When the average fan watches a pro football game, they see gods. Ideal physical specimens come to life, performing athletic feats they themselves can only dream of.
On a field filled with larger-than-life superheroes, the scrappy underdog who looks like maybe he doesn’t belong always stands out and inevitably becomes a fan favorite.
The heart of a lion… trapped in the body of a mutt.
Think Rudy.
In sixty-plus years of Dallas Cowboys lore, perhaps no player personified that ethos more than Bill Bates.
“I think [the fans] could see some of themselves in me,” Bates said, as author Jeff Sullivan shares in America’s Team: The Official History of the Dallas Cowboys. “I wasn’t the biggest guy out there, oftentimes one of the smallest. I wasn’t the fastest guy out there. I was the gritty, hardworking stiff who was out there living his dream, and fans appreciated that.”
Appreciate it, they did. For fifteen improbable seasons, he was a fan favorite, even on rosters loaded with legends. But Bill Bates was always more than his stats; that’s the whole point. He was the poster child for playing with passion, for giving his all to the game and the team he loved, and for making dreams come true.