We’re approaching two months since we lost Zac Crain, which is a tough sentence to type. The magazine celebrates its 50th anniversary tonight, and I would be lying if I said that things feel normal around here without him at the center of it. Insofar as Zac tolerated being at the center of anything, mind you. He’d likely try his best to flit around the edges, perhaps blessing your conversation with a sucker punch of a joke that inevitably would be the funniest thing you heard all night, before meandering off in pursuit of parts more subdued.
Except there would be no escaping it this time. Zac wrote the cover story for our 50th anniversary issue, a 7,300-word description of the 50 moments that made modern Dallas. As with all of his work, he turned in an immaculate draft; our fact checkers caught a grand total of five mistakes in the whole thing. It’s on newsstands now and will be online soon. It is the last written work from one of Dallas’ greatest journalists, and if you care about this city, you owe it to yourself to read it.
Tonight at our party, someone should have gotten on a microphone and told the assembled crowd a version of what I just laid out, then demanded everyone turn their attention to Zac and clap. Instead, someone will get on a microphone tonight at Crown Block and say nice words about him, and how we miss him, at which point a bunch of us will cry into our whiskeys.
Again, it’s been tough. So for now—and tonight—I’m going to hold onto some Zac-related stuff that makes me smile:
His celebration of life at the Texas Theatre, which was so perfectly Zac, and not just because Pleasant Grove wrote a song for him.
The upcoming Shortest Film Festival in the History of the World, Featuring Two Movies From 2000 That Zac Crain Really Loved. It’s Sunday, after the Cowboys game. Go to this link to get details and buy tickets. It will be cool and fun.
The memorial office beer fridge we’ve set up in Zac’s honor, because Zac loved a Pacifico at 4 p.m., what he called “a desk beer.” (Yogurt storage is expressly forbidden in this fridge; don’t know what that one’s about.)
The gorgeous painting Riley Holloway did of Zac that now hangs over said beer fridge.
And Dirk Nowitzki.
Zac loved Dirk. This was maybe the most normal thing about Zac. Far less normal—far more Zac—was Zac writing a book about Dirk. (It’s actually about Zac’s son, Isaac, but who cares because it’s the best stuff ever written that concerns the greatest Dallas athlete of all time*.)
*A brief pause to acknowledge anyone who might be harrumphing to himself that the greatest Dallas athlete is actually Roger Staubach or Pudge Rodriguez or someone else: you’re wrong.
Anyway, here’s what else isn’t normal: Dirk noticed. Like, really noticed. When Thomas Pletzinger, a German journalist who wrote the best book about Dirk that’s actually about Dirk, visited Dallas in 2022, Dirk came out to Wild Detectives to talk with Zac and Thomas about their books and his career, then sign copies. Dirk. At Wild Detectives. Joking about how the backyard was cute. Because Zac Crain, who moderated the conversation far more than inserted himself in it—what’d I tell you about him and being the center of attention?—helped get him there.
So when Zac died, it was touching that Scott Tomlin, Dirk’s longtime friend and the executive director of Dirk’s companies and foundation, reached out to D Magazine on the man’s behalf to express condolences. As Tim put it, “Dirk being sad would make Zac so happy. And sad.” It made me smile. That alone would have been plenty.
But then, at Zac’s celebration of life, after Pleasant Grove and Will Johnson played, after so many of the people who loved him most said beautiful words that dropped an anvil on my aortic valve, Zac’s best friend, Josh Venable, had an announcement. One more person had sent in remarks. Dirk couldn’t be there in person; he was in Europe. And his words did not concern Zac so much as Zac’s son, Isaac, because turnabout is fair play. I can’t recall exactly what those words were. But I remember how they made me feel. The biggest man in Dallas saw our pain and felt a little of his own, too. He noticed. He cared.
My buddy Tim Cato, who covered the Mavs for The Athletic and now does so for DLLS, was there at the Texas Theatre. He was Zac’s friend, too, which is why, during an otherwise lighthearted interview yesterday with Dirk about his upcoming charity tennis tournament, Tim veered off message to thank Dirk for what he did that day. It could have ended there, with a nod of acknowledgment, before they dipped back into discussing Klay Thompson’s forehand or some such topic. It did not. Here’s what Dirk had to say:
I watched that for the first time this morning, and I assure you my day is downhill from here.
The function I’m attending tonight is about this publication and the work we do. That work concerns the city where you live, and I live, and Zac lived, too. And Dirk. Dirk lives here. That’s part of why he’s the greatest Dallas athlete ever: because of the way he embraces this place and the impact he continues to have on it. It’s almost symbiotic, how he and the city have nurtured and elevated each other over this past quarter century.
Zac articulated that dynamic better than anyone has or will, partly because he loved both the man and the city far more than most. Whether Dirk got all that, I don’t know. What I do know is that, in his small way, he tried to make the situation a little better for people hurting deeply, a gesture that feels much larger because of who he is. Even Zac could have tolerated being the center of attention just this once.
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