Gaze up to the rafters at Arlington’s AT&T Stadium, and you’ll see many reminders of moments, players, coaches, and other influential figures that live in Dallas Cowboys’ lore.
But one thing is missing: the banner honoring Emmitt Smith as the NFL’s all-time leading rusher. One Cowboys fan has decided to do something about it.
“I’ve been a Cowboys fan ever since I was a little kid, and when I started watching Cowboy games, Emmitt was the player I gravitated to,” Jonathan Pierson told The Dallas Express. “He was my favorite player, and I followed him throughout his career.”
Smith broke Walter Payton’s record of 16,726 career rushing yards against the Seattle Seahawks on October 27, 2002, and the Cowboys immediately unveiled a banner to acknowledge his achievement. Yet, since the move to Arlington in 2009, the banner is nowhere to be found.
“I did visit the prior stadium, Texas Stadium, and saw the banner there myself and felt a sense of pride in that for him,” Pierson explained. “When the new stadium was built, I went there and had a stadium tour, and looking around, impressive stadium. You saw the Super Bowl banners and the ring of honor and all those things, and then I was looking around and didn’t see that banner anywhere, and to me, it was odd that it wouldn’t be there.”
“I remember asking one of the workers in the stadium that was there with the tour with us,” he continued, “and they didn’t have any idea either of why it wasn’t there, and I just always thought that that was odd.”
Pierson took it upon himself to track down why the banner was not displayed, including contacting the Cowboys through the team website. Eventually, he got in contact with Smith through the Notable Live app, which the legendary running back uses to interact with fans during games.
“I’ve had several interactions with him through that, and the last time, which was in October, I thought, ‘I’m going to ask him if he knows where that thing is, or why it’s not hung,'” Pierson told The Dallas Express. “I asked him, and he didn’t know either, and I just thought that is so odd.”
The interaction led Pierson to bring up the issue to fans on social media, who encouraged him to take action.
“A lot of those guys also kind of connect into the same live events that he does,” he said. “So, after asking him the question and him not knowing, I kind of went on that page and just said, ‘Hey, I just spoke to Emmitt about this, and he doesn’t know about it, and he doesn’t know why it’s not there. Maybe I should start a petition about it,’ and a lot of them seemed to be supportive of it, and I said I was going to do it. I kind of forgot about it but came back to it and said, ‘No, I said I was going to do this. I really want to know why it’s not hung, and I think it should be.'”
The petition now has 88 signatures supporting the notion of returning the banner to its rightful place, and those supporting the idea aren’t asking for an explanation. They just want to see it hung with the rest of the Cowboys’ accomplishments.
“I just felt like this is a major piece, not only of Cowboys history, but of NFL history, and the banner should be hung as a reminder of what he did — not only for the Cowboys but for all football fans as an inspirational thing of what can be achieved,” Pierson told The Dallas Express.
“I think it’s an inspirational thing because, when he was drafted and all that, he was kind of criticized for being maybe not the biggest back or the fastest back,” he added. “But then, you look at not only the glory years of the Cowboys when they were winning Super Bowls but even after that. He kept running and kept persevering and was able to achieve something that nobody else has in NFL history. I just think it’s an important part of Cowboy and football history to have that there.”
