Cyber Column by Brett Younger: Truth and the Dallas Cowboys

Posted: 10/07/05

CYBER COLUMN:
Truth and the Dallas Cowboys

By Brett Younger

Recently, two of my favorite choir members graciously invited our family to sit with them in a luxury suite at a Dallas Cowboys’ football game. It seemed like fun. My children love sports. Carol loves a party. They promised there would be food. None of us had ever been to Texas Stadium. It’s a generous invitation. The parking pass cost more than my first suit. So I said, “We’d love to go.”

But secretly, I had reservations. It’s a complicated story:

When I was growing up, my father was the biggest Cowboys fan in the world. Tom Landry was only a notch below Billy Graham. My mother once said that my father loved Roger Staubach more than he loved her. His response was that he loved her more than Calvin Hill. We moved breakable furniture out of the living room before Dallas games, but we still lost a couple of lamps. My father was exuberant in expressing his devotion.

All teenagers find some way to rebel against their parents. Some do drugs, drink or sleep around. I didn’t do any of those things, but what I did may have been more painful to my father. When I was 14—and I’m not proud of this—I started cheering against Dallas. Whenever a Cowboy got arrested, and it was rather frequent in the 1970s, I cut the story out of the newspaper and helpfully taped it to the refrigerator. On one occasion during grace before a meal, I prayed for wide receiver Bob Hayes’ cocaine problem. I was sent to my room without dinner.

I’ve been pulling for whoever is playing Dallas for a long time. My children have now inherited this unattractive part of who I am. Of course, I recognize that many fine and wonderful people pull for the Cowboys, and there are moments, especially since I moved to Fort Worth, when I wish I could be 13 again and be one of them. But those days are long gone.

So, on the way to Texas Stadium we practiced our non-partisan cheers:

“That was some play.”

“That guy is big.”

“Those cheerleaders must work out a lot.”

“Bill Parcells could work out a little more, couldn’t he?”

Luckily, most of the focus in our suite was on the food—shrimp, ribs, chicken, hamburgers. There may have been some vegetables, but I’m not sure. The caramel chocolate cake was the highlight of the second half.

I used my non-partisan cheers:

“Let’s go team.”

“We want a touchdown.”

“Run fast.”

I slipped once and shouted, “That was a terrible call” at a referee who had made a call that the 54,000 people seated around me thought was wonderful. I tried to save myself with, “but the angle is such that I couldn’t really see it from here.”

One of our church’s fifth grade Sunday school teachers cheered the loudest of anyone in our suite. I kept my distance as he repeatedly yelled, “Kill ’em.”

We had a lovely time, but it was tempered a little by the feeling that I wasn’t quite telling the truth. I have friends with whom I don’t mention certain subjects, and that keeps us from being better friends. I know that some issues will always divide us, and arguing doesn’t do much good, but not telling the truth begins to feel like a lie. Rather than dishonest silence, we need to follow St. Paul’s advice, “Speak the truth in love.”

This is hard to do, and we all have difficulty with it. Sometimes, we avoid speaking truth in fear of offending someone, and sometimes we speak the truth so coarsely that we don’t display love at all, but cold, hard arrogance instead. The best friends learn to share who they are without putting down those who disagree. The best churches learn to be honest without being judgmental.

Sometimes, we need to say, “You need to know how hard it is for me to hear racist comments,” “I’ve never told you how much I appreciate you,” “If I’m going to be your friend, I need to tell you how important my Christian faith is to me,” or “I’m sorry I root against the Cowboys.”

Brett Younger is pastor of Broadway Baptist Church in Fort Worth and the author of Who Moved My Pulpit? A Hilarious Look at Ministerial Life, available from Smyth & Helwys (800) 747-3016. You can e-mail him at byounger@broadwaybc.org.