The week began with the long-awaited beginning of OTAs in Frisco. By Tuesday evening, though, the business of Xs and Os seemed incredibly trivial in the grand scheme of things.
Everything took on a different pall with the unimaginable horror that played out in Uvalde, and by Wednesday, buzz about football within the Cowboys’ facility was also peppered with plenty of real-talk commentary about what’s happening in the world outside The Star.
Sports are supposed to be a respite from such things. Or maybe they were supposed to be, once upon a time. Anymore, though, society increasingly looks to their athletes and the institutions they play for, seeking some kind of perspective on to how the rest of us might handle the adversity that has crept into our own daily lives, even if only on the nightly news.
Cowboys quarterback Dak Prescott was asked this week whether he and his teammates had discussed the elementary school massacre just a few hours’ drive away.
After a long pause and a heavy exhale, he gave an answer that started about the guys he happens to play football with. But it soon transcended sports.
“The locker room is a special place,” Prescott began. “And I say that because I don’t want to say those things don’t have to be talked about, but those things are dealt with day in and day out. Because this locker room’s built of so many people of different backgrounds, different everything: religions, race, you name it. And because we’re all in a common goal, we’ve worked, we’ve already hashed out some of these things that when something of this magnitude happens, it’d be wrong if we didn’t mention it- as we have in our offense and defense- but to say that we’ve got to dial in and get to know one another better, the locker room has that. And that’s why the locker room is special. I think the world needs more locker rooms.”
It’s a profound comparison, really.
Athletes — Prescott and many Cowboys, in particular — love to speak of the team as a brotherhood, a family. They talk about the bonds that are forged within the locker room’s confines, the deep personal connections that come from hours spent together, doing what defensive coordinator Dan Quinn often describes as “doing hard [expletive] with a group of people.”
Prescott says the hard stuff- necessary stuff- is coming. And he feels privileged to help lead the way.
Less than 36 hours after the Uvalde tragedy, Prescott’s Faith Fight Finish Foundation held a town hall discussion featuring youth, community groups, law enforcement officials, education leaders, and mental health experts.
The goal? Simply to start talking.
“I’m blessed, obviously, with this platform, to be able to host something with so many leaders, community leaders around the DFW area and honestly, our leaders of tomorrow- the youth- and being able to get them in the same room and create conversation, engage in these conversations that, obviously, we’re lacking.”
The quarterback was one of several Cowboys players who called for outreach in the wake of George Floyd’s death and the social unrest that followed nearly two years ago. That summer of 2020 was marked by awful violence, angry clashes between police and citizens, and loud calls for changes to the laws that govern our country.
Prescott lamented that not nearly enough has improved since then.
“We’re not close, and we’re actually going in the wrong direction,” he said.
“The lack of conversation and understanding and empathy we’re having for one another as humans, it just doesn’t make a lot of sense.”
Dak Prescott on yesterday’s school shooting in Uvalde: “We’re talking about children. I don’t have kids and can’t imagine having to send my kid to school with that anxiety. Honestly, it makes me fearful to have children. And that’s not right. That’s sad.”
— Jon Machota (@jonmachota) May 25, 2022
It is cliché to use sports as an analogy for life. But when a team is dealt a setback on the field, the players will unfailingly say communication- within the framework of the team setting- is where the solution lies. It almost always involves getting together, going back to work, looking at went wrong, and making adjustments to fix the problem.
Even if it’s a hard and painful process to get there.
“It will cause uncomfortable conversations,” Prescott said, “but I know so much growth and so much positive can come from that in the negative world that we’re living in.”
Prescott, of course, is no stranger to confronting the darkness in life. From the loss of his mother to cancer and his brother to suicide to dealing with his own depression and becoming a champion of mental health awareness, the 28-year-old knows that the real progress comes from taking an unflinching approach to dealing with pain and adversity head-on.
“It’s the conversations,” he explained, “the political leaders, the law enforcement, and then out community- the ones that they are serving- getting them face-to-face, allowing them to have these open dialogues of why they feel uncomfortable or why they don’t feel protected or what this anxiety or stigma or all this is that’s bringing us apart, what it’s about. Let’s bring it to the forefront. We can have these uncomfortable conversations but we can get somewhere from them and not continue to show division like we are.”
So don’t expect Prescott to “stick to sports.” Not in times like these.
“I don’t know if anyone is that ignorant to tell me that, to be honest with you,” he said matter-of-factly.
It would be absurd to expect that a man who throws a ball for a living to have all the answers to the monumentally vexing problems that plague today’s society. Even Prescott would be the first to agree.
But what he has to say regarding teamwork, communication, and coming together openly and honestly to strive toward a common goal for the betterment of the whole?
It’s not such a far-fetched place to start.
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