Where did the Staubach-Pearson ‘Hail Mary’ football end up after 50 years?

Bryon Adams makes his living in management consulting, but he is also a sports collector, specifically Dallas Cowboys memorabilia. One of his pieces, a Tom Landry fedora, is on display at The Star after he loaned it to the team.

He has long wanted a game-worn jersey of a Cowboys’ Ring of Honor member. When he received the list of items available from Goldin Auctions, a Cowboys jersey was not among the 100 offered, but a football was.

It was purported to be the football receiver Drew Pearson threw out of Metropolitan Stadium in celebration after catching the famed “Hail Mary” pass from Roger Staubach on Dec. 28, 1975 — a play that beat the Vikings in the playoffs and coined the now ubiquitous Hail Mary phrase.

“I won it at an auction,” Adams said. “One of the things I tell people: Your heart wants to believe everything you see is real, so you’ve got to be careful because your wallet gets attached to that fast and you bought something not legitimate.”

Adams did his best to find out all of the information he could about the ball. He called the Pro Football Hall of Fame to see if they had possession of the ball or if officials knew its whereabouts. He has a friend with the Cowboys and asked if they had possession of the ball.

The origin story of the football goes like this: A man was refilling his flask outside the stadium when this ball landed not far away and ended up under the rear quarter panel of his car. He put the ball in the back of the car and reentered the stadium for the final seconds.

Within a week after the game, Adams said the man went to Minnesota Vikings headquarters and got a bill of sale from their general manager, Mike Lynn — the same person who made the famous trade in 1989 to acquire running back Herschel Walker from the Cowboys, who used the massive trade haul to jump-start their triple Super Bowl championship stretch of the 1990s.

Adams has the bill of sale. The paper used for the sale is consistent with what was used in the 1970s. The stamp matched the stamp used by the Cowboys back then, too.

The man passed the ball down to a nephew in 1981, and he kept it until 2016. It was purchased at another auction and stored in a safety deposit box until Adams bought it in March 2024.

Staubach’s Hail Mary for Cowboys left a 50-year Vikings beef

Adams also called Wilson, the football maker. Their footballs had time codes with letters on either tip of the ball. Wilson confirmed the codes — two Hs — were on footballs given to the NFL in 1975.

“What I can’t believe is no people decided to go public with it,” Adams said. “It’s just stayed hidden. I was highly skeptical at first.”

Knowing this is the 50th anniversary of the Hail Mary, Adams said he offered to loan the football to the Cowboys. For reasons he does not know, the organization cooled on the idea. Recently, he met Pearson and said the conversation did not go well between the two.

“Maybe he thought I was bragging about [having the ball] and flaunted that I had it,” Adams said. “But that wasn’t my intention at all. I’m very sorry if he felt that way. …

“When I was a kid and you played football at recess, you were either [Pittsburgh Steelers stars] Terry Bradshaw and Lynn Swann or Roger Staubach and Drew Pearson.”

Adams grew up in Indiana and moved to Dallas in 2001 and “became one of those obnoxious super fans when I moved down here.”

He said he was just a steward of the ball. He would offer it to Staubach or Pearson for the amount he paid for it.

“If Drew or Roger wanted it, that’s where it ought to go,” Adams said. “They invented the play.”