I used to be a Dallas Cowboys fan. Even when I was little and lived in Wisconsin I was a Cowboys fan. I rooted for them over the Packers and lost a lot of friends, and I cried all night when Bart Starr leaped over that goal line in 1967 to clinch the NFL title for Green Bay.

Then last year, after all those seasons as a Cowboy fan, I asked myself why I was one. I couldn't come up with a good reason, so I decided to hate them. Actually, there are a lot more reasons to hate them than to like them.

And so I was very happy when the San Francisco 49ers beat them last Sunday. I only wish it could have happened in Dallas.

I decided to hate the Cowboys because they call themselves America's Team. I don't like the ring of that, it sounds fascist. And because all the players act so damned glad to be there--if they don't act that way they get traded or cut.

I hate them because Tom Landry is a sinister man, and because it took me more than ten years to finally believe that.

I used to like Roger Staubach until I found out he called his autobiography First Down, Lifetime to Go. Still, he was a great quarterback, and one of the best clutch passers ever.

I never did like Danny White. Still don't. He's just too much of a Staubach clone. He'll probably call his own autobiography Punt, Pass, and Jesus.

The Cowboys are the closest thing football has to the New York Yankees, and that is reason enough to hate them.

Where Are They?

And, of course, there is the Cowboy fan. I'm not talking about the working man--the guy who sits in the cheap seats and drinks stadium beer--those guys are pretty much the same in any town.

I'm talking about the young rich hotshot who drives to the game in a Mercedes with Hereford horns sticking out of the hood. The guy who wears a three-piece suit with cowboy boots and a cowboy hat and thinks he's J.R. Ewing and only eats real Texas chili.

The 49ers deserve a lot of credit for beating America's Team on Sunday. Even in the final minute of play, when they were ahead by less than a field goal, there must not have been a whole lot of people who thought San Francisco would win.

And then, just when it looked like Danny White was going to pull a Roger Staubach and put the Cowboys in field goal range...he fumbled. It did it all just to see the expression on Landry's face.