You Know You're Getting Old..

...when someone your age is getting inducted into a Hall of Fame.

I had to keep myself from feeling old on Saturday. I watched as Troy Aikman was inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame. Troy and I were born a week apart, but I graduated from high school a year later, as he started school in California, where the cutoff date was later than the one in Oklahoma, where I started school.

Troy's paths and mine have come so close together, yet so far apart. I didn't realize it, but I first saw him play when he was in 8th grade, and I was in 7th grade. My school used to play Henryetta, and I played football in 7th grade. Our team stayed for the 8th grade game, as we shared a bus, if I remember correctly. I first remember seeing him play when he was a sophomore, and we went over there to play them in the last district game of the year. I remember him being a freak athletic specimen (especially for what was then class 2A in Oklahoma), and being the best player on the field even then. I followed his career from there, and was in the stands that October 1985 day in Norman, when he tore up his knee in a game between the Sooners and the Miami Hurricanes. Both teams were full of NFL players, and Miami won the game that day, but OU went on to win their remaining games and their sixth national championship.

Troy went on to UCLA and was drafted by the Cowboys in 1989. His first year in Dallas was my first year in Fort Worth. There were 4,000,000 other people in the Metroplex at that time, as well. A few years later, I served on staff at a church in Henryetta. Troy goes back there from time to time to see friends, and we saw him from a distance at a high school basketball game one night. We didn't want to bug him, so we didn't even try to meet him. He and I have a lot of common acquaintances. Troy still speaks well of Henryetta, and they speak well of him. It's an awesome thing: a guy from a small town in Oklahoma winds up in the Pro Football Hall of Fame. The people in Henryetta should be proud, as they rightfully are.

Troy is obviously wealthier than I am. :-)

Back to the original topic: I'm not old enough to be in the Pro Football Hall of Fame, am I? Time flies...