It is the Official List of all 25 winners of our FREE Dallas Cowboys Book Giveaway and the Grand Prize Winner for the FREE 42″ Flat Screen TV from Tiger Direct!!!

Before I reveal the names of all the LUCKY WINNERS, I have to thank all 7,560 of you who registered to enter this FANTASTIC LONE STAR STRUCK PROMOTION!

To me, you are all winners for being such DIE-HARD DALLAS COWBOYS FANS and great supporters of our site!!!

Tremendous THANKS also go out to the following:

Marinthia Thomas of EMG Promotions for her tremendous help and support in pulling this whole promotion off.

Joe DeCaro of Lone Star Struck who helped run things on our end and ensure that everything went as smoothly as possible.

Tiger Direct for providing the beautiful 42″ Flat Screen TV that went to our Grand Prize Winner.

AND… Sports Illustrated for providing us with 25 free copies of an amazing new book about the team we love so much. Thank You for publishing such a complete and phenomenal keepsake book chronicling fifty glorious years of Dallas Cowboys Football!

And the winners are…

The winners of a FREE edition of “The Dallas Cowboys: 50 Years Of Football” by Sports Illustrated are:

1. Ronald St. James – Wells, ME
2. Robert D. Lopez – Cathedral City, CA
3. Chris Gonzales – Lubbock, TX
4. Lisa LoPipero – Kings Park, NY
5. Meredith Peters – Round Pond, ME
6. Diane Comby – Philadelphia, MS
7. Dolores Sweeney – Austin, TX
8. Veronica Romero – El Paso, TX
9. Louis Davila – Henderson, NV
10. Denise Stuyvesant – Corpus Christi, TX
11. Kimberly Vetrano – Pomona, NY
12. Joyce Judson – Water Valley, MS
13. William Adams – Coos Bay, OR
14. Richard Steele – Clarksburg, WV
15. Billy Clark – Lawton, OK
16. Robert Schuerch – Warrenton, NC
17. Ben Hannah – Knoxville, TN
18. Kathryn Osborne – Orlando, FL
19. Darrell Bacon – San Antonio, TX
20. Denise Harty – Morrisville, PA
21. Sherry Gary – Auburndale, FL
22. Jim Forrest – Freeland, MI
23. Stephen Stevenson – Houston, TX
24. Walter Starks – Monroe, OH
25. Rhonda Duff – Pennington, AL

CONGRATULATIONS TO ALL OF YOU!!!

Please send us photos of you and your new books when you recieve them so that we can post them in a future blog here at LSS, Your Ultimate Dallas Cowboys Fan Site!

If you didn’t win a free edition of this “must-have” Dallas Cowboys book, you can click on the link below to purchase your copy for less than $20 from Amazon.com. 

Sports Illustrated The Dallas Cowboys: 50 Years of Football

And now for the moment of truth…

GRAND PRIZE WINNER

The winner of a brand new 42″ Flat Screen TV from Tiger Direct is…

Lori Brawley of Fort Lauderdale, Florida!!!

Congratulations Lori!!!

All winners will be contacted by a representative from EMG Promotions, either by phone or email and will have 14 days to respond. If you don’t respond to claim your prize in that time, you will forfeit your prize and another winner will be chosen.

Thanks again to everyone who registered for our promotion. We had a lot of fun with it and we look forward to many more giveaways here at lonestarstruck.com.

Remember to check our site daily for the latest Dallas Cowboys news, blogs, and opinions. And of course LSS is the only Cowboys site for all your FREE Team Graphics, Schedules, Wallpapers, and Merchandise! Like our banner says, we are  Your Ultimate Dallas Cowboys Fan Site!

Here is a great Q & A with author Jaime Aron of the newest and latest  book celebrating the 50th anniversary of the Dallas Cowboys.

 Dallas Cowboys: The Complete Illustrated History offers a complete and entertaining history of this iconic franchise’s first 50 years, celebrating the great players, teams, and moments through stories, stats, and almost 200 images.  

Author Jaime Aron explores both on-field moments and off-field exploits to provide a thorough discussion of the events from each season that shaped the franchise from its dubious start to its championship rise and all sorts of twists and turns.

Special features include profiles of top players, coaches and front-office leaders, stories behind longtime rivalries and traditions, and closer looks at the greatest games in team history, including each of their Super Bowls.

With a foreword by Cowboys legend Roger Staubach, Dallas Cowboys: The Complete Illustrated History is the ultimate celebration of the silver and blue for Cowboys fans of all ages.

What did you discover in researching this book that readers will be excited to learn?

There’s a clear pattern to Cowboys history that bodes well these days. Since its inception, this club has gone from struggling to soaring, then back again. This is clearly one of the up cycles, with Tony Romo in position to join Roger Staubach and Troy Aikman as quarterbacks who’ve led the Cowboys to a Super Bowl championship. (Of course, he has to do it twice to truly enter the league.)

What differentiates this book from any other book about the Cowboys?

We break down the first 50 years by quarterback – a short-hand that makes sense in many ways. Think of 1964, realize it was the Don Meredith era and you have a pretty good idea of what happened. Ditto for 1984 and the Danny White years.

Roger Staubach and Troy Aikman each wound up with two chapters, which is sort of fitting. But it’s also functional, because their tenures needed to be divvied up. Roger went through the years he and Craig Morton battled for the job, then the glory days once he’d turned the Cowboys into “America’s Team.” Troy had the wild ride from 1-15 to multiple Super Bowl champions, then the years Jerry Jones spent trying to recapture that glory. Tony Romo has clearly earned his own era. But what about those years post-Troy, pre-Tony? Since there was no single player worthy of naming rights, we called it “Eight is Enough,” since that’s how many starters there were.

What is the thing that the media will find most interesting about the book?

I hope reporters will get out of it the same thing as readers: Reminisce about the years you were following the team, and learn about what happened when you weren’t. The extra benefit for reporters is that this book can be a handy reference tool because it brings to life, in pictures and stories, things that the media guide list as names and numbers – from players to games to seasons.

 Tell me about the photography in the book.

There are some classic shots you’ve seen before – like Landry being lifted off on his players’ shoulders after winning the Super Bowl, Drew Pearson catching the Hail Mary and Jason Witten running down the field in Philadelphia without a helmet – but only some.

Instead, a variety of archives were searched for other, fresher images that tell the story just as well. Some of my favorites are Jim Brown running away from tacklers in a practically empty Cotton Bowl in 1960, Mel Renfro alone and dejected on the bench still wearing his helmet at the end of Super Bowl V, and Daryl Johnston flipped upside down, but still gripping the ball, during his heyday.

Another favorite is that on the pages featuring each of Dallas’ five Super Bowl wins, there are action shots and either the cover of the game’s program or a copy of the ticket.

What is your personal involvement with the subject?

I grew up a Cowboys fan in Houston, then moved to Dallas to work for The Associated Press in 1992 – just in time to see the Cowboys win the Super Bowl in three of the next four years. I became the AP’s beat writer for the Cowboys in 1999, so I covered every event in the book since then. I’ve gotten to know many of the folks from previous generations along the way, and by having written other Cowboys books, including one on Tom Landry.

What is your favorite part of the book?

I loved reading and writing about Clint Murchison Jr. What a clever, colorful fellow. Jerry Jones and Mark Cuban have nothing on ol’ Clint, mainly because he steered clear of running the team. He left that to Tex and Tom, and felt so strongly about it that he wanted the next owner to do so, as well.

I’ve said before that Murchison belongs in the Ring of Honor strictly for his role as the club’s founder. I think there might be a better chance for it if Jerry realized how much he and Clint are kindred spirits.

Is there anything else you would like to add about the subject or the book?

Something else that fascinated me was the 1971 team.

That was the most important season in franchise history, yet the team has become the most overlooked. It was important because they ended the reputation for “not being able to win the big one,” which quickly morphed this club into becoming “America’s Team.” Because that morphing was so quick, and there was so much success with so many colorful teams and players, the ’71 club was mostly forgotten.

Consider this: They started the year with their reputation as chokers, with Craig Morton as their quarterback and with the Cotton Bowl as their home field. They ended the year as Super Bowl champions, with Roger Staubach as their quarterback and Texas Stadium as their home field.

There is a lot more to the ’71 club and what a turning point that season was, on and off the field – so much that I’ve started writing a book about them that will be released by MVP Books next fall.

To purchase your copy, follow the link below: Dallas Cowboys: The Complete Illustrated History

Last week, I was fortunate enough to receive an advance copy of the soon to be released “Dallas Cowboys: 50 Years Of Football” by Sports Illustrated.

Now I’ve read my fair share of books on the Dallas Cowboys over the years, but this is the first one that I immediately cherished as a collectors item. Believe me when I tell you, that once you get this fine book in your hands, you’ll find it very difficult to put down, and I’m not kidding you either.

The book is loaded with some of the most sensational anecdotes and articles about the Cowboys as brought to you be the some of the best sports writers in the country.

The photography is stunning and the book is loaded with a  vast collection of unforgettable shots that capture the entire history of this historic franchise.

Here is some additional information from the publisher:

Sports Illustrated will release ‘The Dallas Cowboys: 50 Years Of Football’ on August 24th.

The rich heritage of the Cowboys is captured in this extraordinary collection of stories by the finest sports writers in the world, including Peter King, Tim Layden and Dan Jenkins, a spectacular selection of images from the best photo archive in sports, and a mind-boggling array of stats, anecdotes and memorabilia. It is the ultimate celebration of the Dallas Cowboys.

Sports Illustrated The Dallas Cowboys: 50 Years Of Football gives fans an insider look from Sports Illustrated senior writer, Peter King, whose in depth access to “America’s Team” includes a three-city scouting trip with Jimmy Johnson to a training camp sit down interview with Tony Romo to discuss his personal life in the off-season.

From the teams humble beginnings to emerging in to a franchise for which winning, and winning it all was expected. Eight Super Bowl appearances, five Super Bowl victories and the glory and the glamour that has surrounded this team. Sports Illustrated The Dallas Cowboys: 50 Years Of Football revisits the names that leap out of NFL history: Dandy Don Meredith, Bullet Bob Hayes, Ed “Too Tall” Jones, Thomas “Hollywood” Henderson, the lineage of head coaches is a Who’s Who list – Tom Landry, Jimmy Johnson, Barry Switzer, Bill Parcells and the Hall of Famers who could fill their own wing – from Bob Lilly, Mel Renfro, Roger Staubach, Tony Dorsett, Troy Aikman to Michael Irvin.

As you can see, this is an incredible book that any Cowboys fan would be proud to own.

Hopefully, all of you have already registered for our contest as we are giving away 25 free copies of these stunning hard covered books. You can still register by going here.

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You can go here to register for a Free Gravatar. No registration info is needed, other than an e-mail address.

Here are some free gravatars you can use. Just save the one you like to your computer and then upload it when you register at gravatar.com.

I just heard from the publisher and Sports Illustrated, that we can extend our FREE Dallas Cowboys Book Giveaway until the new release date which has been pushed back to August 23rd.

The new release date will be closer to the start of the season and generate even more excitement as we begin our 50th year of Cowboys football.

So if you haven’t registered yet, we are now extending the contest for three more weeks!

Check out the following details and maybe you can be the lucky winner of a brand new 42″ High Definition TV!

CHECK THIS OUT COWBOYS FANS!

HAVE YOU REGISTERED FOR THIS AMAZING GIVE-AWAY YET?!

We are excited to announce that in partnership with EMG Promotions and Sports illustrated, Lone Star Struck has been authorized to give away 25 FREE hard cover editions of the soon to be released: The Dallas Cowboys: 50 Years Of Football.

Also, one lucky Grand Prize winner will be randomly selected to win a brand new 42″ Flat Screen HDTV. Watch your favorite team all season long in brilliant high definition!

26 WINNERS FROM OUR SITE WILL WIN!

Register Now for your chance to win this dazzling Flat Screen TV or one of the 25 FREE editions of ”The Dallas Cowboys: 50 Years Of Football“.

The rich heritage of this famous football team is captured in an extraordinary collection of stories, a spectacular selection of images from the best photo archive in all of sports, and a mind-boggling array of stats, arcane, anecdotes, and memorabilia celebrating the 50th anniversary of the Dallas Cowboys.

The are loved and they are hated. There is no team in the NFL, no football in the nation that stirs as much emotion, coast to coast, as the Dallas Cowboys. They are ‘America’s Team.’ Born in 1960, the Cowboys did not win a game in their first season, finishing 0-11-1. From those humble beginnings emerged a franchise for which winning, and winning it all, was expected. Eight Super Bowl appearances, five Super Bowl victories’ and, oh, the glory and the glamour that has surrounded this team.

LoneStarStruck,.com would like to give 25 lucky winners the chance to win a copy of Dallas Cowboys: 50 Years of Football! Those that sign-up also qualify to win a flat screen television to enjoy the Dallas Cowboys and the up-coming 2010 NFL season.

Recently, I had the great pleasure of having one of my favorite current Cowboys answer a few questions for me on behalf of this fabulous site, Lone Star Struck.

When I think of Jay Ratliff, words like amazing, clutch, tremendous, unstoppable and  fierce come to mind. He has become the heart and soul and driving force of our defense, and has played a great part in making it one of the best defensive units in the NFL. He has catapulted himself from a backup to a consistent Pro Bowl caliber performer who is now considered by many to be among the best at his position.

What many Cowboy fans may not know, is just how down to earth Jay Ratliff really is. He is a man of the people who takes nothing for granted and considers every day a blessing. He is a leader both on and off the field who always strives to be better and never settles.

Jay-Rat enjoys reaching out to his fans and started his own website aptly named JayRat.com .  It’s a great site that is loaded with information about Jay and includes plenty of stats and trivia, a great photo gallery, and news and notes about his goals, his outreach to kids, and his unwavering support for our troops. To sum it up in three words, it’s “Jay Ratliff Unwrapped”.

Jay was extremely generous of his time and kind enough to answer a few questions for me about himself, the Cowboys, and the upcoming season. I hope you enjoy it.

Joe D: Last season you were an absolute monster on the field and finished with 40 tackles, 6 sacks, and 2 forced fumbles. You were rewarded by being selected to the 2009 NFL All-Pro Team as a first-team defensive tackle. What was it like to be honored like that? And how did it feel to prove the doubters wrong, who questioned whether you’d be successful switching from end to tackle?

Jay Ratliff: Thanks. It was a blessing to me, but I never really even thought about it. I only thought about some of the goals I didn’t accomplish. No matter what I’m honored with I think I’ll still be upset about my draft day experience. Weird I know, but it’s what drives me.

Joe D: By now you already know that Super Bowl XLV will be hosted at Cowboys Stadium on February 6, 2011. First, tell us what this means for the city and the Cowboys fans in general, and then I want you to tell me what the odds are that you’ll be on that field with the rest of your teammates on that day? How’s our chances?

Jay Ratliff: Well I know it is a huge deal for our city and fans worldwide as we are constantly reminded every day. It’s going to be tough like every season is, but we have to be even more focused mentally. However, I feel we have a shot.

Joe D: One thing I know for sure, is that the Cowboys aren’t going anywhere without you. You have become such a tremendous part of the fabric of this team, and in my opinion one if its core players and inspirational leaders both on and off the field. You recently had surgery on both of your elbows. Please tell us how that went, and where you now stand as far as your rehab goes and whether you’ll be 100% ready for training camp?

Jay Ratliff: Thanks for the kind words. My surgery went very well. I went to Dr. Andrews who is one of the best in the business. Right now I have full range of motion and my press is getting better. I should be ready for training camp.

Joe D: Draft day is right around the corner… What particular areas would you like the team to focus on and strengthen?

Jay Ratliff: Personally I feel like we have what we need. It’s all about just getting it done now.

Joe D: We are so fortunate to have such a great player like you on our team and comprising one of the best defensive units in the NFL. Tell me what it’s like to be a part of this team, and dealing with all the ups and downs and rigors of an NFL season. How important is it to have good chemistry in the locker room? Do you consider yourselves to be a band of brothers?

Jay Ratliff: I love the guys we have on this team. There are so many different personalities, but we all get along and work well together. I feel that chemistry is the most important thing in a locker room. If a team does not have that, believe me, it shows on the field and they fall apart at critical times. So yes I do feel like we are a band of brothers.

Joe D: I think it’s great that you’ve started your own website (JayRat.com), and that you are so willing and committed to reaching out and communicating with so many of your diehard fans. Can you tell us how important it is for you to have that connection with your fans?

Jay Ratliff: Simple. If it was not for the fans we could not do what we do. You guys help put food on our tables. It is very important to me to try and reach out and communicate with every fan to show you all how we appreciate you and thank you. We owe it to you.

Thanks so much to Jay Ratliff and Jamie Tebbe, for allowing us the priveledge to have Jay answer a few questions for us. We look forward to seeing Jay-Rat back on the field real soon, sacking the opposing quarterback and thrilling us with your signature roar.

I encourage you all to check out JayRat.com.

Seriously, we can’t complain about Wade Phillips right now, but his press conferences really make you miss some of the other more emotional coaches interviews.

With a record of 28-12, I’m thinking maybe he’s just camera shy because he’s certainly doing things right lately.

Great win Coach!

Seems like Andy Reid wants to blame the loss on losing the challenge he never should have made.

Direct link to video: http://espn.go.com/video/clip?id=4636760

Carolina at Dallas MNF Pre Game Video

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Which of these key position battles do you think will be the most interesting?

The results were a dead heat between Jenkins/Scandrick (38%) and Crayton/Austin (38%).  In third place was the battle at offensive guard position with Kyle Kosier and Montrae Holland who received 15% of the votes. Finally, linebackers Bobby Carpenter and Jason Williams received a measly 8%.

This poll is full of so much irony. In the end Mike Jenkins and Orlando Scandrick have been told they are both starters who will alternate starts and playing time. Miles Austin didn’t really show us that he deserves to start over vet Patrick Crayton. Kosier and Holland?… boring. Bobby Carpenter and Jason Williams, well that was easily answered when Williams got injured.

Maybe we should have had a 5th choice between Isaiah Stanback and Kevin Ogletree, but who knew?

New poll: What are your expectations for the upcoming season?