Why I Will Always Hate The Dallas Cowboys!

Oh, Cowboys, how do I hate thee? Let me count the ways!

I hate you for Tom Landry, the way he used to stand on the sidelines in his suit, hat, and overcoat as if he had ice in his veins, unflapped and (though we knew better) apparently uncaring.

The Cowboys represented everything I was against in the late sixties and early seventies. The old fashioned macho man who never shows emotion, never cries, does his job as his duty, never whines and never celebrates. The ice man. The iron man. The man without a heart.

Roger Staubach, their iconic quarterback in that era, was a former military man. It was so consistent with the ethos. Real men. Marlboro men. Military men. Human machines.

Back in those days I was the new man. My hair was long. I was sensitive. I was proud to admit I cried at movies, proud of wearing my feelings on my sleeves, proud to be a male feminist. There weren't many male feminists who were Cowboys fans back then. In fact it was probably not safe for anyone who called himself a male feminist to show up identified as such at the Cotton Bowl, or, later, Texas Stadium.  

I hate you for being from Dallas. Why is it that Dallas got all the marbles, especially in the 80's, when you had your own TV show, the first prime time soap, the first soap for real men to watch with their women, not a quiche in sight? Dallas, Dallas, Dallas, was all we heard about back then.

The big tall Dallas tycoons, JR Ewing types, walking around with their cowboy hats, smoking their cigars, and driving their Cadillacs (no Mercedes in Texas just yet-- it was still a buy American era) with customized longhorn hood ornaments.

I hate you for being Texans. It all goes with the package. The largest state in the Continental 48, acting as if you are your own country (just because you were once), acting as if anything not Texan is un-American, acting as if anything not Texan is not worthy of mention.

What is it with you guys? You expect to dominate everything and everybody. You expect your teams will be the best. You assume any star worth having is a Lone Star. You react with moral outrage at anyone who has the nerve and gaul to outscore you on a football field or out-rank you in a hierarchy-- such as the division standings, power rankings-- you know the most important ladders of significance.

Who died and left you the privileged class, the Brahmin caste? I get the bull part (as in Brahmin bull), but what makes bull-headed, bull riding bull shooters the kings of the universe?

I hate you for Jerry Jones. Jones is the anti-Landry in some ways and and a worse extreme of Landry in other ways. He is arrogant in the way Landry was confident. He is unabashed in the way Landry was unflappable. He is the stranger riding into town on a black horse throwing money at bartenders and bordello babes in the way that Landry was the sheriff.

They were and are two opposite sides of the coin of the Republic of Texas. I hate them both, but I hate Jones more. In the sense that Jimmy Johnson was Jones's b-word, I hate you for Jimmy Johnson too, but I hate Johnson more for other reasons. 

I hate you for 'America's Team.' You've always considred yourselves the best and the only part of America worth caring about, but sometime in the late 80's and into the nineties for a while, you had the rest of America believing you. 

You've always thought you were America's team. But when sportscasters and pundits start calling you that, and everyone jumps on the bandwagon, and Cowboys gear is a best seller in most of the rest of the country, you've gone and spread your warped religion way too far.

But that's not even the main reason I hate you for this phase of your existence. I hate you because I'm from Buffalo, and you and Jones's "B," Jimmy Johnson, and Aikman, and the whole nauseating lot of your team from that era had the typical Texan audacity to not only defeat but humiliate my team in the Superbowl twice in four years.

I hate you for being the bullies of the playground. As a lover of underdogs I hate any team that has been to the big game as many times as you, and won it a majority of those.  

I hate you for every time you beat up on a team with less talent, every time you came from behind at the last minute to crush the hopes of an upstart that seemed to have an upset in the bag.

I hate you for finding ways to threaten if not dominate the NFL in every decade of your collective esistence. You've gotten way too many of the marbles. You've given out way too many black eyes. This has got to stop.

I hate you for Wade Phillips. I hate you because even with our former coach, Wade Phillips, I'm scared to death, having nightmares about the likelihood that even now, even with the coach who killed Buffalo's best and only chance chance to go all the way in the Post Kelly era by benching Flutie for Surfer Dude Johnson in the Music City "Miracle,"  a coach who has proven at Denver, Buffalo, and, so far at least, even in Dallas, that he was never meant to be a Head Coach, that his true calling is to be a defensive coordinator-- that even with this coach the Cowboys will rise yet again and rule the world.