Fan Voices: The die-hard Giants fan named after Troy Aikman

Sports has always been my biggest passion, ever since I was a little kid dressing up as Derek Jeter for every Halloween. Now that I’m an adult, working for a company that is the proud parent of Jeter’s own creation, The Players’ Tribune, one of the most rewarding aspects of my job is that I’m constantly surrounded by people who love sports just as much as I do. The passion of fandom is so powerful and there’s a community including everyone who has ever watched sports and gotten way too emotionally invested in grown adults playing a children’s game. 

I recently had a conversation with my friend Chris, who has known me since I was 5, and the way he put it is that I “put all my skill points for life into sports knowledge.” But I was born into sports fandom. It’s even in my name.

My middle name, Kenneth, was given for my grandfather, a sports writer who wrote a road running column for Kingston, NY’s Daily Freeman Newspaper. 

Ken’s diehard favorite football team is the Dallas Cowboys. When my mother was born, his fandom was passed down to her. When it came time for her to name her firstborn son, the choice was clear — I became Troy. 

This was the 1990s, with the Cowboys winners of five consecutive NFC East titles and three of the last five Super Bowls. Honestly, I get it! Why not name your kid after the fresh-faced Dallas QB who was as accomplished as he was handsome? The SI Vault from 1996 reads: “Aikman, who turned 29 in November, might be the most eligible bachelor to play in the NFL since Joe Willie Namath hung up his white cleats.” 

The family lineage of sports is a beautiful thing, and I’ve always had a real pride and attachment to my name. There was only one problem with my mom and dad’s plan. Usually, fandom gets passed down through generations — it’s why some New York sports fans end up trapped, rooting for the Mets or Jets their entire lives, instead of joining Giants and Yankees fans in celebrating actual championships. My parents both loved the Cowboys but somehow that passion passed me by.

When my parents moved out of Boston, the city where they met and had me, for a suburban town in Central New Jersey, they moved directly into rival sports fandom territory. I grew up in the trenches of WFAN, digesting a steady diet of the loudest and most correct sports takes of all time, and before my Bostonian Red Sox-loving dad and die-hard Cowboys-worshipping mom could change my mind, I had decided my allegiances. 

I was a Yankees and Giants fan.

Once I committed to the bit, I didn’t go back. I’m not going to lie, it wasn’t always easy. Every … Single ... Time … the Giants could not cover Jason Witten and let him run into the endzone for another Cowboys touchdown, I wondered if it was even worth it. During a stretch in my middle school years, the Cowboys won three straight matchups (don’t even mention the current streak…) and my animosity was running so high, that we had to watch the game in separate rooms. I was a Giants fan living in a Cowboys house.

I need to give a shout-out to my parents for putting up with such a passionate fan, let alone someone rooting for their rival teams. I have broken real items in my parents’ house after something bad happened to the Giants. After the “Miracle at the (New) Meadowlands,” with the buzzer-beater DeSean Jackson punt return touchdown, I took the angriest bike ride of all time. That play took me to the 13-year-old version of a very dark place.

That three-game stretch of Giant losses to the Cowboys in middle school ended up not really hurting my favorite team that much in the end. The two losses the 2007 Giants suffered to the Cowboys in the regular season weren’t enough to keep those Giants out of a playoff spot. Once they got there, they went on an improbable Wild Card run, finally vanquishing the Cowboys and squeaking by the Packers. There was only one game left between the Giants and a Super Bowl win. But if their run up to this point was improbable, what stood before them seemed undefeatable. And that’s probably because they were undefeated — the 16-0 Patriots were the ultimate sports Goliath.

I felt that my personal fandom was being tested. Surely, I couldn’t still believe in the Giants, right? My dad took me to Modell’s on Super Bowl Sunday, and I wanted a sick commemorative T-shirt with the team and Super Bowl logos prominently displayed. My dad, just being reasonable, (and obviously a Pats fan from Boston) leveled with 10-year-old me “…are you sure you’re going to remember this game fondly? The Patriots are pretty good this year.” 

But a beautiful thing happened afterward, and I gave into my love for the Giants, overpowering the rational side of my brain that told me the Patriots likely had a 99 percent chance of winning the game. Because there’s always that 1 percent chance and believing in that 1 percent is what sports fandom is all about. Anything can happen. There’s always a glimmer of hope.

When I saw Eli Manning slip out of that sack and David Tyree, who caught four balls in the entire regular season, pin that ball against his helmet it was the biggest payout I could have dreamed of. I broke down in tears and was lying in stunned astonishment as Eli hoisted that first Lombardi. 

It’s not lost on me, or anyone else in my family, that after I was born, the Giants have won two Super Bowls and the Cowboys have not even made a Super Bowl post-Troy (either one). But again, I have to give love to my parents for letting me rub it in for a few months … and maybe even being a little happy for me.

Because that’s the weirdest thing about the Giants and Cowboys rivalry for me. Even though I hate that star and the players wearing it, I love my mom, and I love my Grandpa. So as I got older, each Zeke TD run started to hurt me less and less. I even drafted him on my fantasy team for a little extra motivation to cheer him on. But even putting fantasy points aside, I’d be lying if I said I didn’t feel a place start to grow in my heart for the Cowboys if for no other reason than their success will make some really great people happy. 

A Cowboys fan might say that’s just a Giants fan coping with Dallas winning 14 of the last 15 matchups against the Giants (fine I’ll mention it) heading into this year’s Thanksgiving matchup. To that, I would just say kiss the rings — from the die-hard Giants fan named after Troy Aikman.

Fan Voices is a collection of personal essays highlighting the individual stories and experiences of fans and how relationships with sports, teams and athletes have rippled through their lives. Read more here.