Dallas Cowboys legend Troy Aikman opens up about life as a father

DALLAS — WFAA goes massive for this week’s Cowboys-Giants recreation on Monday Night Football! Ahead of tonight’s 7:15 p.m. kickoff on ABC, make sure you tune into WFAA for our pregame ‘Monday Night Live: Sports Special with Joe Trahan’ for an unique one-on-one interview with present Cowboys beginning quarterback Cooper Rush. Stay tuned after the sport too for WFAA News 8 at 10 for an eye-opening sit-down with Cowboys legend and Monday Night Football coloration commentator Troy Aikman.

Most of us know Troy Aikman for all he is executed on the soccer discipline and within the broadcast sales space. 

His profession accolades are legendary in Dallas: No. 1 general choose by the Cowboys in 1989, three-time Super Bowl champion within the Nineteen Nineties, six-time Pro Bowler, Ring of Honor member, simply to call a few.

But a very powerful facet of his life is one which has nothing to do along with his profession.

“I’ve been fortunate enough to fulfill some dreams and play for the Cowboys and win Super Bowls. And now I have this amazing job with ESPN, but at the end of the day, our legacies are told by our kids,” Aikman mentioned.

The former Cowboys quarterback got here to WFAA for a sit-down interview with Joe Trahan forward of Dallas’ Monday Night Football recreation in opposition to the Giants, and their dialog pulled again the curtain on Aikman’s private and household life.

Trahan and Aikman share a fellowship in fatherhood, significantly being lady dads. 

Aikman has two daughters. Trahan has two daughters. This portion of the dialog lasted for about a third of all the interview, and it spotlighted the sense of satisfaction Aikman has in his ladies. 

Aikman mentioned he all the time needed to be a father and it is a very powerful factor in his life. He talked about how elevating his daughters helped mildew him as a man.

“When I became a single dad, I read a lot of books, trying to figure it out,” Aikman mentioned. “You know, what’s important? And what I learned is that girls get a lot of their self confidence from their fathers. And so what I wanted to do was, I wanted to treat them in a way that when they then got to the age, which they are now, when they started dating, that they would then have an expectation as to how a man is supposed to treat them. And I think I’ve been successful in that regard. You know, time will tell. But that’s probably been the challenge for me and what I set out to do.”

Aikman is embracing a new chapter in his life, each personally and professionally. Aikman and his broadcast companion, Joe Buck, lately left Fox after 20 years and joined ESPN’s Monday Night Football sales space. 

At dwelling, each of Aikman’s ladies have enrolled in school. 

“Now it’s another phase of life for me and I’ve embraced it,” Aikman mentioned. “I will say that I’m happier than I’ve ever been. I feel better than I’ve ever felt. I’m not happier because they’re gone. But I’m in a really good place in life. They’re on to their next stage of life, and I’m going to my next stage of life, and it’s been wonderful.”

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In this new stage of life, Aikman has nonetheless discovered methods to etch reminiscences in previous locations. He hosted the Highway to Henryetta music competition again in June, and it was the primary time his daughters had ever been to his hometown, Aikman mentioned.

“Yeah and it’s only a three-hour drive. But yeah, they’ve never been back,” Aikman mentioned. “So it was cool to go back and show them … drove out to where I grew up out on the farm and saw that. They were at the high school there helping hand out computers and, and then of course they’re at the concert where I played baseball when I was a kid growing up. So it was a great weekend all the way around.”

Coming from a career enamored by “legacies,” Aikman stays centered on the most-integral stewards of his. 

“My hope is that when my time is done, that my girls are telling their kids ‘hey, my dad was a great dad.’ And if they’re saying that then my time here was was well spent,” Aikman mentioned.