The sacrifices of a Dallas Cowboys superfan
On Saturday night Greg and Kathy Freeman slept outside the gate to the Dallas Cowboys training camp in Oxnard, California.
In the front seats of a rented compact Ford Focus.
Why didn’t the Las Vegans — he’s a dental assistant and she’s a director with a major nonprofit — get a motel room?
So they could afford more souvenirs.
Make no mistake: Even though Sunday’s Hall of Fame Game in Canton, Ohio, was canceled because of lousy turf, the Freemans’ sacrifice is a sure sign that the National Football League season is upon us.
Professional football fans are coming out of hibernation. Seemingly normal people start doing seemingly abnormal things.
After all, the word fan originates from the Modern Latin fanaticus, meaning “insanely but divinely inspired.”
Greg Freeman, 46, president of the Las Vegas Dallas Cowboys Family fan club, works in Dr. Greg Edwards’ dental office. He waited until after he took my X-rays to tell me what happened as he prepared to take X-rays of a 75-year-old woman’s mouth.
He had asked her whether she had any metal in her mouth. At first, she said no.
But then she piped up and said, “I do have a tongue ring. Is that a problem?”
Like a true professional, he waited to share that anecdote. He knew full well I probably would have started laughing uncontrollably and spit out all the dental paraphernalia.
With football season underway, this 6-foot, 250-pound Navy veteran acts like it’s perfectly normal to tell me while I’m eating that he and his wife slept in a Ford Focus so they could buy more Dallas Cowboys jerseys.
Yes, I had an accident with my food.
He also says he helped the Cowboys win by wearing the same clothes, including socks and underwear, during winning streaks.
“My wife didn’t care too much for how I smelled, so I’ve found other ways to keep streaks going,” Freeman says.
The consensus of shrinks is that as long as this kind of behavior doesn’t interfere with your life, you don’t need your head examined.
But if you’re infuriating your spouse, annoying your friends or unable to do something that must be done on game day, it may be time to see if you’re certifiable.
Freeman comes by his Dallas Cowboys fandom honestly.
He was born in Dallas, and some of the first sounds he heard growing up were of his mother, a registered nurse, screaming. He’d be in the playpen and she’d be pointing at the TV screaming at what was going on in a Cowboys game.
“It scared me at first,” Freeman says.
Freeman, bless his heart, has followed in his mother’s footsteps.
He has Dallas Cowboys tattoos. His wife makes Dallas Cowboys shoes.
If you’re in his guest bathroom, you think you’re in the Cowboys’ locker room.
When he dresses as Santa Claus for kids who are part of the fan club, his suit smacks of the Cowboys colors — navy, silver and white.
No, Freeman, who’s spent $10,000 on Cowboys stuff, isn’t crazy.
He just likes to act crazy with like-minded people.
“It’s fun to be with people loving the same thing,” he says. “It’s like we’re an extended family just letting ourselves go.”
Five years ago, he started his Cowboys Family fan club, now more than 200 members strong, because he wanted entire families to be able to enjoy game day. Adults have their space, so do the kids.
They meet at GameWorks in Town Square. Last month, the Cowboys team mascot, Rowdy, and team representatives were supposed to meet club members at the arcade, but a team tour bus was involved in a fatal accident in Arizona and the visit was canceled.
Ivy Hartman, a club member, marvels at how people of every color and ethnic persuasion have a great time bonding over the ’Boys.
“It’s how America is supposed to be,” she says.
Paul Harasim’s column runs Sunday, Tuesday and Friday in the Nevada section and Thursday in the Life section. Contact him at pharasim@reviewjournal.