A Cowgirl in Bears territory

As most know, my husband and I are both fans of the Dallas Cowboys football team, however, living in Illinois and neither of us ever having been to Texas, a lot of people tend to wonder why.

Well, I can't speak for hubby, but I know he's been a fan since well before I ever met him. My roots as well go back quite a bit.

When I was in grade school in the early-mid 90s, Starter Jackets were THE fashion accessory at the time - all the "cool" boys (or as cool as they can possibly be in 5th grade) and even some of the girls wore them. And the majority wore either 49ers or Cowboys jackets. At the time, the Cowboys were huge, after winning several Superbowls, and everyone know who Emmitt Smith and Troy Aikman were. So naturally, I picked one of the 2 popular teams to like, even though I didn't really know much about football at the time.

I did however always, always, always catch the annual Cowboys Thanksgiving Day game and cheer them on - watching them play on Thanksgiving sort of became a tradition for as long as I can recall.

Again though, I was never THAT into football though so I didn't really follow them too closely.

In high school, I dated a die-hard Chicago Bears fan. Every Sunday afternoon during football season was spent hanging out in my parents basement, watching the Bears game on my dad's big tv with the surround sound, and then when we got to college, we'd watch with some of the other guys in his dorm. I even got this boyfriend Bears tickets for his birthday one year. It was fun, and I always checked the ticker to see how the Cowboys were doing, but again, I was never really THAT into football, although during the time I watched with this boyfriend, I did learn a lot about the game.

I also attended most of the NIU football games during my first few years there - one year we were really on roll, with Michael "The Burner" Turner, PJ Fleck, Dan Sheldon, Sam Hurd, and Doug Free and then later on with Garrett Wolfe and Larry English. However the guy I dated throughout most of my time in college was not into sports, let alone football, so I kind of didn't really follow anyone outside of NIU.

Then when hubby and I started dating, I got back into the watching football-mode. But with him being a Cowboys fan too, it was nice to actually get to see them in action, rather than just follow the ticker on the bottom of the screen. Another plus, is getting to see several of the NIU guys I watched in college play in the NFL now, since Sam Hurd and Doug Free both play for the Cowboys.

So that, my friends, kind of explains why I am a Cowgirl in Bears (and I guess you could also say Packers) territory.

The only drawbacks however, is that a handful of the games we have to watch online from random webcasts/streams, when the Cowboys play during the same time that the Bears, Packers, and Vikings are all playing games, as those are the teams in our local market and we don't have the money to pay for Sunday Ticket or whatever it's called. Another drawback, is that the only places to get gear is at actual sports stores or order online - we can't buy Cowboys stuff for cheap at say Walmart like we could Bears and Packers. But those are drawbacks we can easily live with =)