DALLAS, Texas — Former Dallas Cowboys quarterback Troy Aikman, a member of the Pro Football Hall of Fame, and current Dak Prescott, have teamed up to serve as honorary chairs of the “A Knight Takeaways” from the Children’s Cancer Fund to provide pediatric cancer patients and survivors with a memorable evening.
The event included a fashion show featuring 23 pediatric cancer patients walking the runway accompanied by celebrities. Both quarterbacks are incredibly passionate about the event since Friday was the 25th or 26th for Aikman, in his own words, and the second for Prescott. The duo have each won the Walter Payton Man of the Awards and remain passionate about giving back to the Dallas community.
“Well, it remains,” Aikman, winner of the 1997 NFL Walter Payton Man of the Year Award, said Friday of the award’s legacy. “I think the league has done a great job, and I have credited and continue to credit Roger Goodell for that. He has made the Man of the Year award truly the most sought after and prestigious award of the year. [NFL] honors, which is fantastic. There are so many good candidates and because the league is so important to them, it means a lot to receive this award. I will say there are so many players, there is one on every team. So you have all 32 nominees each year, only one gets it. But there are so many other actors who do so much good for their communities. I’ve always felt this way. I saw it when I was playing, I still see it. Even as a broadcaster, when man of the year comes around and people are nominated just by their respective teams. It means a lot.”
Players who won the award and still play in the NFL today receive a permanent patch on the front of their jersey to honor the Walter Payton Award, and now Aikman has his own jersey since that was not part of NFL policy. the NFL. during his playing days.
“I just got a jersey because now, to go further as to what this award means, you know Dak will have the Man of the Year emblem on his jersey,” Aikman said. “They weren’t doing that when I got it. In fact, this week Nationwide, who is sponsoring this, sent over a Cowboys jersey with my jersey number, my name and the emblem on it so I could have one one. It means a lot to be a part of it. I know there are many other people who really deserve it.
Prescott, who lost his mother to colon cancer in 2013, remains passionate about charities like the Children’s Cancer Fund and others, and his efforts to help philanthropies in these areas are something he will continue to do so for the foreseeable future.
“As Troy said, it’s an elite fraternity, it’s the most prestigious award,” Prescott, the 2022 winner, said Friday. “Obviously when you recognize that this is something that you can continue with you. It’s an honor. Everything that I do as I move forward, I know that I represent the people who came before me and won this award and the people who will follow me and who. won this award and really just the NFL as a whole, like Troy said, there’s so many people that could honestly be there. [need to] be a first team and a second team because so many people are flocking to their communities. That’s what’s great about the league and honestly, NFL executives make sure to give back. So I just want to make sure that I represent them, that I represent the Payton family, nationally and in the NFL, the right way, especially because I wear this on my jersey, everyone sees it . At the same time, it’s who I am.”
The reason Prescott and Aikman continue to be chosen as honorary chairs of the event is because of what being the quarterback of the Dallas Cowboys means to so many people.
“The moment I really realized the magnitude of this, the impact [of being the Cowboys quarterback] “All I did and as far as it could go was when I missed the trash can and threw out a cup my rookie year,” Prescott said. “After passing three touchdowns and maybe whatever the yards were in that game, the highlight was me missing the trash can, I get up and pick it up. From there, it just showed that the spotlight was on me, on everything you did You live in a glass house and honestly grateful in that sense because of my story, to be able to have these eyes, to live in a glass window and to be able to share my. story and inspire me. I’m grateful for that. A lot of responsibilities that you carry as a quarterback in the NFL, especially for the Dallas Cowboys. It’s a blessing to be able to inspire, to be able to touch so many people,. not just in one community, not just in the state, but honestly across the world.”
However, all that attention generated by Prescott and the Cowboys can have downsides, something Aikman has noticed as a player and broadcaster.
“There’s high expectations for all these teams and there’s a lot of pressure on the quarterbacks in all these cities and when they’re not playing well and you’re not meeting expectations, it’s tough,” Aikman said . “So the idea that there’s more pressure in Dallas, I don’t know. I don’t know if Dak feels more pressure than any other quarterback. There’s definitely more careful as we know with the Cowboys, and I think from my I enjoyed playing for an organization that wasn’t one of those towns that didn’t expect to win at the highest level every year But there is a lot of attention on this team Every year it brings a lot of benefits and obviously when things don’t go well there are also a lot of difficulties.