Oldest son, Stephen: "He was the best father you could hope to have. Not only did he have a lot of love and worked hard for his family, but the biggest thing for me was his involvement in our lives. He was the coach of all my football teams, from grade school until high school. He never missed a practice or game. He would fly 2,500 miles to coach a sixth-grade football practice. Then fly back that night. Who does that? And he was always taking me fishing and hunting, even from a young age. If he was going fishing or hunting, that meant we were going fishing or hunting.
"We were a very affectionate family, very open about our love for one another. That all started with our mom and dad. They were so open about their love for each other and us."
Youngest son Jerry Jr.: "When my brother was playing football at Arkansas, my dad would sleep in the dorm rooms with him all the time, find an empty bed for the night. I'd go up there with him sometimes and we'd be hiding behind trees watching practice because they were off limits. I knew that was different because there was no one else hiding behind trees. They would sometimes go to class with my sister at Stanford, and they even went on spring break with her and her friends one year. When I was at Georgetown, they'd take me and my buddies out for dinner, make sure all of them had tickets when the Cowboys were playing Washington. They were always everyone's favorite parents, much like their parents were for their friends growing up"
"My father has this unique ability to make someone feel like the most important person in the room. He did with us three all the time growing up, he can do it at a sales presentation, he can do it in a room of colleagues, his college buddies, whatever the situation is. That's his greatest gift, dealing with people. It's like that Rudyard Kipling poetry verse that we had engraved on my grandfather's tomb: You can walk with kings but keep the common touch."
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