This blonde-haired, blue-eyed leader of "America's Team" ended his career as the Cowboy's all-time leading passer with 32,942 yards. His 90 wins in the 1990's is the most by any quarterback in any decade, and his 61.5% completion is 4th best of all time. But perhaps most importantly, on a team filled with questionable role models, Aikman never made embarrassing headlines on or off the field. Being a longtime die hard Dallas Cowboy fan I was extremely excited when I got to travel to Wichita Falls Texas for their training camp.

       My eyes were fixed on meeting my two favorite players Troy Aikman and Emmitt Smith. Troy Aikman has been a consistent signer throughout the training camps that I went to. Unlike most players Troy signed at every single practice (morning and afternoon), but there was one catch in the fact that you had to have his autograph ticket. They handed out 100 tickets each day and you had to be very lucky to get his autograph card. The tickets were given before each practice and he signed in a little pen, which was the only place Troy signed.

       When I found out about this I knew I had to get one of these tickets. The people they usually gave the passes to were children, although adults made it in all the time. One morning I was standing by the fence waiting for practice to end when I got some valuable information about the tickets.

       A little kid next to me said that a fat guy with a fisherman's hat was giving out the blue passes, so I went out and looked for this guy. I spotted an older man in a fishing cap, but was he the right one? I watched him and he would go up to little kids and talk to them briefly and then give them something secretively. Either this was some twisted drug deal going on or it was indeed the man with the passes.

       Since I'm so shy this would not be easy for me to approach this strange man and ask him for a pass. I finally got the nerve and walked up and asked the man. "Someone told me that you were giving Troy Aikman passes, can you please give me one?" The man looked at me and said "I don't know where you heard this from, but I have no idea what you are talking about." Crap.

       Then he said that a thing like these passes were something that is given to someone without asking. I had a sad look on my face and said, "Okay thank you," and started to turn around defeated and embarrassed. The man said, "wait!" He asked me to come back and asked me to open up my hand. He then smiled and secretly gave me the Troy Aikman pass!! The man told me not to tell a soul and I promised I wouldn't. I was so happy and felt like hugging the stranger, but thankfully I didn't.

       I returned to my mom with the awesome news and we headed over to Troy Aikman's pen entrance. I was so excited that I was about to meet my favorite football player! Practice seemed like it was taking longer than usual because my anticipation was building so high.

       Finally practice let out and we were brought into the pen and the security explained the rules of the autograph session. Moment's later Troy Aikman appeared before the pen and was greeted with many cheers. Troy wasted no time and immediately started signing. When I got to him I said, "How's it going Troy?" and he looked up to me because not one person in line was saying a thing to him except "thank you". Troy said, "just fine thank you for asking. How about you? It was an amazing moment for me because I still couldn't believe I was talking to my favorite football player. I thanked him and was off grasping my prized autograph with a huge smile on my face. This would not be the last time I ran into him.


2000 Camp

       My mom and I had good positions at the fence (at cowboy camp) and were getting many autographs of football players. We then looked over to see Troy Aikman doing an interview while walking past the autograph fence. This was an unusual sighting because Troy never walked by the fence. He didn't go this way because his autograph pen was on the other side of the field and would leave in his golf cart in another direction.

       But on this day he was walking down the autograph line doing an interview. He stopped and continued the interview directly in front of us (but still at a distance). It was interesting because he seemed to keep looking at my Mom when he was doing the interview, but we weren't for sure.

       Our guessing turned into fact when the interview was over and he came directly to my Mom to sign. Crowds at cowboy camp are often crazy with people pushing and shoving people left and right. My poor Mom was in the front and getting smashed against the fence, which probably made him feel sorry for her. Once he signed for her the crowd went nuts and the commotion was dangerous for all the little kids getting trampled. So Troy quickly stopped signing for that reason and continued on his way to the locker room. I didn't get the autograph but my Mom did for me and I was so happy to get my favorites autograph again.