Culture / Sporting Life

Jamey Rootes Unplugged — Texans President Opens Up on Working For Janice & Cal, Houston’s Major Events Future, Tough Decisions and Being a Winning Author

20 Years of Helping Shape Houston's NFL Franchise and Counting

BY // 12.08.20

Editor’s note: With Jamey Rootes resigning as Houston Texans president as the Jack Easterby and Cal McNair-fueled drama rages on, we take another look at one of the city’s most influential sports executives ever.

Jamey Rootes invokes a famous movie scene when the subject turns to Bob McNair. The Houston Texans president is one of the most powerful business executives in sports, but when he first met McNair that was all ahead of Rootes.

Jerry Maguire style, he had me at hello,” Rootes tells PaperCity when asked about the man who brought football back to Houston — and gave him his big NFL break. “We had so many things in common. He went to school and got a psychology degree, but almost everything he learned to run a business he learned as he went.

“I’m the same way.”

Rootes would tell you he’s still learning, but he’s also trying to teach with his new business book, The Winning Game Plan: A Proven Leadership Playbook for Continuous Business Success. With the Texans suffering another gut-wrenching loss Sunday — and the image of quarterback Deshaun Watson sitting on the bench by himself long after the clock hit 00:00 delivering an undeniable symbol of misery and a special talent being wasted — it’s strange for most sports fans to imagine anyone looking at Houston’s NFL franchise as any type of model of success.

After all, the Texans have never even played for the right to get to a Super Bowl — let alone come close to winning one — in the 18 years since they began play in 2002.  Yet, on Rootes’ side of the operation — the business side — it is all but impossible to argue with the facts. The Texans are the 20th most valuable sports franchise in the entire world by Forbes‘ calculations. Even if Rootes himself much prefers less monetary measurements of success that center around creating memorable experiences.

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Still despite the business success, Rootes knows the score. He realizes this season — the disastrous DeAndre Hopkins trade orchestrated by Bill O’Brien, the 1-6 start, the embarrassing PED suspensions of two important players (wide receiver Will Fuller and cornerback Bradley Roby) — is not good for business, Texans fans or anyone involved with the organization.

“You will have bad seasons,” Rootes says over a Zoom session from his office at NRG Stadium. “I had a season were we lost 14 games, lost 14 in a row. But then we made a coaching change at the end of the season. There’s hope on the horizon.

“The question that fans should be asking is not did you win this week. But are you doing everything possible to win? That’s what our commitment must be in order for people to stay with us.”

Spend any time with Jamey Rootes and you’ll quickly realize this is a sports executive who really may be as optimistic as Tom Cruise’s Jerry Maguire. Still, Rootes admits there are trying days.

“As a leader, you can’t really show how you’re feeling,” he says. “Sometimes you’ve got to fake it.”

Rootes’ book touches on everyone from John Paul DeJoria, the billionaire co-founder of Paul Mitchell hair care products, to former Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz to Winston Churchill to Dom Capers, the first Texans coach who he holds in high regard, to Houston friends like Javier Loya. The book offers plenty of practical business advice, but it also is marked by true inside stories. Including what Rootes was going through at the time of Bob McNair’s death.

One of the Texans franchise’s very first employees, Rootes is now adjusting to something of a leadership change in his 20th year with the club. While the Texans are very much still a McNair family franchise, Janice and Cal McNair being in charge is not exactly the same as Bob McNair running things.

“It’s different,” Rootes tells PaperCity. “It would not have been comfortable if we were just starting the team and that was the situation. But now they’ve known me 20 years. They have complete trust in me. . .

“I’m more than ready to play this enhanced role. But the things that are important remain consistent with Cal and Janice. Their character is the same.”

One of Rootes’ decisions this season — firing vice president of communications Amy Palcic — received much more publicity and public pushback than most of the calls he makes. Even J.J. Watt weighed in with support for Palcic. Still, Rootes insists once he decides to make an “important decision,” he is all right with any fallout.

“I’m good,” Rootes says, speaking in general terms rather than about Palcic, who has hired a powerful Houston lawyer, directly. “You have to be honest with yourself. You have to be convinced that what you’re doing is the right thing. And once you are, what others people say about it doesn’t really matter. Because in my heart I know the step we were taking was the right step for the organization. And I’m the only person who can do that. There isn’t anybody in here who can do that.

“And people who know my character, even if they don’t know everything about the situation, say I just trust you made the right call.”

Houston’s Major Events Champion

As Rootes talks, sitting behind the desk in his office, a Mexican national team soccer jersey and a Manchester United scarf are visible behind him on the wall. Rootes played on a Clemson University soccer team that won a national title in 1987, one of only two soccer titles in school history. Now, he is working to bring 2026 World Cup games to NRG Stadium, which should happen in large part due to the foundation laid by Rootes and his big game operations.

“When we got here, Houston was not on the map for soccer,” Rootes notes. “Not nationally, let alone internationally. So all of these major events that we brought has taken Houston to the point where we’re one of the leading soccer communities in America.”

For Rootes, whose first time working in sports came at the 1994 World Cup in Chicago and who helped shepherd the Columbus Crew into existence as the franchise’s first president and general manager at age 29, World Cup games in Houston would be a full circle moment. It would join the list of major events that the Texans’ Lone Star Sports & Entertainment outlet has put on under Rootes.

Lionel Messi has played soccer at NRG Stadium.
Lionel Messi has played soccer at NRG Stadium.

One Lone Star event, the Texas Bowl, became such a success that it paved the way for Houston to be awarded the 2024 College Football National Championship Game, which will follow in the footsteps of two Final Fours held at NRG.

“We had a bowl game that was bankrupt, million dollars in debt,” Rootes says. “We took over that bowl game and now it’s the fifth best attended bowl game in America.”

If (when?) the college football playoffs expand from four to eight teams, Jamey Rootes is certain Houston would get one of the games every year. “If they were to expand the college football playoffs, we’re the next man up,” he tells PaperCity.

“You will have bad seasons. I had a season were we lost 14 games, lost 14 in a row. But then we made a coaching change at the end of the season. There’s hope on the horizon. — Jamey Rootes

Another offshoot of creating Lone Star Sports & Entertainment is that it serves as a valuable potential pipeline for new Texans organization hires. “I want to employ as many people as we reasonably can in the sports and entertainment business,” Rootes says. “It’s given me a chance to add 10 or 12 jobs that wouldn’t exist otherwise.”

Both Palcic and Allie LeClair, the Texans’ current highest ranked media relations executive, were heavily involved with Lone Star Sports before taking on more responsibilities with the Texans. Promoting from within is one of mantras Rootes advocates in The Winning Game Plan.

While his relationship with Lamar Hunt, the legendary NFL owner who also started the Columbus Crew, is one of the highlights of the Rootes’ book, this is also a tome with plenty of practical advice. Yes, Walt Disney, Rory McIlroy and Lou Holtz are all touched on in a book that makes for an easy fun, read. But so is advice on how to make the jump from being a manager to being a leader.

“A manager is a title bestowed by an organization on an individual,” Rootes says, his excitement about this topic becoming clear over the Zoom. “There are management techniques. Managers deal with the questions of what, when and where.

“But a leader is designated by the followers. Just because you’re a manager, just because people report to you, doesn’t mean you’re a leader. A leader is not working in the business, but is working on the business. Creating the business.”

Still, Rootes believes that even leaders must sometimes defer to the people they hire to be experts in a certain area. “I want tailgating,” Rootes says of something that has not returned with fans to NRG Stadium during his COVID season. “I want tailgating right now. But if my leader who oversees it says it’s not the right time, I won’t do it.”

Spend close to 45 minutes talking to Jamey Rootes and you’ll get the sense that this is someone who thinks about things beyond football. Like many dads, he laments not being able to go to college football games with his son Chris, who is freshman at TCU, or meet his son’s friends. But with Chris Rootes still having a blast with his college experience, he’s good with that.

Many things change — and Jamey Rootes assures Texans fans major change is coming to Kirby Drive, too. Rootes is part of the committee officially run by Cal McNair that is conducting the search for a new head coach and general manager. Cal McNair has also publicly revealed that he’s using an advisory group that includes former Dallas Cowboys coach Jimmy Johnson, former Indianapolis Colts coach Tony Dungy and Spurs general manager R.C. Buford.

“If you have a terrible year, usually you reset the leadership of the team,” Rootes says. “And that hope spring eternal. And we will get there at some period of time.”

Bob McNair’s Vision

Some businesses — and relationships — are unique.

Even now that he’s a published author and 20 years into his run as one of the most powerful voices in the Texans organization, Rootes sometimes finds himself returning to think about how Bob McNair might handle something. Some bonds last beyond even death. Rootes is donating all the proceeds from his book, which reached No. 2 on the Wall Street Journal‘s bestsellers list for NonFiction E-Books, to the Houston Texans Foundation, in part to honor the McNairs.

Jamey Rootes, Melissa Rootes, Janice McNair and Bob McNair
Jamey Rootes, Melissa Rootes, Janice McNair and Bob McNair

“He was student body president at South Carolina University,” Rootes says of Bob McNair, the man who took a chance on him. “I was student body president at Clemson. We’re arch rivals. It’s probably a testament to his grace that he allowed me to work for him.

“Just a tremendous man. Never met a stranger. Kind. Considerate. Graceful. Grace is probably the best word to describe him.”

The Texans can use all the grace in the world at this moment. And Jamey Rootes sounds determined to supply whatever part of it he can. Business techniques and strategies are valuable, but some things are more important.

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