Who really designed the Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders’ uniforms?

It is unfailingly captivating.

The glitz. The glamour. The pizzaz.

It is instantly recognisable.

The star-spangled waistcoat. The tiny white hotpants. The timeless Lucchese boots.

It is endlessly iconic.

The Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders’ outfit.

Often imitated, never equalled, the look has provoked adoration and anger, tension and titillation, for decades. In recent years, vast new audiences have discovered it via the smash America’s Sweethearts series on Netflix. The uniform is even enshrined in the Smithsonian, a totem of Americana stored under the same roof as The Hope Diamond and Abraham Lincoln’s top hat. 

There is no greater outfit in the history of cheer.

Sixty-four years after cheerleaders first bestrode the Cotton Bowl sidelines, however, and 53 years after the Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders (DCC) adopted their familiar attire, subterranean debate still rages as to the provenance of that design. More pointedly, there are multiple claims to original authorship of the DCC uniform design, and attempts to parse the truth have long been obfuscated.

The official narrative

According to the official narrative, Paula Van Wagoner designed the iconic DCC uniform in 1972, as franchise general manager Tex Schramm and DCC director Dee Brock sought to take the cheerleading squad in a sexier direction. (1)

Brock had coordinated cheerleaders at Cowboys games since September 1961, when Schramm first eyed a supplementary fan attraction. Known as the CowBelles & Beaux, featuring male and female high school students, the original squad was tame, leading rhythmic chants in staid shirts, trousers and pinafores. (2) (3)

Seemingly inspired by the risqué outfits of Bubbles Cash – a blonde stripper who became a de facto team mascot after courting attention at a 1967 game – Schramm rebranded the cheerleaders in 1970. The DCC moniker was adopted, and older female performers displayed a more provocative style. Texie Waterman was hired off Broadway to add dance elements to the choreography, while sexier attire topped the agenda. (3) (4) (5)

“At one point, Tex Schramm had asked his teenage daughter Christi to sketch out uniforms,” wrote Joe Nick Patoski in his definitive history of the Cowboys. “Christi patiently drew what she thought a cheerleader costume should look like: a functional sleeveless top and short pleated skirt. But when she showed it to her daddy, he just smiled and handed it back to her. ‘No, that’s not quite what I’m looking for,’ Tex said.” (5)

Christi shunned, Schramm sought external help, and he found it through a golfing buddy: clothing boutique scion Lester Melnick, who connected the Cowboys GM with Lorch Folz, patriarch of the Lorch Westway Corporation, which designed and manufactured clothing for various labels. Van Wagoner worked for Lorch Westway, and Folz asked her if she wanted to design the new DCC outfit. Far from overly animated, Van Wagoner agreed, seeing it as just another routine order. (3) (6) 

Duly engaged, Van Wagoner met with Brock and Schramm, per the accepted version of events, and they briefed the designer on what they wanted for their new DCC uniform – namely something western, tasteful, and easy to dance in. Van Wagoner claims to have taken that brief, sketched an idea, and returned two days later with a prototype, stitched by Leveta Crager, a seamstress who worked for Melnick. When Schramm said he wanted to see the uniform on a model, Van Wagoner donned it to gain approval. (7)

The rest, as they say, is history. The Cowboys morphed into a powerhouse – America’s Team, indeed, with recurring star power and Super Bowl titles aplenty. Symbiotically, the DCC grew into a juggernaut, as well, propelled by The Wink of Gwenda Swearingen; the innovation of Brock, Waterman, Suzanne Mitchell and Charlotte Jones; the inadvertent promotion of Debbie Does Dallas; and the myriad television treatments en route to the Smithsonian.

Indeed, when the DCC uniform was inducted into the National Museum of American History in 2018, Van Wagoner flew to the event on the private plane of Cowboys owner Jerry Jones. The sketches she used to conceptualise the uniform design were exhibited in the hallowed halls, and reporters clamoured to regurgitate the origin story. (3)

That the true mastermind of the DCC uniform design was potentially absent, without even receiving an invitation, seemed incomprehensible. But it remains a distinct possibility – and one that has often been overlooked. (3)

Dee Brock’s claim

That potential mastermind was Dee Brock, director of the Cowboys’ cheerleading efforts from their inception in 1961 until 1975. Quietly, and with elegant restraint, Brock has always proffered a different narrative as to the uniform’s creation – that she produced an earlier ideation sketch and handed it to Melnick, a friend of her husband, and that Melnick subsequently passed it to Folz and, perhaps, Van Wagoner.

“I designed a new set of costumes that were much more abbreviated,” Brock told KLTV in March 2009. However, it was not until 2021 that I first encountered this alternative history, while listening to a compelling podcast series – America’s Girls – written, reported and narrated by Sarah Hepola for Texas Monthly. (3) (8) 

Hepola interviewed Brock for her series, and though sweetly pragmatic at the age of 91, the inaugural DCC director reiterated claims that she had never heard of Bubbles Cash, and that she, alone, went to Schramm and pushed for a glitzier cheer approach with older women who could truly perform. (3)

Moreover, Brock told Hepola she sketched her vision for a more revealing uniform on a yellow notepad, from which Van Wagoner took inspiration after receiving it further down the chain. Vonciel Baker, a member of the 1972 DCC, vouched for the yellow notepad theory, recalling how Brock showed it to the squad after working on it during practice. (3)

“No, it didn’t happen that way,” Van Wagoner told Hepola, pitting one woman’s word against another and kickstarting another of my ill-advised quests to crack an unsolved mystery. I had to get to the bottom of this dilemma, and so I delved deep down the DCC rabbit hole. (3)

My investigation

Up front, indeed, attempting to decode the truth in this matter is, perhaps, a fool’s errand. A lot of the people involved – including Schramm, Melnick and Folz – have passed away. Dee Brock is now 95 and Paula Van Wagoner is in her eighties. Moreover, little contemporaneous journalism was done on the redesigned DCC uniform because, well, it was just another cheerleader outfit. Nobody really cared because nobody knew what the DCC would become – a pop cultural force that entirely redefined the scope, ethos and style of professional cheerleading.

To that point, and contrary to most retellings, uniform changes were not uncommon among cheerleading squads in general and the nascent Cowboys troupe in particular. The outfits actually changed several times throughout the 1960s, during the CowBelles & Beaux era, and a marked shift occurred in 1970, when the team adopted white cowboy hats, blue stars on white collars, shorter dresses and white go-go boots. (9)

As such, the prevailing narrative – that the Cowboys cheerleaders moved from a buttoned-up vibe to a more liberated design overnight – is not strictly true. There was a gradual change towards a defined aesthetic, with intermittent design tweaks in 1970 and 1971 of the same ‘genre’ – star-spangled razzamatazz meets western chic – as the famous look which debuted in 1972. Importantly, those incremental changes – in 1970 and 1971 – were made before Van Wagoner ever interacted with the Dallas Cowboys.

Furthermore, it seems Tex Schramm’s role has often been overstated. In actuality, Schramm had little interest in day-to-day DCC operations, according to numerous sources. When Brock hired Waterman, for instance, Schramm refused to pay an extra DCC employee, so Dee gave Texie half of her $600 salary. Likewise, when the Cowboys reached successive Super Bowls – in 1971 and 1972 – Schramm refused to pay for the DCC to travel, and their attendance was only secured when Brock found external sponsorship. (3)

I liaised with Dee Brock via a close intermediary, who accentuated Brock’s academic credentials and her aversion to revisionist history. A master of English who graduated from the University of North Texas, Brock appreciates the magnitude of subtle narrative changes, and that wisdom grounds her claims in an almost apologetic reticence. Dee knows this stuff matters to people, so she straddles a fine line between wanting to correct the origin story without having a toxic sideshow detract from the alluring miasma. (10) (11)

Though often described merely as a ‘former model,’ there is much more to Brock’s life and career than is readily acknowledged. For decades, Dee was a renowned educator who pioneered digital learning via nascent television programmes. The DCC gig was a fun sideline for Brock, who improved educational opportunities for people worldwide. (10)

With the DCC, Brock was also a relentless innovator. Not only did she push for the use of sexier, more mature performers within the troupe; she also campaigned fiercely – and successfully – to integrate the squad, which she did in 1965 with the help of assistant DCC director Frances Roberson. (4) 

Dee remembers being responsible for the pre-1972 uniform changes, but recalling the nuts and bolts of design and production is – understandably – beyond her grasp now, almost 60 years later. Interestingly, however, Brock reiterated to me that she does not recall Bubbles Cash contemporaneously, nor does she remember Schramm having any input to the DCC aesthetic. According to her recollection, Dee vouched for adult cheerleaders because they would be easier to take on roadtrips, while the glitz of successive Super Bowl appearances may have influenced the swing to a more ‘showbiz’ tone. (10) 

Per Dee, then, she – not Schramm, Cash, nor Van Wagoner – was solely responsible for conceptualising the DCC ‘rebrand.’ Roberson and Waterman were also involved in day-to-day DCC operations at that time, but the latter focused on choreography while the former assisted Brock. Besides, neither Waterman nor Roberson ever claimed involvement with the DCC uniforms, whereas multiple members of the DCC affirm Brock as the original costume designer.

For example, when Hepola interviewed Brock and Baker while researching her podcast, the pair had not spoken for 45 years, and they were interviewed independently with no prior knowledge of the other’s participation. However, they both remembered the yellow notepad bearing Dee’s original sketch – a pretty compelling realisation. (12)

During my own research, I spoke extensively to Carrie O’Brien Sibley, a teammate of Baker and group leader of the original 1972 DCC squad. “I can unequivocally tell you that Dee Brock sketched the original uniform,” O’Brien Sibley said. “She showed the sketch to the original squad, sketched on a legal pad, before she passed it on to Tex Schramm, who then gave it to Lester Melnick. Lester put Tex in touch with Lorch Folz, who owned a clothing company. Paula Van Wagoner worked for Folz. She was given the sketch and told to tweak it.” (13)

O’Brien Sibley and Baker were joined by five other women – Anna Carpenter, Deanovoy Nichols, Dixie Smith, Dolores McAda and Rosemary Hall – on the original DCC squad, from over 100 who auditioned. (14) Carpenter, McAda and Hall have all passed away, leaving just four living members of the inaugural DCC team. Two of those survivors have publicly backed Brock as the original uniform designer, while O’Brien Sibley says they ‘all’ feel angry about Dee being overlooked in the official narrative. Per O’Brien Sibley, indeed, one original DCC member had never even heard of Paula Van Wagoner until she was honoured at the Smithsonian. (13)

Likewise, Brock has no recollection of ever meeting Van Wagoner, which contradicts Van Wagoner’s reminiscence. Via her intermediary, Dee told me she handed her sketch ‘personally’ to Lester Melnick, who was friendly with her husband and a central spoke in Dallas fashion. However, Brock does acknowledge that the final product, once delivered, was 'definitely an improved, but recognisable, version' of her sketch - making her at least amenable to the idea of somebody else iterating her initial concept. (10)

Melnick died in 2024, but I managed to reach his daughter, Leslie Diers, who was also involved in the family business. “My father was one of the biggest and longest- running Cowboy fans you could ever meet,” Leslie recalled. “He was quite friendly with Tex Schramm and his wife, and many of the other Cowboys, their wives, and the management team. Tom Landry, the iconic coach, and his wife, Alicia, were our neighbours and lived a few houses down from us when I was growing up. They all shopped regularly in our clothing stores, and my parents developed close relationships with many of them. This is how Tex happened to come to my dad for this project.” (15)

Some sources have even credited Melnick himself with the iconic DCC uniform design, with the skimpy Southwest Airlines stewardess outfits mentioned as a possible inspiration. Multiple sources scoffed at that notion, however, while even Diers said her father’s quotes about the design had often been misconstrued. (15) (16) 

Crucially, though, Melnick did not have an in-house design team. Rather, Lester bought and sold clothes from numerous suppliers. “Retailers are, essentially, not designers or creators,” he said in a 2011 interview. “The creativity and design came from the small design rooms and the creative people.” (17) 

Melnick did have an alterations department, Diers confirmed, and Leveta Crager worked within it as a seamstress – tailoring garments to customer specifications. Multiple sources confirmed that Crager stitched the DCC uniforms from her workstation in Melnick’s flagship Dallas store. The original 1972 DCC were fitted for those uniforms at the same store, O’Brien Sibley confirmed, while Diers shared the below photograph from one of those occasions, verifying Melnick’s involvement. (15)

Evidently, then, in this retelling, there appears to have been a gap between Brock handing Melnick her uniform sketch and Crager sewing it into reality. And that, ultimately, may have been where Lorch – and, by extension, Van Wagoner – came in.

“My father came to Dallas from New York in the early 1950s as a travelling salesman for a line of women’s coats,” Diers explained. “He immediately fell in love with Dallas and the youthful, hopeful spirit of the city. He became acquainted with other men in the apparel business, one of which had a get-together every Sunday night in his home. It was at one of these gatherings that my father met Lorch Folz, another young man in the manufacturing business. They became close friends and remained so until Lorch’s death.” (15)

Mutually beneficial business soon spread between the Lorch Westway Corporation and Lester Melnick Inc. – the former designing and supplying garments bought, stocked and sold by the latter. Therefore, as proffered by Diers, Melnick seemingly served as the ‘facilitator’ in the DCC uniform project, putting all the pieces together – reaching out to Folz, perhaps via Crager, for design support to turn Brock’s rough sketch into a formal, workable design pattern that met standard specifications. (15)

To that end, Diers drew my attention to A Decade of Dreams, a 1982 book on the DCC by Mary Candace Evans, which outlines a similar tale. Diers found a copy in her parents’ home and photocopied relevant sections for me. “The now-famous Cheerleaders uniform had its origins in the most unlikely place,” wrote Evans. “Tex Schramm was standing under the hot Texas sun on a putting green when he asked his golfing partner, a leading Dallas retailer named Lester Melnick, if he knew how the Cowboys could obtain some glamorous costumes for the Cheerleaders. Doubtful as he was, Melnick called a friend, Lorch Folz, who was president of a Dallas apparel company. Folz in turn put the Cowboys in touch with one of his designers, Paula Van Waggoner. [sic]” (18)

Throwing a further wrench into the works, however, another Lorch Westway employee also claimed authorship of the DCC uniform design. “Even on Wikipedia, there is a designer that I used to work with that was still claiming that she designed the cheerleader uniform,” Van Wagoner told Hepola for her podcast. “The Cheerleaders would go in and change it to my name, and within a week, it would change to her name again.” (3) 

By mining DCC Wikipedia archives, I found repeat reference to a ‘Jody Van Amburgh’ as the original uniform designer. Old newspaper reports and company ads confirmed Van Amburgh as a Lorch Westway employee. Indeed, she was a senior employee whose name graced the company when it rebranded in the 1980s. (19) (20)

Despite persistent efforts, I failed to establish a line of communication with Van Amburgh. However, sources familiar with her supposed involvement suggested Van Amburgh supervised Van Wagoner, and that the entire DCC uniform debacle had left the boss ‘beleaguered.’ 

Keen to hear her version of events, I also reached out to Van Wagoner through multiple channels – directly and indirectly – but, frustratingly, never received a reply. I also contacted her niece, Inga, who was a DCC in 1995, but again failed to yield a response.

My assessment

Brock no longer has her original sketches, per sources close to her, and in the absence of such conclusive evidence, debate surrounding the true origins of the DCC uniform design will always remain subjective. Hepola could never find a ‘smoking gun’ despite spending months digging through old newspaper archives and interviewing a plethora of sources. And in the end, I, too, have failed to definitively prove – or disprove – any of the competing claims. (12)

Naturally, I have opinions and theories as to the DCC uniform origins, but a leap of faith is required to advocate any one of the competing narratives. Van Wagoner seems to have the more polished claim, thanks to her sketches and endorsement by the Cowboys and the Smithsonian. However, there are enough counterclaims – from original DCC members, no less – to at least warrant discussion, in my opinion. 

To wit, even the Smithsonian has made a litany of errors in its chronicling of the DCC uniform. In one 2016 write-up, for instance, the National Museum of American History referred to a ‘Leslie Van Wagoner of the Lester Melnick store’ as the original designer, mistaking her first name and her employer while propagating additional myths. (21)

In the vacuum of doubt, then, there are myriad potential scenarios that are difficult to parse. Some will always vouch for Van Wagoner, just as others will always back Brock. There are several plausible pathways involving both, while Van Amburgh lurks as a mercurial wildcard. Ultimately, we may never know definitively, and I will leave you to reach your own conclusions.

Rest assured, however, that these discrepancies have been raised with Kelli Finglass, the current DCC director, and other team officials, on multiple occasions, per sources. Changes to the accepted gospel have been difficult to discern, but we can only hope for clarity in a graceful manner that minimises harm to the reputations of all involved.

To that end, in closing, it is important to reiterate that this entire debate hinges on events that happened 53 years ago. Memory is a capricious beast, and with time, details become fuzzy. The other subtlety here is that these women are now in their dotage. Care needs grow as memories fade, and nobody involved needs the drama at this stage of their remarkable lives. I want to honour, not besmirch, their respective – and shared – legacies. And they are legacies to be proud of.

Indeed, when all is said and done, both Dee Brock and Paula Van Wagoner should probably be recognised and celebrated for their (admittedly undefined) roles in bringing to life the iconic DCC vision. So, too, should a slew of other forgotten women – from Frances Roberson, Texie Waterman and Leveta Crager to Bubbles Cash, Carrie O’Brien Sibley and the actual cheerleaders who brought that vision to life. Without their contributions, the world’s most famous cheerleading troupe would look a whole lot different. To what extent, and upon who’s command, may be immaterial after all.

Sources

1. Dallascowboys.com. [Online] May 29, 2018. https://www.dallascowboys.com/news/making-history-paula-van-wagoner-honored.

2. Pompedia. [Online] https://www.pompedia.com/index.php?title=Dallas_Cowboys.

3. Hepola, Sarah. America's Girls podcast. Texas Monthly. [Online] December 2021. https://www.texasmonthly.com/podcasts/series/americas-girls/.

4. Jonker, Makenna. Medium. [Online] March 5, 2024. https://medium.com/@makennajonker/a-history-of-the-dallas-cowboys-cheerleaders-and-the-forgotten-women-who-shaped-it-62e3515e9d4e.

5. Patoski, Joe Nick. The Dallas Cowboys: The Outrageous History of the Biggest, Loudest, Most Hated, Best Loved Football Team in America. 2012.

6. Tradition Senior Living. [Online] https://www.traditionseniorliving.com/inspiring-people-paula-van-wagoner/.

7. 5 Points Blue podcast. [Online] February 28, 2018. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KR7AwXjnPSs.

8. KLTV. [Online] March 25, 2009. https://www.kltv.com/story/10065640/east-texans-vision-created-phenomenon-known-as-the-dallas-cowboy-cheerleaders/.

9. 1970 Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders. Pompedia. [Online] https://www.pompedia.com/index.php?title=Dallas_Cowboys_Cheerleaders_of_1970_-_71.

10. Brock, Dee. September 2, 2025.

11. Hepola, Sarah. Texas Monthly. [Online] December 23, 2021. https://www.texasmonthly.com/arts-entertainment/women-who-created-cowboys-cheerleaders/.

12. —. August 24, 2025.

13. O'Brien Sibley, Carrie. August 21, 2025.

14. 1972 Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders. Pompedia. [Online] https://www.pompedia.com/index.php?title=Dallas_Cowboys_Cheerleaders_of_1972_-_73.

15. Diers, Leslie. September 5, 2025.

16. Moore, Brooke. [Online] April 14, 2015. https://brookemoore1.wordpress.com/2015/04/14/a-mans-influence-on-dallas-fashion/.

17. History, DJHS Oral. YouTube. [Online] October 25, 2011. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bfdY6PJ8T0w.

18. Evans, Mary Candace. A Decade of Dreams. 1982.

19. Wikipedia. [Online] December 7, 2011. https://web.archive.org/web/20111207173908/http:/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dallas_Cowboys_Cheerleaders.

20. Altus Times. [Online] October 2, 1989. https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=DVNDAAAAIBAJ&pg=PA2&dq=%22jody+van+amburgh%22&article_id=7023,3262406&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwjR4Nqtw8mPAxVrQUEAHQidO7cQ6AF6BAgGEAM#v=onepage&q=%22jody%20van%20amburgh%22&f=false.

21. National Museum of American History. [Online] 2016. https://americanhistory.si.edu/collections/object/nmah_1848749.