SPORTS 10 Reasons the World Hates the Cowboys

JUST FOUR YEARS AGO, THE “NEW” Dallas Cowboys were America’s darlings. They had risen from the 1-15 dead just three seasons earlier, and they had a fresh, innocent cast of lovable underdogs. That learn upset the 49ers in San Francisco and won its first Super Bowl. How could the most avid Cowboys-hater find loathing in his or her heart for Troy or Emmitt or Michael or Jimmy?

But these “new” Cowboys, winners of three of the last four Super Bowls, have grown obnoxiously old for many fans and media members around the country. That’s certainly the feeling 1 get as a regular on ESPN’s “Prime Monday” and ’The Sports Reporters” and from debating callers from coast to coast each week on ESPN Radio.

Hating the Cowboys-a craze that swept the country after the Tom Landry-Tex Schramm Cowboys played in their third Super Bowl in four seasons and were crowned “America’s Team”-has again become all the national rage.

In a recent Harris Poll, 21 percent of fans said the Cowboys are their favorite nation- S al team-up a modest 2 percent from last ° year. Yet 29 percent said the Cowboys are : their least favorite team-up a startling 14 percent. The Cowboys are the most popular team in sports-and by far the least popular. For decades, baseball’s New York Yankees dominated the national sports psyche as the most/least popular, but did the Bronx Bombers ever inspire this degree of disgust? Lately, it has been hard to hate the damned Yankees who just won the World Series after 18 years since their last world championship. Since the Cowboys’ initial rise to power in the mid-’60s, they have been far more consistently embraceable and despicable than the Yankees.

At the risk of sounding even more presumptuous than the Cowboys are accused of being, let it be said that no team in sports has ever been more loved and hated than the 19% Cowboys.

So what exactly caused the latest vicious cycle? Why is a book due out after the season from a New York publisher with the working title I Hate the Dallas Cowboys. Who Elected Them America’s Team Anyway? Incredibly, this collection of essays from journalists and ex-players will be the second anti-Cowboys book. The first, The Semi-Official Dallas Cowboys Haters’ Handbook, was published in 1984.

But this time, many fans in and out of Dallas seem turned off by much more than just the Cowboys1 no-end-in-sight success. Michael Jordan’s Chicago Bulls, who have won four of the last six NBA titles, rival the Cowboys in popularity, but not unpopularity.

Here, in no particular order, are 10 reasons so many Americans now hate America’s Team…



1. JERRY!

No matter how successful Jerry Jones is- judging purely by results, he has proven to be the best owner in sports-many fans will never forgive him for (a) replacing Landry with Jimmy Johnson or (b) replacing Johnson with Barry Switzer. And no matter how desperately Jones wants to be loved, he always trips headlong over his camera-hogging ego. To Jones’ credit, highly respected journalists, such as Frank Deford of Newsweek and HBO’s “Rea Sports,” often have told me how much the) appreciate his constant availability for interviews and his willingness to answer the toughest questions. Yet for Jones, the downside is that fans everywhere get sick of seeing his smiling mug on television. (He has the biggest eyeteeth this side of Transylvania.) Jerry in the owner’s box. Jerry on the practice field, Jerry down on the sidelines during games. Jerry ha:-become a more irritating national TV presence than the Energizer bunny. More and more, fans see Jones as an egomaniac who wants to be a bigger star than Troy or Emmitt.

On television, as he continually tells America how “ever thing’s” just fine and dandy with his “Ca-boys,” Jones comes across with all the sincerity of a phony tel-evangelist or a slippery politician-a real-life J.R. Ewing. Jones, in fact, sees J.R. as something of a role model. Jones is turning into the NFL’s J.R.-the only-in-Dallas owner who has assembled the best team oil money could buy.

Though his ideas for improving the overall profits of NFL Properties make 21st-century sense, many fans see Jones as some sort of Grinch trying to steal the game of football by Jerry-rigging rules and hoarding league wealth and championships. Jones and the NFL have sued each other for zillions.

For many out-of-state fans, Jones represents everything they hate about the sometimes unjustified image of Dallas: cold-hearted greed and soulless vanity. While former Cowboys president and general manager Texas E. Schramm was despised for his holier-than-thousands arrogance. Schramm also was respected for being a league loyalist with class and dignity. No such luck for Jerry-Jerry-quite-contrary.



2. THE COACH FROM HELL

Any football fan who admired or feared Tom Landry, “God’s Coach,” surely detests Switzer, who called his autobiography Bootlegger’s Boy. From television, fans get two stunningly unimpressive views of Switzer. The first is of Switzer on the sideline, looking bored or lost while listening via headphones to his coaches calling plays. Many fans and journalists agree with Aikman, who has said, “I don’t know what it is he does as head coach.”

The second impression is of Switzer in his press conferences, coming unglued over routine questions and sometimes coming across like more of an asylum escapee than the coach who now occupies Landry’s old office. Switzer cusses in front of the cameras, sometimes drinks to excess in restaurants around town and occasionally visits topless clubs, furthering the national notion that he lets his Cowboys run wild and that they win in spite of this un-Landry.

The truth is, Switzer’s players (except Aikman) love the coach because he’s so genuine and has such big-hearted compassion for the physical beating they must endure. Yet Cowboys-haters can’t get over the perception that Jones hired this character only because he knew the grateful Switzer (who wouldn’t have been hired by any other owner or college president) would become Jones’ drinking-buddy puppet. Many fans believe that, sooner or later. the Cowboys will be Barryed Alive.



3. THE MIDNIGHT COWBOY

Though no one wants to hear or remember this, the Cowboys didn’t name themselves America’s Team; NFL Films did. Yes, Schramm had to approve the name given to the l978-’79 Cowboys highlight film, and he and his PR staff did nothing to discourage the pompous concept. Yet for unknown reasons, many Americans seemed to think that with the “America’s Team” title went the responsibility of being America’s foremost role models. Holy Cowboy: Because of the temptations and idolatry in Dallas, the Cowboys have always made the worst role models of any team in any city.

Still, when Michael Irvin was caught in a motel room with drugs and topless dancers, it was as if some Jimmy Swaggart or Jim Bakker had been exposed-as if a role-model Cowboy had been living a lie. For Irvin, this was fairly routine after-hours behavior. But as he joined substance-abusers Leon Lett, Clayton Holmes and Shante Carver on the NFL’s suspended list. fans everywhere condemned the Cowboys as two-faced hypocrites.

Crazy. Unfair. True.

As Landry once said, “I think that America’s Team title gave us a lot more trouble than it was worth.”

As long as Landry was coaching. Cowboys cheerleaders flashing a little T& A was OK for the most pristine fans. It was like justifying buying Playboy for the in-depth interviews. But after the Irvin trial’s strip-and-tell testimony, the Cowboys image went from barely-in-bounds Playboy to out-of-bounds Penthouse. You could hear ideals shattering all over America.



4. “EMMY” SMITH

After the Cowboys’ final regular-season game of 1993 at Giants Stadium, John Madden made his first trip to a post-game locker room since becoming a TV commentator. He wanted to congratulate Emmitt Smith on “the most courageous performance [he’d] ever seen.” The Cowboys had won the NFC East by beating the New York Giants by a score of 16-13 in overtime. Emmitt had suffered a grade-two shoulder separation near the end of the first half, but, dragging his arm like a broken wing, he had run through the Giants again and again, finally breaking their will and their hearts.

Since then, Emmitt has turned into the star who cried wolf-or hamstring or knee or neck. Emmitt almost always seems to have something wrong with him-yet Emmitt almost always plays.

Especially when the Cowboys take the national stage on “Monday Night Football,” Emmitt always seems to writhe on the ground after at least one play-ending whistle. Late in the Cowboys’ season-opening, Monday-night loss in Chicago, Emmitt delayed the game for about 10 minutes while he lay motionless after landing on his head. Could his career be ended by a spinal injury? Emmitt was rushed to the hospital, where he was kept overnight for tests. While doing a TV interview in a neck brace the next morning, Emmitt admitted he could have walked off the field. He practiced the following day. He had experienced no more than a “stinger,” a bolt of pain down his arm causing tingling or numbness in his hand. Many players routinely play through “stingers.”

By the way, in recent years, Cowboys such as Darren Woodson and Dixon Edwards have played much of a season with a grade-two shoulder separation.

Is Emmitt’s pain threshold courageously high or deceptively low? Before and during games, does he sometimes exaggerate the pain he feels to lull the opposition-or to set himself up to win a Purple Heart? Does he love the constant media attention generated by the soap opera swirling around his almost weekly injuries? Emmitt’s daily injury updates are better than “General Hospital.”

Whatever, talk-show hosts outside Dallas are getting sick of “Emmy” Smith’s act. I know because, during football season, I’m interviewed by five or six out-of-town talk shows each weekday. Hosts are turning skeptically sarcastic with questions such as, “Is Emmitt on his deathbed today. and do you figure he’ll run for 100 or 200 yards on Sunday?”

Though Emmitt remains the most popular Cowboy nationally, many national media members are beginning to wonder if the adoration is beginning to go to his head.



5. TROY ACHE-MAN

No matter how much the Cowboys win, Aikman always seems unhappy. He mopes. He whines. He’s unsatisfied. He lashes out at bumbling teammates in full view of the cameras. He criticizes a head coach the rest of his teammates endorse. He bemoans the suspensions of the Irvins and Letts, saying, ’The shine is off the (Cowboys) star.”

Informed Cowboys fans know that the hair-trigger perfectionist in Aikman is perhaps the biggest reason he (and his team) have been so successful.

Bui from a distance, Aikman comes across as Troy Angst-man, tormented by his miserable life. Non-Cowboys fans say, “If he thinks he has it so bad, he ought to try a season in Tampa Bay.”

For non-Cowboys fans, Aikman doesn’t have quite the redeeming value Roger Staubach did. Though Staubach didn’t beat fans over the head with his faith, he made it clear he was a Christian. Aikman is a snuff-dippin’, beer-drinkin’, pickup-dri-vin’ country-music buff-a genuine cowboy who spent part of his childhood on a farm outside Henryetta, Okla. Could any non-Cowboys fan truly hate Roger Staubach? Aikman is different.



6. THAT FOUR-LETTER WORD THAT ENDS IN U-C-K

The most detested Cowboys quality- luck-is alive and well and giving the NFL hell. Cowboys superstars almost never suffer season-ending or career-threatening injuries. Last season, the Cowboys managed to play four teams that were forced to use their backup quarterbacks. When the Cowboys were in grave danger of having to play on the road in last season’s playoffs, the 49ers blew their final regular-season game in Atlanta then were upset at home by Green Bay, That allowed Dallas one of the easiest roads ever to the Super Bowl- Philadelphia and Green Bay at home.

Just when the world thinks it’s safe to dance on the Cowboys’ grave, a hand explodes up through the dirt, like the one at the end of Carrie, and catches a Hail Mary or the team gets some other incredibly lucky break. Yes, even with Jerry and Barry running the show, God still watches over His team through the hole in the Texas Stadium roof. Sickening, isn’t it?

Wonderfully sickening.



7. THE TEXAS-SIZED SUPERIORITY COMPLEX

The second most detested Cowboys quality-arrogance-is more abundant than ever. If possible, these Cowboys are less humble than any of their famed predecessors. (What next, a Cowboys book called From Narcs to Narcissism?) If possible, these Cowboys have spoiled their fans even worse than Landry’s teams did. These Cowboys are never beaten by a better team or by an opponent that simply played better that day. No, these Cowboys can make excuses almost as fast as they can make big plays. They lose only because of Emmitt’s sore hamstring or because Aikman can’t throw a wet ball or because Irvin was suspended or triple-teamed. Cowboys fans around the country, taking cues from their “role model” stars, are probably the worst at gloating, at excuse-making-and at jumping quietly off the bandwagon when the Cowboys lose two in a row.

While the Redskins, Giants and Eagles sell out season-ticket allotments no matter how sorry the team might be, Texas Stadium turned into a ghost town when it no longer was the place to be seen in ’88 and ’89. Yet when the Cowboys are winning, which is most of the time, most Cowboys lovers consider themselves the world’s best fans. Rival fans hate them for being so fickle, so elitist, so luxury-box, so Dallas.

8. TOO MUCH OF A GREAT THING

Editors at sports magazines from L.A. to New York have a golden rule: When in doubt, put a Cowboy on the cover. Cowboys sell. Cowboys attract female as well as male readers because the Cowboys are the best soap opera in sports history- better than fiction, than the TV show “Dallas.” What other team has a star receiver who winds up the target of a foiled mur-der-for-hire attempt by a police officer? That, of course, actually happened to Irvin.

As a result, fans in other cities can’t go to the grocery store without seeing Emmitt or Troy or Deion Sanders or-help!-Jerry smiling at them from the magazine rack. Though non-Cowboys fans will still read about the Cowboys, they ’ re now finding the overexposure overbearing. This created the “Say Cheese” phenomenon: Before this season, media experts everywhere were creating hysteria among Green Bay’s Cheesehead fans by picking the Packers to dethrone Dallas. Most experts went with the Packers mostly because they’re tired of picking the Cowboys. Thinking the Packers actually are going to beat Dallas in the playoffs is purely wishful.

As Tex Schramm used to say, “The national media wants us to lose, but they don’t want us to go away.” The sports magazine industry suffered greatly when the Cowboys became a 1 -15 nonfactor.

Typical non-Cowboys fan ; “I don’t want to hear another word about the blankety-blank Dallas Cowboys. What happened to Irvin today?”



9. THE DESIGNER UNIFORMS

When I meet Cowboys fans who live in other cities, they often tell me they were first attracted to the team because of the star on the sides of the Cowboys helmets. Yet just as many non-Cowboys fans have told me they hate the Cowboys mostly because their metallic-blue uniforms are just too damn pretty. Too Gucci or Armani. Football wasn’t meant to be played in uniforms from Neiman Marcus, they say. The uniforms remind them too much of Cowboys luxury-box fans, who dress for games as if they’re at church.

Which they are.



10. THIRTEEN MILLION DOLLARS

Perhaps the biggest reason for the dramatic Harris Poll jump in Cowboys-haters was the NFL-record $13-million bonus Jones paid to make Deion Sanders a Cowboy. Neon Deion is probably the most hated man in pro football (by fans, not players). When he was a 49er, Deion certainly was the most hated by Cowboys fans.

Though he clearly is the NFL’s best athlete-and the greatest cornerback whoever played-Deion is just about everything most male fans were taught not to be. He flaunts and he taunts. He goes into his showboating dance even before he reaches the goal line. He has inspired many of his Cowboys teammates to gyrate and celebrate after so much as making a first down. He refuses to get his uniform dirty unless absolutely necessary. Only when he needs to save a touchdown will Deion risk a highspeed collision to tackle a ball carrier.

Deion put Cowboys-haters over the top.

He also helped put the Cowboys back on top.

Eat your jealous hearts out, Cowboys-haters. Maybe our Cowboys aren’t so lovable anymore, but what NFL city wouldn’t trade teams with us?