I don’t live in Dallas, I live in Baltimore – Ravens country. Except back in the day, when I was growing up we didn’t have a football team. The Baltimore Colts left in the middle of the night to go to Cleveland and an entire generation from Baltimore didn’t have a football team growing up. It wasn’t a big deal to me – it was the eighties and nineties and I had music to listen to.
When I was 17, I met my first spouse and he loved the Philadelphia Eagles. Well, there was no way I was going to like the same team as him so I chose to follow one of their main rivals, the Dallas Cowboys. They were led by quarterback Troy Aikman and he was so much fun to watch. Always so serious on the field and really, who could beat the Cowboys in the late nineties?
I bought an Aikman jersey, started collecting Aikman trading cards and even though I didn’t know him personally, he was the man. Let’s fast forward to a couple of years ago. I was in a new marriage to someone whose family actually has Raven’s season tickets. We had a son who chose to love the New England Patriots because of Gronkowski and Brady. Aikman left the field and started announcing and that was that.
Imagine my shock when my son went to a Baltimore Ravens game with his grandparents and I received the pic I posted to this blog. He knew I loved Aikman – had helped me collect his cards even though the Patriots were his heart – yet he looked up and saw Aikman in the press box and said to him, “My mama is your biggest fan but she isn’t here with me. Can I get a picture with you to send to her?” He said yes and this picture was taken and my heart….oh my heart….I literally cried when I opened it.
Troy Aikman will always be first class to me. He took the time to make a little boy and his mama’s day and we’ll never forget that. What a class act.
