A COLUMN TO BE NAMED LATER
On Sunday evening, my Twitter feed was full of heart-broken Cowboy fans. And I truly empathize with them...but I’m also thankful I never became fully attached to “America’s Team.”
When I moved to Texas in 2004 as an 11-year-old, I wasn’t that into football. I just never followed it the way I followed basketball or baseball So, my first steps into football fanhood were living here and watching the Dallas Cowboys a lot of Sundays in the fall. This was right around the time Tony Romo took over as their starting quarterback. In late 2006, Romo rallied “Dem Boyz” to the playoffs after taking the QB gig from Drew Bledsoe (who lost the same role to Tom Brady when playing with the New England Patriots) mid-way through the season with big wins over teams like Peyton Manning’s Indianapolis Colts, who were undefeated prior.
I remember star ting to really like the Cowboys around that time. But, that all changed during the first week of 2007. During the wildcard game, they were trailing 21-20 to the Seattle Seahawks and were in a very nice position to win and advance to the division championship. The Cowboys had 1:19 left in the game with an opportunity to go up 23-21 on a 19-yard field goal, which many kickers (maybe not Brett Maher) probably see as a simple task. However, what seemed like a guaranteed victory was not when Romo, who was also the team’s place-holder, fumbled the snap. Although he recovered the ball, Romo was stopped short of the end zone and the Seahawks were the team that moved on.
I still tuned into the Cowboys in the years after, but they missed the playoffs many of those times, and that emotional investment that I once had in them more or less went away. I’ll watch the Cowboys and I’m happy for them when they win, but I won’t yell at the T.V. for them.
It’s like when you’re interested in someone, but as you start hanging out with them more, you realize they’re boring to talk to or they’re just not the person for you. You might love the Dallas Cowboys, but I’m content with just watching their Instagram story once in a while to make sure things are going okay. —wt— Being back in Rockdale for a few years, I take some pride in never intentionally looking at “Rockdale TX Residents NEED to KNOW” or “Milam County News and Crime.” Every time Facebook shows that someone commented over there, all it takes is a scroll to realize that those places are pretty much the Jerry Springer Show for our local keyboard warriors. No hate to people that run those pages or spend time on them, but just the think about the energy you’re putting out in the world. Rockdale has enough bad vibes with all the economic uncertainty and lack of opportunity. Also, if I hear of complaints on those pages about my column, thank you for reading The Rockdale Reporter.
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