You have to be careful with a story like this. A story like this can lift your spirits, which is fine, but it can also get your hopes up, which can be cruel. Get your hopes high enough -- which means, in this case, thinking of professional athletes as decent human beings -- and you could get hurt.
Screw it. I'm getting my hopes up. Because the Dallas Cowboys sure behaved like decent human beings this weekend when the roof caved in on them.
That's a literal statement, by the way. The roof of their indoor practice facility -- a facility designed, ironically enough, to provide a safe place to practice during inclement weather -- literally caved in on the Cowboys during their rookie minicamp Saturday. The wind blew up to 64 mph and the lights inside the bubbled facility flickered and then all hell broke loose.
But when the roof caved in, the Cowboys -- players, coaches, trainers, everyone -- behaved like heroes. Usually it isn't kosher to use that word, hero, to describe athletes because heroism is bigger than sports. But this was bigger than sports. What happened Saturday at Valley Ranch was potentially deadly, and the Cowboys responded heroically.
For several minutes, these guys weren't rising stars in this country's most popular sport. They weren't potentially rich or famous. They were regular folk, like you and me, assuming you and I could show as much bravery as the Cowboys showed. And I doubt that.
Understand how bad, how dangerous, this situation was. Steel had been twisted or torn into something resembling a series of crude knives. Industrial strength lighting had fallen to head-height. Electricity was surging through exposed power lines, like enormous poisonous snakes that could bite from any point on their body. And it was raining, with water beginning to pool inside what was once a $2 million facility.
That's a disaster. Nobody died, which is damn close to miraculous, considering there were more than 70 people inside the building when it blew apart. Everyone lived, no doubt, because of the response of the Cowboys and their staff members, as well as anyone else -- media included -- who was there and helping.
• Investigation of accident beginsOne media member, Cowboys beat writer Todd Archer of the Dallas Morning News, found himself trapped underneath a door frame. The frame had crumpled after people inside the facility began pushing, panicking, to get outside. "It reminded me of a mosh pit," Archer wrote, "and I hate mosh pits."
In a phone interview, Archer told me he was trapped beneath the door frame -- some of his body covered by the heavy metal, the rest getting rained on -- when reporters Nick Eatman and Josh Ellis of DallasCowboys.com tried to help. But the frame was too heavy. They were having no luck. Archer couldn't see much, stuck under the doorframe, but he could see other people running past him to safety.
"I see feet going by, stepping on whatever was left of the [bubble]," Archer said. "Nick Eatman first and then Josh Ellis tried to lift the thing up, but it was too heavy. But then I saw cleats. I couldn't see anybody's number, but I saw blue jerseys, so I knew it was defensive guys."
Rookie linebacker Brandon Williams and cornerback DeAngelo Smith pushed Eatman and Ellis out of the way and lifted the doorframe just enough for Archer to wriggle free.
And then Williams and Smith went back into the chaos. That's what most, if not all, of the Cowboys did after realizing the enormity of the situation. They didn't look out for No. 1. They could have stayed outside the fallen facility, leaving the rescue effort to the professionals on the way. They could have cited a fear of death, or at the very least a fear of injuring themselves -- and jeopardizing their NFL future -- and used that logic to stay as far from the carnage as possible. But they did not. They went back into the chaos, many of them still wearing their helmets, and looked for people to help.
And there were lots of people to help.
Twelve were hospitalized, several with severe injuries. Cowboys scouting assistant Rich Behm suffered a spinal fracture that left him permanently paralyzed from the waist down. Special teams coach Joe DeCamillis, who had been profiled that morning in the Morning News, needed surgery after having vertebra broken. An assistant trainer suffered a broken leg. Another person was said to be impaled by something that had been knocked loose by the storm.
This was hell. And the Cowboys willingly went into hell to look for anyone needing help. They were armed with scissors and knives, anything that would help them shear through the fallen bubble's canvas-like material in a search for survivors.
"As I got up," Archer said, "I saw a handful of players hurdling over the debris, trying to get back in there to help people."
This was real heroism, not the false kind that silly people talk about after Tony Romo has thrown for 300 yards and five touchdowns. This was a reason to like a player, a team, an entire sport. Soon enough someone in this league, someone even on the Cowboys, will screw up off the field. It might even be one of the heroes from Saturday. Who knows? When it happens, that person will be skewered in the media, and rightfully so.
But for now, how about a round of applause for the Dallas Cowboys?
