OXNARD, Calif. — Nearly 90 Dallas Cowboys players gather on a field, performing stretches and dynamic movements to warm up before a morning practice. Director of rehabilitation Britt Brown leads injured players through an individually tailored workout program.
Sitting and standing stretches.
Lunges and lateral shuffles.
On occasion, Michelle Payne observes from her second-story home-office window. While they train, so does the semiretired, Emmy Award-winning Hollywood hairstylist.
“I work out with them,” Payne said. “They don’t know it. I’ll just join them and do it. … I’ll mirror their workout. Sometimes, I’ll wave to their camera guy. I mean, I was married to a cinematographer. I am more closely associated to what goes on down there than they realize.”
This is the 16th summer the Cowboys have held training camp in Oxnard since 2001 but just the second with a fully constructed, 152-unit housing village overlooking them. Where a dirt lot once bordered two practice fields, the gated community creates a more personal touchpoint between the franchise and locals, requiring respect from both sides of the fence.
More than 30 residents opened their homes to The Dallas Morning News to detail how having an NFL team next door, about one month a year, impacts life inside The Gallery at River Ridge community. The vast majority of households lack a field view like Payne’s, unable to turn Cowboys trainers into their personal ones.
Her enjoyment, however, is fairly widespread.
“It is kind of like a kid’s dream to have sports in your backyard,” said LD Luque, who is 7 and lives in The Gallery. “Every summer, I get so excited now because I know, ‘Oh, the Cowboys come every summer.’”
As a team develops on the field, family and friend traditions build off it.
After Robert and Sara Fenlon hosted relatives for a 10-person viewing of a Cowboys practice, they predicted a burgeoning family tradition like Thanksgiving, Christmas or Easter. Many residents without a field view walk to a wall, climbing a ladder, stepstool or parked truck to see the action. Or, they make the 5- to 10-minute walk around the corner to the general practice entry, where admission is free.
“The other day, when we were warming up, I thought, ‘That’d be a pretty cool day to sit on your balcony and watch the Dallas Cowboys practice right out your back window,’” coach Mike McCarthy said. “It’s definitely unique. I think those things are special to the uniqueness of this setup.”
Naturally, with any neighbors, small grievances can arise.
Issues and quarrels are few and far between. They include the outlier homeowner with two surveillance cameras pointing at the Cowboys’ practice field at all times and the married couple counting down the days until the team departs.
Fields of dreams
Robert Acosta calls it his “million-dollar view.”
When the Cowboys are in town, he emerges from his bedroom and steps onto a second-story balcony, sometimes holding a cup of coffee or glass of Cabernet. The balcony greets the team with two Cowboys flags. From his vantage, Acosta faces the back-left corner of the south field end zone. The north field is to his left. A long, fan walkway and bleachers are to his right, adjacent to a golf course.
“It’s emotional,” Acosta said. “When I’m out there and I’m just watching, and I look up, and the sun and the clouds are there. ‘Thank you, Lord.’ I have this for a month or so. … It’s unreal. It’s like a dream, truthfully.”
The Acosta family owns the Gallery home that is most widely recognized among the Cowboys organization and fans. Beyond the Cowboys signage, being the lone balcony behind that end zone and having the closest proximity to bleachers, as many as 40 friends and family members memorably crowded the property last summer for a weekend practice.
Four years ago, the Acostas put down a $15,000 deposit to purchase the home, just dirt then.
There is an unwritten code to being so close to the action.
Acosta said that he, his family and any guests stay positive, not disparaging players for any reason. They could profit off leasing the property to strangers on Airbnb but don’t. Likewise, if compelled, they could record video of the Cowboys’ practices and walkthroughs, the latter of which are mostly closed to the public. They don’t.
Warner Cutbill, 31, carries the same principles.
Cutbill’s home is the only other one to display a Cowboys flag visible from the practice fields. He lives alongside the north field and has supported the Cowboys since childhood. Cutbill estimated that “60% of the reason” he owns the home is to see the team practice.
He built a backyard deck to improve his view.
“The idea is not to film it at all,” Cutbill said. “If you’re out there, show that you’re out there, not kind of hidden so they don’t have to worry about someone filming. … I tell people if they come over, [use] words of encouragement to something that they do. Don’t be the guy that’s trying to ask for an autograph while they’re trying to practice.
“A lot of these guys can deal with the distractions, but it’s early on in camp. Make sure that their focus is on the right place and they don’t feel like they’ve got someone chirping over their shoulder.”
Good fences make good neighbors.
Cable Johnson, director of Cowboys security, works to keep the experience positive for both sides of that fence. Long before the first practice, he meets with the homeowner association president, Sergio Becerra-Casillas, and they discuss how to strengthen their partnership and resolve any current or potential issues. The dialogue continues throughout the Cowboys’ stay.
Becerra-Casillas mentioned how Cole Brocato, a father in the Gallery, coaches his son’s junior football league team, the Oxford Knights. Becerra-Casillas asked Johnson if the team could attend a practice and meet players. Sixteen of the 18 players, ages 11 to 13, were there Thursday. Running back Ezekiel Elliott and wide receiver CeeDee Lamb were among the players to meet the group and give autographs.
The main community complaint in 2021 originated from when the Los Angeles Rams visited the Cowboys for a joint practice. A surplus of fans traveled to the scrimmage. Seeking an alternate entry point, some sneaked past the Gallery gates, parking illegally in cul-de-sacs and climbing on fences to catch a peek.
“No parking” signs were installed at both gates into the community this summer. Johnson provided the HOA all relevant, direct contact information for assistance. On July 30, the Cowboys reached capacity at more than 4,000 fans for the annual Opening Ceremony practice. Preplanned patrols with Oxnard police helped mitigate trespassing issues, Becerra-Casillas said.
Rare exceptions
A popular, recurring sketch in recent seasons of Saturday Night Live features three people who have returned from alien abduction. The first two describe to the National Security Agency a beautiful, transcendental encounter with intelligent life. The third plays comedic foil, reenacting unpleasant details from her sour experience.
Robert Putzel is not trying to be funny here.
But his experience with the Cowboys’ training camp essentially makes him that third person.
“I can’t wait for them to leave,” Putzel said.
For a second straight year, Putzel and his wife have found themselves without Internet connectivity to their living room television since the Cowboys set up operations at their camp hotel. Like most in the community, the couple’s home lacks a practice-field view, instead sharing its backyard wall with the team’s cold tub area, along with other tented facilities. When the Cowboys packed up last August, the Putzels’ downstairs Internet connectivity magically returned.
They hope for that effect again.
Putzel, 71, is an El Paso native. He stressed that he likes the Cowboys, who first arrived for setup here July 6. Players and coaches followed July 25.
“The day after all [their] stuff was set up and the medical units started coming in and they set up the tubs …and the field is all set up, everything went out,” Putzel said. “Not only that, my printers upstairs don’t work. My WiFi in my phones went out. The coffee machine went out. It’s like this place is frickin’ haunted.”
WiFi has been restored to the other devices. Just not the downstairs TV.
Geek Squad tech consultants have visited their home four times, Putzel said. Connectivity for the TV could not be restored. He has experimented with three Internet systems. None have solved the problem. Exasperated, Putzel turned on his TV and gave a walkthrough of the error messages he receives when trying to access the Spectrum Cable app or reconnect to WiFi.
“I don’t know what is going on over here, but something weird is going on,” he said. “I think they have jamming equipment. At least, that’s what I believe.”
Johnson said that he became aware of the issue this year, and the Cowboys are taking the matter seriously.
So far, the Cowboys’ head of IT has been unable to identify a solution. The team has requested more information.
“We don’t have any type of broadcast firewall,” Johnson said. “We don’t have a buffer, umbrella or barrier that would prevent any type of communications from coming in and out. We certainly aren’t high enough to block satellites or to do things that could interfere and certainly not intentionally.”
Elsewhere, one home is arguably too connected.
The field-facing property has at least seven Ubiquiti surveillance cameras elevated around the outdoor perimeter. Two appear to be pointed directly at the Cowboys’ practice field, able to record any practice — open or closed — in high definition from a bird’s-eye view. More cameras are installed today than last year when the Cowboys met with the homeowner and requested the cameras not point at the field.
The homeowner declined an interview request.
“We are not in a position where we can make a demand,” Johnson said. “Outside of something that becomes a safety matter, we can’t make a demand, so the partnership is key.”
Ultimately, if the Cowboys are to lose sleep over wandering eyes at practice, they won’t sleep better back home in Frisco. Coach McCarthy’s preferred field when at Ford Center at The Star is outdoors on natural grass, just under a tall, reflective-glass commercial building that houses Keurig Dr Pepper headquarters.
McCarthy is aware of the residential cameras.
Having held his first Oxnard camp as a Cowboys coach in 2021, he only knows the practice fields post-residential development.
“It’s something that when you come out — it’s no different than Frisco — the questions are asked from a security standpoint,” McCarthy said. “We’re conscientious of what we’re doing out here. The beauty of the structure of how we practice, this is [scheme] install. If it was game plan, I think it’s a different conversation than we would be having.
“I mean, that was my first reaction. You see computers up in the windows, things like that. I think it’s really a product of our game today. The access is unprecedented. As coaches, you’re never comfortable with that. But that is part of today’s NFL.”
Close-up view
When Payne is not looking from her second-story window to join the Cowboys’ workouts, she has found herself asking a question.
Who is that guy?
Every morning, barring a conflict with the Cowboys’ meeting schedule, a player she cannot identify slowly walks the practice fields alone. He stops and places a water bottle on the grass, paces back and methodically works through a kicking motion. He does this again and again from different distances toward different goal posts. In the late afternoon or evening, he returns, sometimes around sunset after dinner, and repeats the routine.
Payne considers herself more of a swimmer. She is no football junkie. But she knows high-level visualization when she sees it. Seeing this player, Cowboys kicker Lirim Hajrullahu, at work was a “catch moment,” she said.
“It was very cerebral,” added Payne, whose work specialty is era-specific hairstyling. “It was very much like many people I work with, when you’re walking through something before you begin it. ... We work on multimillion-dollar faces, so if you’re working on a period hairdo and you’re working on a big screen, you mentally walk through what you’re going to do on that person before they walk into the trailer.
“You’re so self-assured of exactly everything your hands are going to do before you begin. They’re self-assured on the energy that is going to happen. Everyone just feels good.”
Hajrullahu, 32, leads the Cowboys’ kicker competition between him and rookie Jonathan Garibay. The idea of the mental conditioning that Payne noticed, Hajrullahu said, is for any kick he attempts within a competitive setting to be familiar. He’ll already have made the same kick twice before — once that morning and another time the previous night.
This is his personal process, on display for only the Gallery.
“I think it’s really cool,” Hajrullahu said. “It’s a great opportunity for them to become bigger fans, understand what we’re doing. The fans see the practice, but a lot of people don’t see that there is a walkthrough before that practice. There is a mock game at the end of the day. So we’re out here almost all day long. If you’re one of the neighbors, you get to see the behind-the-scene world.”
Tom Acosta, Robert Acosta’s 24-year-old son, calls seeing the Cowboys work in their backyard “inspiring.”
All the practices and walkthroughs. All the strength and conditioning and group yoga. The one person who runs up and down the bleachers in the mornings.
It all makes him want to keep active, too.
Neighbors noticing Cowboys players is not a one-way street, Dalton Schultz said. The tight end joined the Cowboys in 2018 as a fourth-round draft pick, so he has witnessed the transition from barren dirt to the development that stands today.
“The best thing is when we do walkthroughs in the evening because you’ll see dudes shirtless, sitting in their office chairs, cracking a beer,” Schultz said. “It’s great. They have the best seat in the house.”
The Cowboys’ first practice in Oxnard this summer was July 28. Their last, a walkthrough closed to the general public, is Aug. 16. Tents will be collapsed, moving trucks will be loaded, and the Putzels will watch television in their living room again.
One defining aspect of having the Cowboys next door is the morning music.
Gallery residents hear it most days, usually hip hop or classic rock. During a Zoom call for work, someone may ask if there is a party in the house. No, Sara Fenlon has responded, that is just the Dallas Cowboys. She smiles and points her laptop camera to the practice fields. At least a few residents find the background bothersome, but overall, like the Cowboys themselves, the sound is embraced.
Soon, it will get quiet here again.
“They’re very much like neighbors,” Cutbill said. “It’s always sad to see them go because you get familiar with them. They’re right out there, and you’re like, ‘Ah, they’re not going to be there anymore.’ ”
Until next year.
