It was in the Dallas Cowboys' locker room after a Monday night game at old Giants Stadium against the Giants. TB was there to write a feature story on Jason Garrett, the former Princeton Bushnell Cup winner who was then Aikman's backup quarterback.
Dallas won the game relatively easily, as TB recalls. Then it was off to the locker room to talk to Garrett and some of his teammates.
First TB spoke to Cowboys' owner Jerry Jones, even though he didn't set out to. In fact, TB was standing in the hallway outside the locker room waiting for it to open, and Jones came up to him, introduced himself and asked who he was and why he was there.
TB responded that he was from Princeton Athletics and that he had come to talk to Garrett for a feature story. Jones immediately went into a good five minutes about Jason, how much he liked him, how valuable he was to the team as the backup quarterback.
Perhaps TB should have asked
him if he realized that Garrett would be his head coach for 10 years in
the not too distant future.
After that experience, the door opened. The first person TB asked about Garrett was Emmett Smith, the Hall of Fame running back. Smith was talking to TB as he put his suit back on.
Keep in mind, Smith made slightly more than $56 million in his NFL career. So what happened while he was speaking with TB?
He reached into his pocket and pulled out a $20 bill. He got a big smile on his face and said "Hey, I didn't know I had $20 in there."
Next up was Aikman, who was coming back into the locker room from the media room. The first thing TB noticed about him was that he was a much bigger physical presence than he appears on TV.
Aikman stands 6-4, which, combined with his strong build made him seem to TB more like the size of a 1990s Ivy League offensive lineman. He also had very large hands and a very firm handshake.
He, like Smith, had no obligation to talk to TB. There were probably people waiting for both of them, so it was pretty nice that they took a few minutes to be interviewed.
They both seemed like good guys. Either that, or they just really liked Garrrett, about whom they both spoke glowingly.
TB always thinks back to the time he interviewed Aikman and how approachable he was each time he sees him on TV. Aikman did the game Saturday between the Rams and the Seahawks, and TB was struck by something he said during the game.
He said that he'd played against Lawrence Taylor and Reggie White and that Aaron Donald, the current Rams' lineman, is the best defensive player he's ever seen. If TB could interview Aikman again, he'd ask him if he actually believes that.
Taylor and White, by the way, are the two best defensive players TB has ever watched. He's never seen anyone else who is even close to them.
TB has done enough radio to know the value of making a provocative statement like that. Does Aikman really mean that?
As for the rest of the playoff weekend, TB was right in what he wrote Friday. He watched less of the six NFL playoff games this weekend than he would have the eight first-round NCAA tournament men's lacrosse games in a normal year. Still, what he did see was good.
He saw almost none of the Bills win over the Colts.
In fact, he was in his car for the final quarter, which allowed him to listen to a pair of announcers with really strong Princeton connections - former Tiger men's and women's basketball play-by-play man John Sadak and former Princeton lineman Ross Tucker, both of whom have made it big in broadcasting.
TB wasn't really all that invested in who won. He supposes he's happy for Buffalo fans and former Princeton assistant coach and current Bills' assistant Jim Salgado.
Mostly he was rooting for the radio announcers.
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