America's Team
America’s Team is an established term used to describe the Dallas Cowboys franchise that plays in the NFC East of the National Football League.
Bob Ryan, the Vice President and editor-in-chief of NFL Films, coined this for the Cowboys in 1979. After preparing and editing the team’s 1978 season highlight film he had to come up with a title for the film. He was quoted as saying:
- "After the '78 season, the Cowboys had just lost a crushing Super Bowl to the Steelers. I wanted to come up with a different twist on their team highlight film. I noticed then, and had noticed earlier, that wherever the Cowboys played, you saw people in the stands with Cowboys jerseys and hats and pennants. Plus, they were always the national game on television."
Drawing upon this inspiration and that of other nationally followed sports teams, such as the New York Yankees in Major League Baseball, the Notre Dame Fighting Irish in college football and the Boston Celtics in pro basketball, which Ryan said "are all America’s teams," he decided to use America’s Team as the name of the highlight film.
During the Cowboys' first game of the 1979 season, a nationally televised game against the St. Louis Cardinals (which Dallas won 22-21), the television announcer introduced the Cowboys as America’s Team and the nickname stuck.
Originally, Dallas’ Hall of Fame coach Tom Landry did not approve of the appellation. He felt that it would give opposing teams extra incentive to play harder. Eventually he gave in and actually came to like the name.
In 2003, NFL Films released a DVD collection chronicling the Dallas Cowboys franchise entitled The Dallas Cowboys: The Complete History of America's Team 1960-2003.
[edit] Other claims to the name
- The term is occasionally used by some fans to describe the Green Bay Packers.
- The term is also used by fans of the Washington Redskins to refer their team, because of their rivalry with the Cowboys.
- The term was also applied to the New England Patriots by some fans after the Pats repeated a feat accomplished for the first time by the Dallas Cowboys several years earlier, namely winning three Super Bowl victories in a mere four years.
- And in 2005, the name was briefly used as a term of endearment for the New Orleans Saints following the disaster of Hurricane Katrina.
- The term has also been conferred to the New York Yankees, Los Angeles Lakers, Atlanta Braves, and the Boston Celtics.
- It is also a term used for a team that has a large fanbase nationwide.
- The Fabulous Sports Babe dubbed the Hartford Whalers America's Team on her ESPN radio show.
- The Oakland Raiders are occasionally called by this name, but more often an equivalent term, Raider Nation, is used to expressed similar widespread fandom.
- In 2004, ESPN christened the University of Utah's football team America's Team during their improbable run to an undefeated season and a BCS bowl game. The Utes became the first non-BCS team to play in a BCS game.
