I grew up in north Texas in a family of avid Dallas Cowboys fans. In fact, to my knowledge, everyone in north Texas was a football fan, and all of them were firmly in the silver-and-blue boat of Cowboys fandom. I remember watching Sunday afternoon football with my dad and thinking it was every bit as sacred as church services. Early on, my sisters and I would be bored to tears, not able to watch anything else on television on Sundays ... so we would get paper and pencils and have a contest to see which of us could write the most number/name combinations on both teams before the end of the game. Anything to pass the interminable time that passed between kick-off and game end. Later, I grew to enjoy the sport. I learned the difference between offense and defense, how to tell a fullback from a free safety, and why grown men scream at a TV screen when their team misses a field goal on 3rd and goal. I was proud to be a junior high and high school che...