Wild Cowboys

Jake De Grazia poses the question that is on everyone's mind:

The Cowboys? You're from Baltimore, right? I request a totally transparent (and possibly apologetic) explanation of why you root for the Cowboys. Please.

Yup from Baltimore. Been a Cowboys fan since 1980. When I was five, I saw football on TV and fell in love. Who can know why? One of the first teams I saw had this big beautiful blue star on their helmet. I don't have anything deep to say--it just looked cool. And they had this guy--Tony Dorsett--who looked like he was dancing up and down the field. Man, even that young, not understanding the game, I thought Dorsett was incredible.

I watched the Cowboys in the playoffs that year, right up until the championship where they were promptly smacked by the Eagles. My Dad was from Philly, and an Eagles fan--he razzed me the whole damn game. I learned a valuable lesson that year. When the Cowboys lost, I told my Pops I was switching to the Eagles. He gave me this lecture about how you can't switch teams. I told him I was rooting for the Eagles anyway--and of course the Eagles were destroyed in the Super Bowl. That was a very early lesson in why don't ever, ever switch teams.

So I was a Cowboys fan--I don't even know if I was aware of the Colts at the time, and I probably would have rooted for them later. But they left town, and until the Ravens, we had no team. By the time I got to middle school, most of my friends, coming up, l became Redskins fans. But that just seemed weak to me. "Fuck them D.C. niggers," I'd think. 

Anyway, as any Cowboy fan can attest, being a Dallas fan in the 80s may have been the worst possible decade to pledge. The Cowboys were two things in 80s--really awful, or a game away from the Super Bowl.  I think we went to three straight NFC championships--and lost. Shit was rough. Imagine being a six-year old kid when "The Catch" happened. But I've been there for it all--for Hogeboom, for Landry brining Ed Jones back out because of fans, for Jerry firing the whole lot of everyone. That 92 game against the 49ers was such great payback--the 49ers ruined my childhood, and to beat them in that way had me floating for a week. The thing is this--I'm old school like Dexter Clinkscales, Rafael Septien, and Tony Hill. How can I switch now?

And now I have some good old fashion smack to talk. I actually didn't even realize how much the Cowboys were hated until after college. I still don't get the hate. For my money, only two--maybe three--teams have the right to hate the Cowboys. The Redskins for obvious reasons,  and the Bills for maybe even more obvious reasons, and 49ers because we played some classics. All other people who hate the Cowboys--especially people who are, like , Seahawk or Panther fans, or some other off-brand team--have no lives. Us Cowboy fans have so little respect for the Giants and the Eagles that we don't even return the hate. Call us when you're on your fourth Super Bowl. Until then, you have no right to speak.