Are you Fan Enough?

Buffalo Sports Chatter Dale -

That damn Dallas Cowboys parka. Eddie Rubio wore that thing everyday. To every class. And he wore that smug smile to match. High school is rough in a lot of ways. But another layer of hardship was growing up a die hard Buffalo Bills fan in a small town in central Washington State. My parents lived on Curlew Street in Rochester when I was born. My dad was a Vietnam vet & like many that served, the war still raged in his mind long after the napalm cooled. He turned to the bottle & my parents split when I was 6. My mom remarried & her new husband decided that even the safety of the suburbs in Henrietta was too ghetto so when I was 13 years old, we moved. To Rush, you ask? To Canandaigua, maybe? Nope. Quincy, Washington. 2,520 miles away from Bills fans in November of 1990 just as Jim Kelly was leading his team to their first Super Bowl. A few months & a Wide-Right later, I faced Eddie Rubio. The Bills wouldn't even play the Cowboys for the world championship for 2 more years, but the taunts had already begun. Ridicule from behind a dirty Lonestar parka and it would get worse. The only support was from my brother Dan & a kid named John that somehow claimed to be a Bills fan but didn't know who Biscuit was & had never been east of Boise, Idaho. "You need to pick a good team, like the Cowboys", said Eddie the Monday after Scott Norwood missed the kick heard 'round the world. "You guys suck. We're looking good next year. You should join us." "We? Us?", I replied. "You ever been to a game in Dallas, Eddie?" "No." "Lived in Dallas? Or near it?" "Well...no. But..." "Have you ever even been to Texas?!" Silence from the parka. "Then you can't say 'we', you idiot." Then here comes John, "We almost had it yesterday! We almost won!" Cue the eye-roll. Funny that many of those Cowboy fans that have never even BEEN to Texas curiously are now Seahawks fans. Yes, it was a lonely existence growing up a Bills fan in another football world. But it taught me one thing: you may NOT use the pronoun 'we' unless.... 1. You've been to at least one game. 2. Lived within 200 miles of the stadium. 3. Your dad's a fan & meets #1 & #2 That's it. If you have a Cowboy's star tattoo and never set foot inside the 469 area code, you can't say 'we'. That's like photoshopping yourself into party pictures you screenshot from Instagram. Sure you can be a fan. There's no bounds on that. Get all the star-shaped ink you want. Leave your Cowboys parka unwashed for all I care. But until you've been there...lived there. High-fived strangers. You're not fan enough for Us.

Buffalo Sports Chatter Dale