I am a tried-and-true Dallas Cowboys' fan. It doesn't matter if they sign someone I dislike, it they hire a head coach I hate or if they make boneheaded moves in the front office. There have been a lot of reasons to turn my back on the Cowboys over the years but I have not. That is because I am not a person who bases the team I like on a specific person. I am a Cowboys fan because I bleed blue and silver, despite their shortcomings.
The '80s
I started watching the Dallas Cowboys while sitting on my grandfather's lap as a little boy in the mid '70s. While I know we watched a lot of football on Sunday afternoons, the first memory I can pull up three decades later is the day Roger Staubach retired. I remember Staubach coming out to the field and saying goodbye to the fans and I remember him being pretty emotional. It was a moment I will never forget.
The next big memory I have is "The Catch" and it is a reason that, despite my hatred for the New York Giants, I can never cheer for the San Francisco 49ers in the playoffs this year. It is why I will always hate Joe Montana. When Dwight Clark caught that touchdown pass over one of my favorite players at the time, Everson Walls, the Dallas Cowboys I followed imploded.
But I never stopped cheering for them. I still count Danny White as one of my all-time favorite players, someone I got to meet when I graduated from high school in 1988 at the Cowboys' training facility. Tony Dorsett, Ed Jones and Randy White will always hold a strong place in my history of a football fan.
Jimmy Johnson
My true fandom was tested when Jerry Jones bought the Cowboys. He fired Tom Landry, the only coach the team had ever known since they first took the field in 1960. Then he did the unthinkable for me, as an Oklahoma native and a fan of the Oklahoma Sooners football team. He hired Jimmy Johnson, the former head coach of the Oklahoma State Cowboys and Miami Hurricanes. For those unfamiliar with college football, Johnson and Miami were to the Sooners what the 49ers were to the Cowboys.
But I kept cheering for the team. I hated Johnson but I loved the team, not their coach. The same thing happened later when Bill Parcells, the former head coach of the New York Giants, became the Cowboys' head coach. I never liked Parcells because I was groomed to see him as the enemy but I gave in because I wanted my Cowboys to be great again.
Present Day
It is now 2012. I have been a Dallas Cowboys' fan for almost four decades and the mistakes of Jerry Jones and the mishaps of Jason Garrett can't sway me from my team of choice. I am a Dallas Cowboys' fan and that means following the team and the players who wear the uniform. You can be frustrated, I surely was at times, but a true Dallas' fan doesn't turn their back on America's Team.
Author Shawn S. Lealos has a bachelor's degree in journalism from the University of Oklahoma (2000) and has been a Dallas Cowboys' fan since he was a child. His favorite players range from Roger Staubach and Tony Dorsett to the Triplets of the 90s and he enjoys talking about all Cowboys' related news, good or bad
