Dallas Cowboys’ Lance Rentzel, #19, runs for touchdown against Green Bay Packers at Green Bay. This was the score that put Dallas ahead in the fourth quarter, only to lose out in final minute.
Dallas Morning News
Lance Rentzel, an electrifying Cowboys receiver married to a TV star when his guilty plea to indecent exposure in 1971 wrecked their glamorous lifestyle, if not his career, died Sunday in Virginia, according to his obituary. He was 82.
Before his infamous fall, Rentzel had been one of the Cowboys’ most popular players. Fast, glib, tall and handsome, he seemed to have it all.
But underneath the “golden boy” image he described in his book, When All the Laughter Died in Sorrow, lay mental illness. He wrote the book at the suggestion of his doctor. In it he described the incidents that led to his exits from Minnesota and Dallas.
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Cowboys teammates stood by Rentzel, at least initially, but after the player’s guilty plea in ’71, Tex Schramm traded him to the Rams in a three-way deal that netted them, among others, Lance Alworth, a former star receiver nearing his career’s end.
“We know we are giving up one of the top flankers in the league,” Tom Landry said at the time of the trade, “but I thought he would be better off in another city where he had the same opportunity regularly.
“We found this in Los Angeles, and it was one of the teams Lance wanted to be traded to if he were traded.”
Rentzel played two seasons for the Rams, neither of which met the standards he established in Dallas, before a police raid of his home resulted in his arrest for possession of marijuana. Because he was already on “probation” with the NFL for his guilty plea in Dallas, Pete Rozelle banned him for the ’73 season.
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Rentzel came back in ’74 for a third tour with the Rams before retiring.
Born Oct. 14, 1943, in Queens, N.Y., to Del Rentzel, an airlines executive who served as the Department of Commerce’s Under Secretary for Transportation under Harry Truman, and Marjorie Rentzel, Lance grew up in Oklahoma City, where he graduated fifth in his high school class. His obituary notes he was accepted into Harvard, Princeton and Yale but chose Oklahoma in order to play football for Bud Wilkinson. He graduated with honors from OU in 1965 with a degree in mathematics.
He earned 12 varsity letters in four sports at OU, according to his obit, but excelled in football, where he played halfback, receiver and punter. He was named first-team All-Big Eight, then played in the Senior Bowl and College All-Star Game, and the Vikings made him the 23rd pick of the ’65 draft.
Early in his second injury-plagued season, he drove to a St. Paul, Minn., playground, where he exposed himself to two young girls. After Rentzel pleaded guilty and promised to seek psychiatric treatment, the charges against him were reduced to disorderly conduct. He received no jail time.
In return for a third-round pick, the Vikings traded him in the spring of ’67 to the Cowboys. The slow start to his NFL career picked up speed. Paired with Bob Hayes, Rentzel and the world’s fastest man provided Don Meredith and Craig Morton the NFL’s most explosive set of receivers.
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Between 1967-69, Rentzel accumulated 2,965 yards and 26 touchdowns over 42 games. In ’69, he led the league in yards per catch at 22.3 and touchdowns with 12.
He caught 13 passes for 223 yards against Washington in 1967, a mark that ranks seventh in Cowboys history. His greater feat came later that season in the NFL Championship Game, when he caught a 50-yard pass from halfback Dan Reeves in the fourth quarter of the Ice Bowl, giving the Cowboys a short-lived lead over Green Bay.
Rentzel’s star-crossed tenure in Dallas would prove to be brief, however. On Nov. 30, 1970, he exposed himself to a 10-year-old girl in University Park. He was arrested four days later. His lawyers said he had been undergoing psychiatric treatment “for some time,” though it was unclear if it was part of the court-ordered treatment in Minnesota. He was sentenced to five years of probation and mandatory psychiatric care with no jail time.
Rentzel’s wife, Joey Heatherton, a popular entertainer, soon divorced him, though Rentzel said the reason for the split was less his “crime” than his “Let’s-have-some-laughs-and-forget-it” attitude afterward.
Former Dallas Cowboys wide receiver Lance Rentzel with entertainer and then-wife Joey Heatherton.
Uncredited
Rentzel’s book sold well, but at least one critic wasn’t kind. Pete Axthelm, writing for The New York Times, said it lacked any substantive answers.
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“One can hope that the writing of it contributed to Lance Rentzel’s personal rehabilitation,” he wrote. “And one must wish just as fervently that he had never decided to publish it.”
Rentzel continued to write, according to his obit, and ventured into the burgeoning world of computers. He was the director of Compucorp’s office of government affairs in 1984 when the company provided the largest computer operation at the Republican National Convention in Dallas. He moved to Alexandria, Va., where he remained a government contractor.
He leaves brothers Del Rentzel and Chris Rentzel of Dallas, and a daughter, Jenny.
“To all who knew him,” his obit reads, “Lance was larger than life – hilariously funny, unfailingly optimistic and happy, warm in spirit, and deeply loyal. He formed many close relationships over the years, most notably the enduring bonds that he shared with his teammates.”