Posted on 09/08/2002 12:05:10 PM PDT by Diddle E. Squat
You've seen them.
Maybe down the street. Maybe across the breakfast table behind the newspaper. Maybe hogging the remote control for your new high-definition TV.
You know them.
You might work with one. You might live next door to one. You might even sleep with one.
Cowboys fans.
Like humidity, traffic and fire ants, they're a fact of life around here.
Truth is, like cell phones, Dr. Phil and those incredibly annoying commercials for "Clarinex," you can't get away from them.
Can't live with 'em. Can't spray something on 'em.
They show up in the places you think would be most unlikely. Wearing their familiar jerseys among the boisterous Meadowlands crowds at Giants Stadium. Wearing 10-gallon hats into the den of their fiercest rivals, the Redskins, at FedEx Field. Wearing equal parts bravado and lunacy to strut their stuff among the bloodthirsty animals who inhabit Philadelphia's Veterans Stadium.
But it's the fact that they've grown so passionate and so plentiful right here in our midst that is most puzzling.
On any given Sunday -- or Thursday night on ESPN -- you could throw a net over a gathering of football fans in Houston, and 50 percent likely would be Dallas fans.
Lord help them.
It has nothing to do with the fact that we were without a professional football franchise for five seasons or that the expansion Texans are in their infancy with a long way to go before they even crawl.
It is a phenomenon that has been around for more than four decades, thrived even in the hysteria of the "Luv Ya Blue" days and has always been unique to Houston among NFL cities, if not across the entire spectrum of pro sports.
The frozen denizens of Buffalo surely did not take any solace in the fact that one of their four Super Bowl losses came at the hands of their downstate, big-city cousins from New York. NFL fans in Miami barely acknowledge that Tampa and Jacksonville are officially part of Florida, let alone playing in the same league.
San Francisco thinks LA is populated by laid-back Hollywood phonies who show up late, leave early and didn't even care that they lost two different NFL franchises. LA thinks San Francisco is filled with front-running, wine-sipping, Brie-eating snobs, who expect every quarterback to measure up to Joe Montana. Of course, they're both right.
Growing up in Philadelphia, I can tell you I felt more jealousy than shared Pennsylvania pride when the Steelers won all of their championships. Mean Joe Greene and Terry Bradshaw were a pothole-filled eight-hour drive across the worst highway system in the nation and might as well have been on the moon.
No place but Texas does this exist. Specifically, no place but Houston has always had such divided/misplaced NFL loyalty.
For crying out loud, the president of the Dallas Cowboys Fan Club lives here, as unwelcome a pest as the West Nile-carrying mosquitoes.
"I'm proof that you can be from Houston and still have good taste," cackled the nettlesome Bill "Cowboy" Lamza.
Is it strictly a Texas thing? A Lone Star-proud byproduct of living in the only state in the union that truly has a nationalistic feel?
How do you explain, then, that Aggies root for the Longhorns to lose and vice versa? If it's a blind loyalty to all things Texas, how come there aren't big crowds to watch the University of Houston and Rice?
Lamza credits two things for establishment and the growth of Cowboy Mania in Houston.
"First of all, fans at the time knew the difference between the NFL and the AFL," he said. "One was the real league where the big boys played and the other one was, well, some kind of football.
"The other reason was one person, Tex Schramm, the only real genius who was ever in sports."
It was Schramm who conceived of "America's Team" and did everything to implement it. He was the one who personally answered fan mail, who leaped at the chance for the Cowboys to host the annual Thanksgiving Day game. Schramm knew the value of national television exposure and never missed a chance to get it.
It certainly didn't hurt that when the Cowboys with Don Meredith, Bob Hayes and Bob Lilly were ready to flex their championship-caliber muscles, the Oilers were in a stretch of 12 seasons -- from 1963 through 1974 -- when they finished with a winning record only once.
Was it the bumbling stewardship of owner Bud Adams -- hiring Ladd Herzeg, firing Bum Phillips, faking the move to Jacksonville -- that inhibited undying loyalty to his team?
How, then, do you explain that Jerry Jones is reviled by so many Cowboys fans, who have made his club more popular than ever?
Even coming off back-to-back 5-11 seasons, they remain typical Cowboys fans -- superior, aloof, barely ready to acknowledge the existence of the Texans, let alone a rivalry.
"I'll tell you what," said Lamza. "If the Cowboys lose this game, I'll go straight to the federal witness protection program and you won't hear from me for five years."
Now there's the best reason yet to be a Texans fan.
Same ole rivalary? No.
New Owners -- New Coaches -- New Players -- New Houston Team with New Name
I don't expect much from of a new frahchise team, but how many years will Houston tolerate that excuse.
The more some things change, the more others seem to stay the same.
I think he sells used boats now.
My favorite had to be Carl Mauck, a down-home country boy that would bust up anybody that got close to Dan on Sunday afternoon.
Oh... I just remembered something I liked about Dan P. ---Didn't he punch out Dale Robertson of the old Houston Post in the locker-room once? Now, I would have bought a ticket to that.
It was Mayor Bob and his cronies that wanted Bud to leave town. It was Mayor Bob and his cronies on the Houston Sports Authority that got control and managed every aspect of the new football team and stadium(s).
Isn't that what Bud wanted, more seats to compete with the larger stadiums. Once Bud leaves, Mayor Bob, his cronies(Houston Sports Authority) and puppet mayor "Out-of-Town" Brown build a new stadium.
It wasn't Bud Adams fault the Oilers left, it was Mayor Bob!
My Ohio native wife (yes, I married a yankee whose state's name is a Jap word and whose flag closely resembles PR's) has, after 21 years of marriage and 10 years in God's country finally realizes (and resents) what it means to be a "Native Texan".
Man, this was one of the most pathetic Cowboy games I've ever seen.
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