing further too, raising the minimum age to 18, hiring a professional choreographer, and sketching what became the iconic uniform on nothing more than a legal pad. And during a period when it truly wasn’t easy, she fought to integrate the squad, something she actually pulled off in the 1960s.
Eunice Taylor Cicero, who joined the squad in 1965 as one of its first women of color, knew that history firsthand.
“Thanks to Dee, I’ve had the pleasure of being one of the first African American cheerleaders for the Dallas Cowboys, and at 16, oh my,” she added.
That decision still echoes today. The Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders simply wouldn’t be what they are without Brock’s push to open the door for women.