Dee Brock, Who Created the Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders, Dies at 96

Dee Brock, a high school English teacher and model who started the original Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders, who would become known worldwide for their sexy sideline dancing in blue tops, star-spangled vests and shorts and white boots, died on Wednesday in Tyler, Texas.She was 96.Her friend Linda Resnik confirmed the death, in hospice care.In 1961, Tex Schramm, the Cowboys’ president, hired Ms.

Brock and told her he wanted to stock the squad with models.It was the second year of the team’s existence, following its winless debut as an N.F.L.

expansion team in 1960.“I said what every model always asks, ‘How much does it pay?’” she recalled to KLTV, a television station in Tyler, Texas, in 2009.But Mr.

Schramm was unwilling to pay the models, which Ms.Brock called a non-starter.She suggested recruiting local high school cheerleaders — girls at first, then boys, for a few years starting in 1964 — to add gymnastic stunts to the traditional cheers.

For a time, they were known as the Cowbelles and Beaux, which Ms.Brock hated.

They wore mostly white outfits that didn’t show much skin.The group evolved under Ms.Brock: She integrated the cheerleaders in 1965, hired a choreographer and, by her account, sketched designs for “much more abbreviated” costumes — though “not quite as abbreviated as they are now” — and started recruiting women over 18 in open auditions that proved the transition between tame high school cheerleading and the sexier, attention-getting era.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.

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