In my family, there’s a dark disorder that has been passed down through three generations. My father was the first to exhibit it back in the ’70s, and it developed at a rapid rate during his childhood. My cousin Corey inherited it at a young age, and my brother and I both suffer from it. Now, following the birth of my nephew Owen this past July, it’s almost certain he, too, will become a Dallas Cowboys fan.
The first time I ever got my heart broken was in 2006. It was the night of the Sadie Hawkins Dance at my high school, I was a 14-year-old freshman, and Tony Romo stomped it into a million little pieces. A fumbled field goal snap in a game against the Seattle Seahawks sealed our fate that year, and I was crushed.
In 2007, it was a lazy route by Patrick Crayton versus the New York Giants that sunk the ship.
Tony, that same heartbreaker, went to Cabo in 2008 the week before our playoff game. Of course we lost. I’m not embarrassed to admit that the now-famous post-game press conference with superstar Terrell Owens made me cry right along with him.
In 2014, Dez Bryant caught the ball. I don’t care what anyone says.
2016, Aaron f*cking Rodgers.
I’ve had to sit through so much agony over the years. Every Stephen A. Smith segment on ESPN is like aversion therapy in “A Clockwork Orange,” except I haven’t come out of this a new man.
The Cowboys played the Atlanta Falcons in Week 2 of the 2020 season this past fall, and I spent the day with my family. My brother, dad, and I sat in the barn in our parents’ backyard, sharing some Suarez Family Brewery beers. Sipping on Palatine Pils, the brewery’s perfectly pitched “hop-accented German-style pils,” we discussed possible positive outcomes like the sick-as-a-dog Cowboys fans all three of us are.
Owen joined us for a bit. As we spoke of the prospects of a Super Bowl run, he alternated between reaching for the aluminum cans and sitting pensively, taking it all in. The Cowboys did improbably win that day—and they did so by overcoming a 20-point deficit during which Amazon Web Services gave the Falcons a 99.9% chance of winning. Perhaps that’s where the sickness lies: in that 0.01% chance, reaching for that shiny thing called hope.
Of course, Dallas did wind up missing the playoffs this year, and lost its starting quarterback and maybe a dozen other players to ill-timed injuries in the process. It was a season to forget, buried within a year we’d all like to forget.
Owen hasn’t said his first words yet, but he’s certainly heard the phrase uttered by Cowboys fans worldwide: “There’s always next year.”
Words + Photoby Tyler Plourd