how about the jeans

As I sit down for my traditionally nontraditional Thanksgiving meal this year, I’m faced with a conundrum that many homeless sports fans face. As is tradition, Thanksgiving is awash with the sights and sounds of professional football. My dilemma, however, isn’t what to watch, rather it’s a matter of who to be shooting for while mounds of turkey and stuffing are being thrown in my extremely grateful face. Wearing my traditional “always leave room for cake” sweatpants, I’m faced with a choice between hometown heroes and childhood friends. Yes, it’s the Tampa Bay Buccaneers traveling to Dallas, Texas to take on Team America’s, a little less known by their nickname, the Dallas Cowboys. I grew up with those jeans.

In fact, as I watch the pregame proceedings, my mom is rummaging through a distant closet in an attempt to find my hand-knit Cowboys helmet I gave her as a kid watching countless Cowboys games. It was the kind that fell over my ears, I guess to keep my bulbous head warm during those harsh Texas winters, though more and more I’m beginning to believe it was to serve as a buffer between my infant ears and the womb. of colorful language spewed out by various members of the family between occasional involuntary chants of “How about those cowboys?”; the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. I moved to Tampa right out of high school to attend college at the University of South Florida. I immediately embraced the local sports teams, as living in Daytona Beach didn’t offer me as many luxuries as there weren’t. I was always taught, and believe to this day, that cheering for the local team is a good thing for many reasons.

I moved around a bit as a kid, from my hometown of Amarillo, Texas, to the mean streets of Minneapolis/St. Paul to the suburbs of Chicago, along the way, adopting the ancient traditions of each community and its teams. Supporting the local team offers some modest comforts that make life that much more enjoyable. The first, and most important, is that you’re not “that guy” (ladies, I apologize because I know you’re a sports fan too, but you’ll understand better once the title is explained). “That guy” is the one who just won’t let you go. Arriving at the sports bar in his 1983 Philadelphia Phillies commemorative cap, he seems to have embarked on an epic journey, the likes of which Odysseus could not imagine.

“That guy” proudly trots into the stadium in a Flyers jersey to watch the Tampa Bay Lightning take on the Washington Capitols, while talking about his glory days on “tha delphia,” when he sat in the same diner booth that Phil. Esposito sat two weeks earlier, or made sure you knew that his brother’s girlfriend’s uncle once knew a guy who has a real lake of Mitch Williams mullet. You know the guy. He has season tickets to every team in the area, but refuses to admit that he is a fan. Yet he doesn’t hesitate to load up his 1988 Oldsmobile as he heads to an autograph session with a duffel bag full of Wal-Mart sporting goods and a kid in tow who’s being coached in the intricate ways of being the guy. more absolute. detestable human being on the planet, but he’s certainly not a fanatic.

You know “that guy”. Being a supporter of your hometown team allows you to enjoy Sunday afternoon games at the stadium, allows you to read more than a paragraph on the sports pages, and makes you feel accepted as you drive to work on Monday morning with the same good mood as everyone else on the roads because, “a win is a win no matter how ugly the 12-9 win was.”

Then there is tradition and dedication. Tradition like singing “Bear Down, Chicago Bears” or watching “The Super Bowl Shuffle” every summer to remind you that hope is only 17 weeks away. Dedication, like wearing cheese on your head all day, putting on battery-heated socks for a playoff game in the snow, or cooking sausages in a hail storm because pork and mustard can cure any disease. Things like that make you remember, bind families across generations. Dedication like that gives parents and children who can barely be educated at the table something to talk about, if only for a couple of hours once or twice a year. Tradition and dedication like that strikes deep into the soul. I have seen these things, first hand, and I know how powerful they are.

So where does that leave me? Sitting here on Thanksgiving, just me and my mom. The third Thursday in November, and I’m a torn man. The Bucs are “my team.” As a college student looking for any excuse to hype, I walked up to the Super Bowl in Ray-Jay, just to say I was there, no matter if it was the Ravens against the Giants. A year later, I was knee-deep in the pandemonium that swept the Bay Area after Chucky took us to the promised land. I mean, these were the guys that he heard every week on his radio shows. But what about tradition? How about those jeans?

Perched in front of the TV with a mound of food waiting to be devoured, I had to make a decision. As a self-respecting sports fan, I had to pick a side and ride that pony through hell or high water. I wasn’t going to be “that other guy” who is happy anyway. That’s not what sports are about. He’s elated and obnoxious, pointing out his weekly dominance to anyone within earshot, or he’s devastated and obnoxious, spouting obscenities at anyone in earshot (including the dog who has learned that the bathtub is probably the safest place to be). football Sundays). That’s what sport is about. So what’s a guy to do? The sauce is getting cold, and ever since then, my mom has given up on finding my crochet helmet. It was the moment of decision. So, with a conflicted heart, I turned to my mom and said, “You know, I’ve rooted for those Cowboys every Thanksgiving of my life.

Wool helmet or not, I’m going to root for those Cowboys with you in the name of tradition and with Texan pride on the line.” It was with a heavy heart that I made that decision, because it wasn’t easy rooting against those Pewter Pirates. But, tradition prevailed this time, along with Dallas, and I fell asleep on the couch with the stars (and those famous cheerleaders) dancing on my mind.Next week, I’ll still read about the Bucs, and I’ll root them to the end. of what is already a disastrous season, but, for today at least, the tradition gives me a bond with my mother, a sense of nostalgia in the one corner of my stomach not occupied by cake, and a reason to feel proud. where I come from. So how about those jeans? How about those jeans, in fact