'My best friend': Jerry Jones confidant, longtime Dallas Cowboys staffer Marylyn Love dies

A stalwart in the Dallas Cowboys organization died Thursday, the team announced.

Marylyn Love was Cowboys owner/general manager Jerry Jones’ executive assistant for more than 40 years.

She was also his best friend, Jones said.

“The entire Dallas Cowboys organization is devastated by the news of Marylyn’s passing,” Jones said in a statement released by the team Thursday evening. “Marylyn has been by my side, she has been my rock, my voice, my calm in the storm for more than 40 years.

“Marylyn was not only my executive assistant, but she was my advisor, my confidant, my best friend and a cherished member of our family.”

Love, whose age the team did not disclose, was born in Oklahoma City and worked as a paralegal there at a law firm. The firm represented a bank loaning to Jones, according to a 2015 profile of her in The Dallas Morning News. Jones, then still an oilman who had yet to buy the Cowboys, realized how sharp Love was. Love was instructing the bankers on loan details she grasped better than they did, Jones told The News.

He initially hired Love to commute from Oklahoma City to his Little Rock, Arkansas, office in the 1980s. Then, in February 1989, he bought the Cowboys.

By June, he asked Love to help him there.

“She was our foundation,” Jones said in his statement. “Marylyn helped shape this franchise as one of very few people who have been with me and my family since Day 1.

“I will never forget the day she left that law firm in Oklahoma to join me. That day changed my life. That day changed the life of many.”

Love’s daughter, Laura Fryar, is the assistant to the Cowboys head coach for Mike McCarthy. She also served that role for predecessors Jason Garrett, Wade Phillips, Bill Parcells and Dave Campo, according to The News.

Deion Sanders, who starred as a Cowboys cornerback from 1995-99, mentioned Love in his Pro Football Hall of Fame acceptance speech.

“Marylyn covering for Jerry was the greatest cover corner in the NFL,” Sanders said.

Jones’ postscript on Thursday: “No truer words could be spoken.”

The Cowboys did not release formal details about a service or mention cause of death. But in Jones’ lengthy statement, he praised Love.

“Marylyn’s work ethic was unmatched,” Jones said. “Marylyn was respected and loved by everyone who passed by her desk or spoke with her on the phone.

“This is a loss that everyone in my family, everyone in the Dallas Cowboys family, feels.”

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Longtime Dallas Cowboys staffer Marylyn Love dies