How I Learned to Love the Cowboys and Forgive Clint Longley*

*Or at least try.

By Al Perrotta Published on November 4, 2017

“Congratulations! We’re glad you’re out of California. DON’T BECOME A COWBOYS FAN!” 

So said virtually every member of my family when I broke the news that we were moving to Texas.  In their eyes, I would be more easily forgiven had I announced I was joining ISIS. 

See, I grew up just outside Washington, D.C. in the heart of Redskins country. In Redskins country there was no black or white. Only burgundy-and-gold. And growing up during the Cold War I can safely say that if the choice was between annihilating the Soviet Union or annihilating the Dallas Cowboys the Cowboys would be toast. Were the Cowboys hated? Like Congress hates spending cuts. They were villains. Vincent Price in shoulder pads.

Beating the Cowboys meant more than anything, even more than winning a Super Bowl. In the 1982 NFC Championship Game, the Redskins demolished the Cowboys. I happened to be watching the game at my girlfriend’s house about half a mile from the DC line. She actually got to go to the game. (Meaning, by definition, dating me would never be the highlight of her life.) When the game ended, such a roar rose from the city, the ground shook. No lie. I’ve been in earthquakes in L.A. that didn’t rattle the windows like that roar did. No such rattle two weeks later when the Skins beat the Dolphins in the Super Bowl.

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Dallas Week was a twice-yearly spectacle in D.C., the energy level matched only by the week before Christmas. When the Redskins were going to be playing the dreaded, loathsome, full-of-themselves Cowboys, Washington could think of nothing else. Elvis spotted alive? Great. Maybe he can sing the National Anthem at the Redskins-Cowboys game. The Rapture may happen this weekend? Great. Roger Staubach is a Christian, we’ll have a better chance of winning. 

Or so you would think. 

Clint Longley

Thanksgiving Day, 1974. There is plenty to be thankful for. The Redskins are beating Cowboys 16-3. In the 3rd quarter Hall of Famer Roger Staubach gets knocked out of the game. In comes rookie backup quarterback Clint Longley. Who’s Clint Longley? He’d never even taken one snap in an NFL game. Even his family probably didn’t know he was an NFL quarterback.  Yep. This game is in the bag like turkey leftovers. Not since the Native Americans had helped save the pilgrims was a Thanksgiving going so well. 

Then disaster. This Clint Longley starts slinging the football all over the field. “I felt like a gunfighter with a football,” the Mad Bomber would later say. And he was taking aim at our heart. The fatal shot? A 50-yard bomb with :28 seconds left to win the game. 

Longley would soon disappear from the NFL. His purpose was served. He had ruined Thanksgiving. For years. How can you even smell roasted turkey without the sense memory of that ball dropping into Drew Pearson’s hands? Oh, the woe.

Think I’m exaggerating? Here’s what a blogger at ESPN980 Redskins Radio wrote on the 40th anniversary of the game:

Though I felt like it, I didn’t smash the 19-inch Zenith in the basement of our house at 8809 Walnut Hill Road.  But I did sulk through the turkey and stuffing. The worst Thanksgiving ever.

Hate is not too strong a word.

Loving Thy Enemies

How could I ever forgive Clint Longley? (Even now, the very name causes a reflexive tightening in my chest.) How could I ever love the Cowboys? Hostility had been ingrained in me since birth. The rivalry so real my six-grade teacher Mrs. Lester threatened corporal punishment on any kid who acted up after a loss to Dallas. Yet here comes this command from The Teacher: love your enemies. Forgive those who sin against you. 

When you soften your heart you open it up for teaching. I can see Clint Longley not as a heartbreaker, but as God’s workmanship prepared in advance for that one moment. He made the most of his opportunity. How prepared am I for that moment when it comes? 

More importantly, I can see God’s correction for being excited when Staubach went down: 

Do not rejoice when your enemies fall, and do not let your heart be glad when they stumble, or else the Lord will see it and be displeased, and turn away his anger from them. (Proverbs 24:17-18)

By the time we moved to Dallas I didn’t rejoice so much when the Cowboys lost. I was quick to notice how beautifully Cowboy blue went with my wife’s eyes. I actually bought her a jersey. 

Funny how when you look through God’s eyes dislike seems to dissolve. Legendary coach Tom Landry is no longer an ice-cold calculator but a devout man of God who remains much beloved. 

I came to respect that Dallas fans, as much as they adore the Cowboys, they love the game more. The familial affection for the team is such that even when they express their anger at owner Jerry Jones, they call him “Jerry.” (Nobody in Washington would ever call legendary owner Jack Kent Cooke “Jack.”)

Jerry’s AT&T Stadium is a straight shot down the road from here. A spaceship settled on the Texas plain. I no longer see it as a den of Satan. Or, more seriously, a hamlet of hostile foes. Even if it is astroturf. And covered by a dome. And cost $1.2 billion to build. And has locker room benches that cost more than my house. I see a community gathering place for those with a shared passion. 

I pray what the psalmist prayed, “Let the field be joyful and all that is in it.” And wherever he is today — and no one seems to know where that is, he seems to have vanished like D.B. Cooper — may Clint Longley hear the words of Paul:

For everything God created is good, and nothing is to be rejected if it is received with thanksgiving, because it is consecrated by the word of God and prayer.

So I am thankful. Even for mad bombing, heartbreaking backup Cowboy quarterbacks.

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