While his teammates were spending their offseasons at the beach back in the 1980s, Minnesota Vikings center Dennis Swilley was studying art at the University of North Texas.

That is how he came to be immortalized in a mural on the wall of Jim’s Diner.

DRC/Gary Payne

Dennis Swilley, a former Minnesota Vikings player and University of North Texas student, is depicted on a mural at the former Bagheri’s Italian Restaurant on Fry Street. Habitat for Humanity of Denton County hopes to salvage the mural that depicts several people to help raise funds for low-income housing.

The building that housed the diner and most recently Bagheri’s Italian Restaurant is slated for destruction as part of the redevelopment of Denton’s storied Fry Street area, but there is a move afoot to save the mural, which features images of the Beatles, Marilyn Mon­­­­­­roe, John Way­ne and Wally and Beaver Cleaver, as well as Dennis Swilley.

If its champions can figure out a way to keep the mural intact — it’s painted on cinder blocks — the five sections of the painting will be auctioned off to benefit Habitat for Humanity of Denton County.

In a telephone interview Tuesday, Swilley remembered his days at UNT fondly. Exhausted from six months of professional football, he found the small-town feel of Denton to be a relaxing change of pace from the Minneapolis spotlight.

“Denton was a much smaller town at the time, and I really liked that,” said Swilley, who enjoyed a successful career at Texas A&M University before being drafted by the Vikings in the second round of the 1977 National Football League draft. “When we met with our coaches for the last time at the end of each season, my truck was already running in the parking lot. I had to get back to school as fast as I could.”

As an architecture student at Texas A&M, Swilley had a difficult time balancing the responsibilities of the classroom and gridiron.

“I’d get called into the dean’s office about every week, and he’d ask me if I wanted to be a football player or an architect,” Swilley said. “I wanted to be both, and he said that my teachers thought I was more of an art student. The dean suggested North Texas and, after playing in the NFL for a few years, I started spending my offseasons there.”

Swilley’s size made him stand out among the other art students. But after getting acclimated to the city, he received far less attention and fit in as a regular student.

“I was basically anonymous in Denton, and that’s what I wanted,” he said. “After a while I started fitting in with the art crew, so I had my Denton friends and the Minnesota life. It was very different, but comfortable at the same time.”

While spending time in Denton, Swilley often visited Jim’s Diner on Fry Street. Jim Smith, founder and then-owner of the diner, said the football star ate there nearly every day.

“Dennis was a regular at the diner,” Smith said. “He looked like a football player, but everyone left him alone in peace. I think he liked that.”

According to Swilley, Fry Street was “the place to be” during his time in Denton.

“Man, that place had everything from music to art supplies,” Swilley recalled. “I remember it being a really cool part of town.”

After leaving Denton to pursue architecture, Swilley said, he nearly forgot about his place in Fry Street history until a family member stumbled upon the picture.

“My wife had a younger sister who was studying art at North Texas,” he said. “She was just walking near Fry Street, stopped at the mural, and yelled ‘That’s my brother-in-law!’ I couldn’t believe she spotted it — I hadn’t thought about the mural in years.”

Swilley, who now resides in New Braunfels, has since visited the mural. He said he still lives his old Denton life to this day, as both an architect and anonymous football player.

“I have three boys now, but no game tape or anything to prove to them that I played in the NFL for 10 seasons. All they see is an old helmet and some game balls, so I have to convince them that I actually played football,” Swilley said.

As a former volunteer for Habitat for Humanity, Swilley hopes the mural project and Habitat auction are successful, but he worries that a questionable haircut might keep the price down. 

“I had gotten that stupid, ugly perm and when I took my helmet off, I remember my head coach Bud Grant would tell me it wasn’t a good look when I took my helmet off,” Swilley said with a laugh.

“So my picture on that mural is me with that perm and a blank … expression on my face, and it doesn’t help that I’m sitting across from the Beatles. Maybe they [the volunteers] should paint over my section of the mural so someone will buy it.”

ANDREW BARGE can be reached at 940-566-6912.