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When Did I Stop Caring If the Dallas Cowboys Win or Lose?
Or caring about sports in general?
Growing up in Texas in the 1970s, I was taught to hate three things above all others; in reverse order, they were: 3) Satan, 2) the Soviets, and 1) the Washington Redskins (now known as the Washington Football Team). Yes, if the Devil had played the ‘Skins on Sunday, we would have cheered for him. Faith was negotiable; faith in the Dallas Cowboys was not.
This Cowboys-centric upbringing (which extended to pretty much all sports) led to one of my most vivid childhood memories. On January 18, 1976, three days before my tenth birthday, the infernal Pittsburgh Steelers defeated the Dallas Cowboys 21–17 in Super Bowl X. It was an almost springlike day in North Texas (the high temperature was 73 degrees), but it was winter in my little heart; I cried like my dog had just died and cursed Terry Bradshaw’s name with every word I had heard my grandfather utter during the game.
This pathological fandom lasted well into adulthood. Fast forward 17 years to January 17, 1993, the day the Cowboys beat the 49ers in the NFC Championship game on the way to their first Super Bowl win since 1978. I was in the Army, in the middle of war games in Death Valley, California and we were only allowed to listen to the game on our armored vehicle’s radio if our…
