MadMup.com

I’m not a Sports Guy. Sure, there’s some evidence to the contrary, like my having lettered in 3 ½ sports in high school and my occasional watching of a football game on TV, but I’m not anywhere near Sports Guy territory. I do not plan weekends around watching games, I’m not crushed when my team loses, and it ticks me off when Smallville gets preempted for baseball. I have been to an NBA game (a Chicago Bulls game, and Jordan, Pippen, and Rodman were playing, so that was cool) and an AHL game (that’s hockey, and it was a Milwaukee Admirals game) and that’s pretty much it.

With all of that said, I’m pretty excited about the weekend of September 17.

Some of you know that I’ve been a Dallas Cowboys fan since I was a kid. It’d be hard to pin down why I became one, but once you’ve got a team, that’s it. That’s your team. It’s okay to add other subordinate teams, but your team is your team. I went through a brief phase in high school when I liked the Minnesota Vikings, but when they played the Cowboys I was all about the Cowboys. Even now I’d consider myself a fair weather Indianapolis Colts fan – they’re in the state and they happen to be pretty good, so it works out. Plus, they’re in the AFC conference of the NFL (the Cowboys are in the NFC) so it’s nice to have a team in each conference.

On September 17 the Cowboys play the Washington Redskins at Texas Stadium in Irving, Texas. I have always wanted to see the Cowboys play in Texas Stadium where such greats as Roger Staubach, Tony Dorsett, Ed “Too Tall” Jones, Troy Aikman, and Emmitt Smith have played and where Tom Landry coached for so long. My chances are fast slipping away because they’re planning to build a new stadium. Sure it doesn’t open until 2009, but that’s closer than it sounds. I’ve heard from first-hand accounts that Texas Stadium is kind of a dump (which might be expected of a 30+-year-old stadium), but I’ve always wanted to go. On September 17 I’m finally going to do it.

My friend Brian and I have talked about meeting up at a Cowboys-Redskins game for the last couple of years, but it hasn’t worked out. This year the game fell on a decent weekend and we decided to make it happen. Game and plane tickets have been purchased and we are go for launch! He and his wife are both going and we’re hoping to meet Mike (and Meags if she’s in country by then!) and maybe some other folk. It should be a ton of fun and we’re looking forward to it.

So watch the game on NBC that night and you might catch sight of me – I’ll be the shirtless body-painted dude with the blue and silver afro wig shouting “WOOOOOOOOO!!!!” on camera for every commercial break. I figure if I’m going to be a Sports Guy for a day, I’m going to go all out.