Too soon, y'all. Way too soon. Harry Howe / Getty Images
A few days ago, The Ringer published The 100 Best Sports Moments of the Quarter Century. If you’re a sports fan, you probably see that headline and click the link immediately. But if you’re a Dallas sports fan, you might want to keep scrolling.
For a topic as subjective as this, it’s hard to argue with many of the moments included in this wide-ranging study. Super Bowl highlights, European soccer triumphs, NBA finals gaffes, thrilling F1 racing moments and Olympic medal-winning performances fill the pages, and for the most part, we think rightfully so.
Now comes the warning to anyone from North Texas hoping to see cherished moments from local stars such as Dirk Nowitzki, Mike Modano, Adrian Beltre, Jordan Spieth, Tony Romo or Corey Seager: don’t get your hopes up.
Romo kinda-sorta makes an appearance in the piece, but believe us, neither are happy memories. And to be clear, the problem here isn't that Dallas athletes and sports moments are not represented on this expansive ranking. The sad fact of the matter is that the many local mentions range from rather negative to devastatingly heat-ripping.
There are some non-Dallas, Texas-related highlights on the list that are genuinely triumphant, at least. The 2005 Rose Bowl game between the Texas Longhorns and USC Trojans, where Vince Young became a legend with his late, game-winning touchdown, is noted at No. 13, and Houston-area resident Simone Billes landed at No. 44 for her victory in the all-around victory in gymnastics in the Paris Olympics.
Perhaps the most glass-is-half-full moments listed here are courtesy of athletes that are now connected to Dallas, although they weren't at when their top moments occurred. Dallas resident and recently retired tennis pro John Isner is commemorated on the list at No. 89 for his 11-hour match at Wimbledon in 2010. Isner didn't move to Dallas until 2018, so again, it’s not really our highlight. A few spots later, at No. 85, Dallas Wings’ all-star Arike Ogunbowale is praised for a pair of buzzer-beating shots she made in the 2018 Final Four, which, as you surely guessed it, was before she was a member of the local WNBA franchise.
Memorable playoff runs by local teams over the past few years would’ve been good for this list, in our opinion. The title runs for the Rangers in 2023 and Mavericks in 2011 were wholly unlikely and filled with drama. Observer staff writer and former Southwest Airlines customer Emma Ruby thinks the Stars' 2020 run to the Stanley Cup Final “in the bubble” should’ve qualified for The Ringer's list thanks to the team making that it far after nearly missing the playoffs entirely and playing with their backup goalie and backup head coach after Jim Montgomery was fired before the season was halted for the COVD-19 pandemic.
The Ringer’s methodology is subjective but fun. Variables such as "the ubiquity factor," "the holy shit! factor" and "the legacy factor" were considered. "The collective joy factor" also played a part in the list, but that variable is absent when it comes to talking about North Texas in the article.
In only one instance does a Dallas-related sports moment on this list slightly resemble something positive, but, as you’ll see, it’s not really all that great. And boy, oh, boy, does The Ringer staff get to kicking Dallas when its down in quick fashion. Since misery loves company, here are the Dallas sports moments included in The Ringer’s Top 100 Sports Moments of the Quarter Century.
No. 99: The Dallas Mavericks Trade Luka Doncic to the Los Angeles Lakers
We know, right? There’s no denying the February trade that tanked the Mavericks season and maybe demolished its fanbase may very well go down as the biggest sports story of 2025, but salting the wound is a bit much. And, spoiler alert: there is no mention of the 2011 Mavs championship run on the list. It’s worth noting that this is the only Mavericks moment on the entire list, so yes, it will only get worse from here.
No. 77: Dez Caught It
A moment so transcendent people have etched “Dez Caught It” on their gravestones. Noted by The Ringer for controversy and “ripple effect,” the scream-worthy 2015 play saw the promise of that season’s Cowboys team drown in the Lambeau Field grass of Green Bay.
“It’s fourth-and-2. Romo throws it. Dez Bryant catches it. So we think,” writes The Ringer’s Bryan Curtis. “The Packers challenge the catch, and the refs overturn it. America learns some tremendously awkward phrases like ‘maintain possession throughout the process of the catch.’”
Conveniently, many Dallas fans forget there were more than four minutes left on the game clock after that play. The game didn’t end when the referees blew the call, sadly enough. Had the Cowboys' defense forced Green Bay into a quick “three and out,” who knows, maybe Dallas would’ve finally reached the NFC Championship for the first time in nearly 20 years (at that point).
> DEZ CAUGHT IT pic.twitter.com/rAO83dV028
— Dallas Texas TV (@DallasTexasTV) February 12, 2024
No. 73. Scottie Scheffler Gets Arrested in the Morning, Shoots 5-Under in the Afternoon
Another Dallas sports moment from the recent past, this is the one that gets closest to being a positive memory, but is it really? Dallas resident Scottie Scheffler was on a historic roll as the world’s top golfer in 2024 when his May arrest prior to the PGA Championship captured headlines.
Sure, he was released rather quickly, and he proceeded to have a good day on the course, but as the weekend progressed, Scheffler faded from the leaderboard. A year later, Scheffler’s mug shot featuring him displaying a casual frown in an orange V-neck is the indelible image from that weekend. At least the charges were later dropped, and the golfer’s name was cleared, so that’s positive.
No. 71: David Freese Puts St. Louis on His Back in the World Series
If most Rangers fans are being honest, this one still hurts, even if it hurts less so now than it did in October 2011. A no-name player, David Freese, became an all-time hated name in North Texas after he seemed to single-handedly take the World Series trophy out of the Rangers' hands with his late-inning power display. But hey, similar to the way in which Mavs fans' wounds from losing the 2006 Finals healed (at least to a large extent) when the team won it all in 2011, Rangers fans were able to say goodbye to the demons on Nov 1, 2023, when Texas won its first World Series Championship. But this specific moment on this list? Not cool.
No. 28: José Bautista’s ALDS Bat Flip
Added onto this list, in a really high position, we might add, is another Rangers moment that sort of became less painful as time marched on. But when Toronto Blue Jays’ Jose Bautista smacked a go-ahead, three-run homer, then smugly watched the ball soar and chucked his bat half a mile with force, it was hard to watch. The dinger cemented another Rangers season that would end with a deciding game playoff loss.
Just a few months later, in 2015, Bautista was prominently featured in a shot that will forever live in Rangers lore when Rougned Odor belted Bautista with a right hook to the face during an in-game skirmish. That satisfaction was short-lived, though. Odor’s stats only got worse after that fight, and Toronto and Bautista would again beat Texas in the 2016 playoffs.
> The José Bautista bat flip is BACK in MLB The Show 🔥 pic.twitter.com/8UW9ySFc6L
— MLB (@MLB) March 11, 2025
No. 27: The Odell Beckham Jr. Catch
Similar to how the Scheffler moment had a slight brush of positivity to it, this one does as well, but not enough of one to feel great about. The Cowboys won a high-scoring, entertaining game against a division rival on the road, but history will only remember that day for what receiver Odell Beckham Jr. did. His now famous one-handed catch while falling backward into the end zone was brilliant and beautiful, regardless of which team you were rooting for.
It’s the top-ranked Dallas-related sports moment of the past quarter century, according to The Ringer. It was a bad look for the Cowboys, and according to the website, it was a game-changing grab; even if Dallas won the game and would later go to the playoffs… where Dez would, oh, never mind.
“Receivers used to catch with two hands. Then Odell made the catch, and everyone started using one hand,” The Ringer explained. “Odell’s pregame routine of one-handers became the football version of Steph Curry’s warm-ups, and now you see every receiver under 25 trying to catch one-handed passes while pushing the cornerback off with the other hand.”