From Road Playoff Win to Jimmy Johnson Ring of Honor Induction: Dallas Cowboys 2023 in Review
WHITT'S END 12.29.23:
Whether you’re at the end of your coffee, your day, your week or even your rope, welcome to Whitt’s End …
Before we can embrace “in with the new” we must discard “out with the old.” A tearful goodbye to a year that brought us an epic tanking by the Dallas Mavericks, a road playoff win by the Dallas Cowboys, several postseason victories by the Dallas Stars, and World Series championship from the Texas Rangers.
My 23 most memorable local “moments” of 2023 …
23. HAPPY NEW YEAR!: December 29 – In the calendar year of 2023, DFW’s four teams are a combined 203-155-12 with 24 playoff wins and one long-awaited championship. By our recently sorry standards, this is indeed a banner year.
22. TC-WHO?: January 1 – Nobody remembers TCU’s epic run to college football’s national championship game. But everyone remembers how the Frogs got humiliated by Georgia, 65-7.
21. DIRK’S DAY: August 12 – Mavs’ legend Dirk Nowitzki was enshrined into the Basketball Hall of Fame, and his speech made us laugh, cry and cue our goosebumps.
20. AI NOT OK: May 5 – I started being freaked out by Artificial Intelligence in the Spring. The fear hasn’t diminished.
19. DEEP, DAK DEPRESSION: January 22 – During the Cowboys’ playoff loss in San Francisco, it dawned on me that 23-year-old Brock Purdy is a better quarterback than our experienced veteran, Dak Prescott.
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18. JA RULES: July 1 – During the last 12 months I taught my Big Brother Big Sisters lil’ bro Ja about a March Madness bracket, a solar eclipse and the difference between Spain and Maine (no, really). What’d he school me on? That when he graduates he wants to be a realtor, a barber or perhaps President of the United States. He wins.
17. LITTLE DID WE KNOW: February 25 – The Rangers threw the first of baseball’s Spring Training, courtesy of Glenn Otto. Not only did I predict that Will Smith would be their closer come September, I also put their chances of throwing baseball’s last pitch in the World Series at “zilch.” I wasn’t alone, as the Las Vegas wise guys tabbed them a 50-to-1 longshot. (For the record, Josh Sborz threw the final, fabulous strike.)
16. DHS VS. DHS: December 15 – There are 1,600 high school football teams in Texas. The two best – Duncanville and DeSoto – are separated by only eight miles and I-35 in southern Dallas County.
15. NO TANK YOU: April 14 – It was the worst, most embarrassing Mavs home game I’ve ever attended. Still mathematically alive for a playoff berth and with Luka Doncic and Kyrie Irving healthy, they trotted out a YMCA roster that jacked 55 3-pointers in a blatant, successful attempt to lose and thereby improve their position in the upcoming draft. Days later they were fined $750,000 by the NBA, for quitting.
14. DAD 2, CANCER 0: May 3 – I took vacations this year to Scottsdale, Cancun, Denver, Spain and France. But my favorite trip was back to the golf course with Dad. Beating Leukemia for the second time, the 83-year-old Superman survived 54 more days in the hospital and got back to regularly shooting his age.
13. CRYSTAL (FOOT)BALL: March 30 – Per usual, I had my share of whiffs this year. But if you were paying attention I also predicted the Cowboys would easily surpass their predicted win total of 9.5, that first-round draft choice Mazi Smith would be Taco Charlton 2.0 and that an undrafted soccer player named Brandon Aubrey would blossom into the next Dan Bailey.
12. PAST HIS PRIME: September 30 – A shining example of how America is a sucker for style over substance, Deion Sanders lost eight of his last nine games at Colorado and successfully swept his troubled past at a Dallas charter school to win Sports Illustrated’s Sportsperson of the Year.
11. IN MEMORIAM: June 16 – This year we lost Cowboys’ fullback Walt Garrison, Rangers’ slugger Frank Howard and Mavs’ center Eric Montross. Off the field, I was saddened by the death of long-time DFW radio personality Mark Friedman and my forever golf buddy, Paul Wills. Radio legend Norm Hitzges is still with us, but he did finally retire in the Summer.
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10. FIT TO BE TIED: November 18 – You’ve had a pretty good year if the worst thing that happened was your credit card being stolen. And so it was for me. Along the way I managed to survive a Spartan and a Murph in May, a Beast in October and my first attempt at Hyrox just before Thanksgiving.
9. TRIUMPH OVER TRASHSTROS: October 23 – Maybe it wasn’t quite as sweet as Neftali Feliz striking out A-Rod to send the Rangers to their first World Series in 2010, but walloping the Astros in Houston, 11-4, in Game 7 of the ALCS tasted pretty dang good and was well worth savoring.
8. HELLO, DOLLY!: November 23 – While the rest of the world – sports + Swifties – was engulfed in the Travis Kelce-Taylor Swift romance, we were treated to 77-year-old Dolly Parton looking stunning in a Cowboys cheerleader outfit on Thanksgiving.
7. GUNS, AGAIN: May 6 – This time America’s nightmare with bullet-riddled mass murder brought bloodshed to our backyard, as a Neo-Nazi with an arsenal of guns killed eight and injured seven at an outlet mall in Allen.
6. TAKING ON TEXAS: December 27 – Buoyed by the deep pockets and strong political arms of Miriam Adelson and Jerry Jones, Mark Cuban sold his majority stake in the Mavs for $3.5 billion and set in motion his dream to bring legal gambling to Texas and a new arena/casino destination resort to the plot of land once home to Texas Stadium.
5. DAMAR DOES DALLAS: January 6 – Watching the Buffalo Bills’ Damar Hamlin almost die on the field – twice – made me recall DFW’s horrifyingly close health scares. Like Rich Peverley, the Texas Stadium “Snowman,” Emmitt Smith, Michael Irvin, Rick Carlisle and Roger Moret.
4. SCAPEGOAT SAVIOR?: February 6 – 15 years after trading for baggage-burdened All-Star point guard Jason Kidd from the Nets, the Mavs traded for baggage-burdened All-Star point guard Kyrie Irving from the Nets.
3. GOAT, HERDED: January 16 – The Cowboys won a road playoff game for the first time in 30 years, getting a monkey off their back and sending the GOAT (Tom Brady) into retirement.
2. BETTER LATE THAN NEVER: November 19 – Cowboys bid adieu to Kellen Moore, Dalton Schultz and Ezekiel Elliott, flirted with Odell Beckham and teased us with Deuce Vaughn and Trey Lance. But their biggest transaction of the year was Jimmy Johnson into the Ring of Honor. Finally.
1. ARE YOU WORLD SERIOUS?!: November 1 – The Rangers waited 51 years for their championship. DFW sports fans waited 4,526 days between titles. And I can eventually die in peace, now having lived to experience all four of our teams lift a trophy.
*This Weekend? Friday let’s go to a New Year’s Eve Eve Eve party. Saturday let’s watch Cowboys-Lions on New Year’s Eve Eve. Sunday let’s go to a party on New Year’s Eve. As always – even in 2024 – don’t be a stranger.
