Dale Hellestrae won three Super Bowls with the Dallas Cowboys, but the part-time coach, radio analyst, TV commentator cherishes most the high school title he won at Saguaro.

 

“He would tell me, all that was great (winning Super Bowls in the NFL) but I remember more winning the championship at saguaro high than anything I did with the Dallas Cowboys,” said Scottsdale Christian coach Jason Cauley.

 

When Hellestrae talks with the team he emphasizes how important high school was for him. “He would mostly bring up his playing days when he would emphasize how much we’re going to miss high school ball,” said lineman Hunter Hancock. “He always said that of all the memories he made in college and in the NFL, he remembers his high school games and teammates the most.”

 

Hellestrae’s helmet-wearing days are over. Now he wears a number of hats. One is the offensive line coach at Scottsdale Christian Academy.

 

He said his daughters originally brought him to coaching at Scottsdale Christian.

 

“I didn’t get into coaching for six, seven years after I retired,” Hellestrae said.

 

He was originally brought on as a JV coach by Jeff Fox in 2006 and stayed for a few years before he moved to Northwest Christian.

 

When Cauley was hired this past year Hellestrae was offered to come back to Scottsdale Christian.

“Being an offensive guy and an offensive coach, I know that the most important part of the offense is the offensive line. So that was my first priority,” Cauley said.

 

Coming from Kansas, Cauley had limited connections in the Scottsdale area so the athletic director suggested he talk to Hellestrae.

 

“I was like Hellestrae… that sounds familiar. Then I googled it and see who it is and I was like woah… well that’s intriguing,” Cauley said.

 

Hellestrae is  busy on the weekends broadcasting football games so he's not at the Eagles games.

 

"It hurts not having him at the games because there’s things he could see that would help those offensive linemen so much when they’re struggling," said Cauley.

 

Hellestrae was brought on for what he provides before game day.

 

“I told him look if you can make it on Monday through Wednesday, I would love that- and if you could make it there on Fridays then of course that’s a bonus,” Cauley said.

A fourth-round pick, Hellestrae spent 16seasons in the NFL, most notably with the Cowboys.

 

He described a different feeling for the three titles. “In the first one, we knew we were good but we didn’t know we were that good,” Hellestrae said.

 

“I think that year we were 14-2 but San Francisco was 15-1 and we had to go to Candlestick Park to beat them and we certainly didn’t plan on going in there and beating them but next thing you know we were in the super bowl. I kind of enjoyed that ride a little more.”

 

Coming back the next season was different for the Cowboys. “It was a grind. From starting out 0-2 to Emmitt Smith holding out, everyone was shooting for us,” said Hellestrae. Added on was extra pressure. “We win a game 20-13, it’s like why’d you only win by seven? God forbid we lose a game.”

 

Hellestrae said winning the second Super Bowl was more of a relief.

“It was more pressure and if we didn’t go to a Super Bowl it was a lost season,” Hellestrae said.

 

The third Super Bowl was a different feeling for Hellestrae because it was in the desert where he grew up and it would be their last one.

 

“Obviously we didn’t know it at the time but it was our last super bowl and so I look back on the last one probably most fondly.”

 

Just 10 players were constant throughout. A tight bond was formed between these core guys.

 

Hellestrae said this group still stays in contact.He added that starting from the bottom brought them all closer. “There’s something to be said about building and struggling, and then reaching the pinnacle with a group of guys.”

 

The Cowboys went 7-9 in his first-year.

He hosts a radio show because of his outgoing and charismatic personality. He joked about it saying, “Dallas is probably the only football team in the country that’s going to have a long snapper doing a radio show.”

Hellestrae can be heard from 7-9 a.m. Monday through Friday on 1060 AM. “That keeps me busy along with broadcasting high school football games and then the college games.”

 

Hellestrae also fills in as a radio host from time to time on Arizona Sports 98.7 FM.

 

“He loves it. You can tell he loves it because he gets excited talking about it,” Cauley said.

 

Hellestrae’s is also a college football color analyst on national radio“I really enjoy doing that, it’s fun to go see different atmospheres.” He does 20-25 college games per year.

 

Hellestrae spends his springs broadcasting the Arizona Rattlers football games for Fox Sports Arizona.

 

if Hellestrae gets back into the NFL, he wants for it to be an announcer, not a coach "What’s fun about it is you get to do all the research and practice and stuff like that and you’re part of the atmosphere.”

 

He had opportunities to get back in as an assistant offensive line coach in Dallas when he retired, but knows what that life is like.

 

“With a 10 and seven-year-old I would have been in Dallas one year and then that’s when Jerry (Jones) fired that staff and brought in Bill Parcells, so I would have been looking for a job and that might have been in somewhere like Green Bay… or Iowa.”

 

Constantly moving them is not something he wanted for his children.