"Off To Oxnard," Cowboys Camp 2024

Maybe hope doesn't always spring eternal, after all we have been through.

Here we go again.

This year it was 8C. That is the seat on the airplane as I ponder what it means to be traveling to my 27th Cowboys training camp. Twenty-seven times since 1998, I have prepared for a new season of covering the Dallas Cowboys in various locales. It is this general time of year, and most camps have found me in Ventura, California, where I settle in for daily trips to the practice fields of Oxnard.

I look forward to it because I love this sport more than all the rest—and I love those sports plenty. But this one hits different.

Since I was 26 years old, I have been doing this exact same thing in this exact same week and just last month I turned 52. Ferris Bueller was right, by the way; “Life moves pretty fast. If you don't stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it.”

Now, to those of you who are new to the “Off to Oxnard” missive that starts every single training camp for many years (most of the previous and now historical versions are able to be found on the internet with some searching), this is a piece that I do annually to review something we like to call “Dallas Cowboys Reality.”

Some years, everyone is fired up with optimism. Other years—like this one—it sure seems like there is no optimism yet to give. I understand.

I get that there are Cowboys fans who are feeling numb with the nothingness of where this thing currently is. I also get that there are many who are just “over it” and want to move to the Rangers' modest pennant race or on to Mavericks or Stars season previews or college football or literally anything but another year of Jerry Jones, Mike McCarthy, and Dak Prescott.

I definitely understand. I don’t relate, but I understand.

For those fans, please know that I get where you are, and I will be here when you return. I am looking for clues and reasons and, yes, hope for what is ahead.

But this piece, and the more than 100 pieces that will follow it in the 2024 Dallas Cowboys season, is more for those who are stubborn in their fandom and loyalty to this franchise (for whatever reason).

They have hung in there for their entire life because that is what Dad taught them and there is no point in giving in now. They follow the Dallas Cowboys because they know no other way and they also know—as I do—that someday, they will win it all again. It might be this year or in ten or in twenty, but the Dallas Cowboys will win another Super Bowl, and they don’t want to miss the joy of being that true die-hard who never wavered.

Thick AND thin.

Yes, we seem to be going through the thin right now, but the thick will return. And when it does, you will know that you never wavered in belief and it will taste sweeter.

Does it make sense? Only to your soul. Honestly, your brain argues at times, but this is your team and doggone it, it is football time again.

This piece is more for you.