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Monday, December 15, 1997

San Antonio university yanks back welcome mat for Cowboys training camp

SAN ANTONIO (AP) - San Antonio's chances of hosting the Cowboys' preseason training camp have just become as long as Dallas' chances of reaching the NFL playoffs.

The University of Texas at San Antonio, said to be a leading candidate to replace St. Edward's University in Austin as host for the Cowboys camp, says it's no longer interested, according to the San Antonio Express-News' Sunday editions.

"UTSA does not have an intercollegiate football program and does not have adequate facilities to support a professional football team summer camp," university spokesman David Gabler said.

The Cowboys recently confirmed that San Antonio, El Paso, Orlando, Fla., and the Texas School for the Deaf in Austin headed the list of candidates to host the camp. However, UTSA decided three weeks ago it had too many commitments next summer to provide the 250 dormitory rooms, special weight-training equipment and other team needs.

Team officials denied a report Saturday that UTSA had been chosen was denied by team officials. The newspaper quoted an unidentified Cowboys source as saying the Disney Wide World of Sports complex in Orlando, Fla., was the front-runner, although a decision is not anticipated until January or February.

Cowboys spokesman Rich Dalrymple, who would not comment on the status of the selection process, expressed surprise Saturday when told of UTSA's reluctance to host the Cowboys.

However, Gabler said UTSA alerted City Council member Jeff Webster and San Antonio Convention and Visitors Bureau executive director Steve Moore to take the school off the candidate list.

UTSA seriously considered playing host to the camp when three members of the Cowboys' front office visited the campus in September, four days after the team announced it would not return to St. Edward's University in Austin for a ninth year.

Webster, who has led the push to lure the Cowboys, led a San Antonio contingent that met with Cowboys owner Jerry Jones on the sidelines at Texas Stadium prior to the Cowboys' game with the Arizona Cardinals on Nov. 9.

He says he still plans to enlist the support of local business leaders and politicians in his campaign to bring the team to town.

"I believe that until we are absolutely 100 percent ruled out by the Cowboys that I'm going to keep working on it," he said. "It would be good for San Antonio and it would be good for UTSA."

But for UTSA's not interested in the Cowboys.

"UTSA's mission is to serve the residents of San Antonio and South Texas as an institute of higher learning," Gabler said. "Our limited resources and facilities are heavily used by current programming to serve our students and thousands of high school students who visit our campus during the summer for special outreach programs."