OXNARD, Calif. – It was around 9:30 a.m. on a Sunday morning in Oxnard, Calif. when I wandered out to the entrance of the River Ridge complex. The “marine layer” had dissipated, giving way to a warm, but temperate-compared-to-Texas morning.
I was ahead of schedule when it comes to the typical day in the life of a media member at camp. The Cowboys’ daily walkthrough practice – which is closed to the public – doesn’t start until late morning, and the public, most-times padded practice isn’t until 4 p.m.
I thought I’d shown up pretty early. That was, until I met Patrick Milan and Elizabeth Frausto, who had already been there since 7 a.m.
My assignment was to find the “color” behind the scenes at Cowboys training camp. I found it when I met these two friends from Southern California.
You may never meet a pair of more dedicated Dallas Cowboys fans.
They were on hand for their 12th training camp in a row, and they were a little embarrassed by their 7 a.m. arrival – and not because it meant they’d spend nine hours of their day waiting for practice to start.
“We were late,” they both agreed.
On opening day of training camp, Milan and Frausto arrive at the facility as early as 2 or 3 a.m.
“In order to be a fan, you have to be first,” Frausto said. “You have to be first in everything to show your loyalty.”
Of course, there are thousands of other fans who attend training camp practice – and tens of thousands more who will fill AT&T Stadium each week during the regular season – who are most certainly fans of America’s Team.
But the message here is that Milan and Frausto simply don’t do fanhood less than 100 percent. Milan missed a wedding and a birthday party to make it to camp on the day I talked to them. Frausto usually saves her vacation time to make the trip to Oxnard. (She got lucky when her boss took vacation that coincided with training camp).
“I call us die-hard,” said Frausto.
More than a hobby
For anyone who couldn't tell, this more than just waiting to watch a football practice for these two. The Cowboys are a lifestyle.
"In my life, it's work, Cowboys, football. That's it," Milan said.
It's far more than a hobby for Frausto, too. The Cowboys – win or lose – are a key to happiness. Training camp was a key part of her recovery from a victorious battle with ovarian cancer several years ago.
"I truly believe I was blessed to see another day at camp," she said. "I take each moment being here definitely with great gratitude.
Her bout with cancer also gave her a more personal connection to the team. Cowboys quarterback Dak Prescott is a vocal advocate for cancer awareness after his mom, Peggy, died of cancer in 2013.
"I see his heart when he talks about it," Frausto said. "He got me."
Hurry up and wait
Someone outside the manic Cowboys fan base might ask, “what’s the point?”
Milan and Frausto show up hours early, sometimes at the crack of dawn, simply to wait by their car for the parking gates to open during the late morning. Once inside, they’ll wait for another hour or two in line to enter the practice fields. From there, it’s only three hours or so of looking at empty football fields before the players actually trot out for practice.
But that’s the reality of the training camp die-hard.
“It’s an experience,” Milan said. “You’ve got to jump all the hurdles to get here.”
He and Frausto, naturally, bought the VIP passes that allow them into the facility a half-hour before the general public. They also get prime real estate along the fence line while watching practice.
“We’ve been doing it for years,” Milan said. “We know all the ins and outs of how to get prime positions and get better access to meet the players and be more interactive with them.”
“People call us crazy. It’s cool.”
The origin story
How does one become such a passionate fan of a team, exactly?
For Milan, it started with his uncle, who'd go to Cowboys games in the 60s and 70s. He would bring back posters of the team for Milan to study.
“When I started getting older I started learning more about the history of the players and the team,” Milan said. “From there, it just grew.”
Frausto’s story is a little different.
Her biological father was a fan of the Pittsburgh Steelers, a known rival and three-time Super Bowl opponent of the Cowboys. As a little girl, though, Elizabeth fell in love with the Cowboys’ iconic imagery.
“When [the Steelers] played the star, he would get mad, and I never understood why, but I liked the star,” she said.
“When you grow up with it, that’s where the passion and the heart [come from].”
Fast forward to today, both Milan and Frausto are members of the Southern California Dallas Cowboys Fan Club, a grassroots organization that sends a strong representation to Cowboys games and practices on the west coast.
In its 12th year, the group has over 8,000 fans on Facebook.
The swag collection
Twelve years of training camp allows a fan ample opportunity to collect some pretty slick Cowboys gear.
Milan says his house is full of Cowboys garb. He has at least a dozen Cowboys helmets, many of which are signed.
On this trip to Oxnard, he brought a chrome helmet with hopes of covering it in signatures. He also had a blue and white Captain America shield in tow, which was already baring several signatures from players and coaches.
Frausto, who was wearing a Jason Witten "G.O.A.T." (greatest of all time) shirt for our interview, had a custom helmet of her own. On her dashboard were cutout heads of Prescott, Ezekiel Elliott and La'El Collins – just a few of a huge collection.
She also described last year's helmet, which was pink and paid tribute to cancer survivors.
I asked Milan what his favorite piece of memorabilia is...
"Geez," he said, visibly struggling with the question. "That's like trying to pick your favorite child."
He ultimately settled on a customized Michael Irvin plaque he had made a couple years back, that The Playmaker himself signed.
"That was cool," he said. "I didn't think he was ever going to come around and offer to sign it."
Home away from home
2018 marked the second of a two-year contract signed before the 2017 season to keep Cowboys training camp in Oxnard. That deal gave the City of Oxnard the option to extend the agreement for two more years.
But, with the completion of The Star, the team’s state-of-the-art world headquarters in Frisco, the prospect of moving training camp there seems to be on the horizon.
For the die-hard fans in California, a move would be unwelcome news.
“It’ll probably break [Ventura County’s] heart,” Frausto said.
Oxnard is part of the team’s fabric she said, harkening back to the days when the Cowboys practiced at a local high school and the surrounding neighborhoods fed the players.
And, while she hopes for a “comeback,” Frausto theorized that the Cowboys will shorten the amount of time they spend on the Golden Coast in the coming years. The team already holds the final week of training camp at The Star, and most NFL teams have adopted the practice of holding training camp at or near team facilities.
Nonetheless, both Frausto and Milan say they’d fly out to Frisco should the Cowboys move training camp there full-time.