Troy Aikman

Eighteen months into his pro career Aikman finally won a game, one of seven the Cowboys would win in 1990. The next year they won 11 before losing to Detroit in the playoffs. Then they went 13-3 in 1992 and beat the Buffalo Bills by 35 points in Super Bowl XXVII. Aikman threw for 273 yards and four touchdowns and was named Super Bowl MVP, earning the opportunity to tell a camera crew, "I'm going to Disney World," as he bounded off the field. Before the night was over, Aikman would find himself cast as one of the most celebrated athletes in the world--" America's quarterback," as Irvin likes to call him.

Aikman went on the morning shows of the three major networks. And then he made his first appearance on The Tonight Show, looking sharp in a suit and tie. During much of his bit he kept one leg thrown over the other, as if to announce that he felt quite comfortable in the spotlight. Meanwhile, back in Texas, something called Aikmania was in full, glorious bloom.

The Dallas Morning News ran a story called "A Fan's Guide to Troy," listing Aikman's likes and dislikes. Staff writer Nancy Kruh wrote, "What Troy did to grow so big and strong: He drank his favorite beverage--milk. He still loves it today with his meals.... What you may not know about Troy: He wears contact lenses. But don't worry--they're not tinted. Those baby blues are natural.... Whom Troy isn't serious about: Janine Turner ... the man himself says he and the actress are just friends. All single women in America may join together in a collective sigh of relief. His Troyness is still available."

"Nobody was talking about that stuff until we won the Super Bowl," says Aikman. "If that's the trade-off, I hope it continues, because that means we're doing something right on the field."

On Jan. 30, 1994, the Cowboys and the Bills faced off again, in Super Bowl XXVIII, and the result was the same, if not quite as lopsided: Dallas by 17. Running back Emmitt Smith won MVP this time, but Aikman was as effective as ever, completing 19 of 27 passes for 207 yards.

Says Jones, "We have all ridden Troy Aikman's coattails to the success we've had. That isn't to diminish the contributions of some other great players-- Emmitt Smith, Michael Irvin, Charles Haley. But we all realize that none of this would have been possible without Troy being the player and the person he is."

"What impresses me is that Troy wins these Super Bowls, he gets all this attention, and he still manages to keep his feet on the ground," says Laufenberg. "He's just the opposite of what you'd think. Let me give you an example. One day he runs into Sharon Stone at the Admirals Club in the airport. Most people would then say, 'Hey, I'm good friends with Sharon Stone. Yeah, she calls me a lot. We'd've gotten intimate, as a matter of fact, but I had a flight to catch.' But Troy isn't like that. He downplays it all the way. You know what she said to him? 'You're a football player, right?' He said, 'Yeah. For the Cowboys.' She said, 'Then don't you have a game this week?' 'No,' he answered. 'It's April.'"

Aikman met the rich and the famous, but he met other kinds of people too. Not long after the 1994 Super Bowl he returned to his house in the Las Colinas development outside Dallas and found a couple of women eating pizza on his back patio. They'd scaled a fence. Another time a woman dropped a napkin at his feet. When he picked it up and handed it to her, she stepped up close, stuck her tongue out and licked his face.

"I've seen people be pretty rude to Troy," says Hellestrae. "I'll tell you this: He handles it a whole lot better than I would."

He was big enough now to pal around with virtually anyone he wanted, but Aikman stuck close to old friends, his teammates and his family, confident that they were in his life for all the right reasons. And with the shared experience of consecutive Super Bowl wins, he and Johnson sought each other out on a more personal level. Their friendship got a real boost when Aikman bought a tropical fish tank. Fish were one of Johnson's passions; they were what he obsessed about when he wasn't obsessing about X's and O's. "When I told Jimmy about my tank, he got really fired up," Aikman says. "He came over and set up my rocks, my reefs and everything--he did all of it."