Faith Ward is awake at 6:45 AM, matcha in hand, when most of Dallas is still asleep. It is the first game of the season, kickoff is at 3:25 PM, and the group chat is already going off with game-day photos and good-morning messages from her fellow Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders. For anyone who assumes the job begins when the stadium lights come on, Ward’s Sunday tells a different story, one that starts before sunrise, runs through a full field rehearsal before a single fan takes their seat, and ends at 9:00 PM with chicken wings, friends visiting from Australia, and a ponytail that requires two people and something close to minor surgery to remove.
The ponytail that became famous in its own right
Before the boots are packed and the bus departs, there is the matter of Patricia. That is the name Ward has given her game-day performance ponytail, a clip-in piece secured with hair ties tight enough to survive what she calls ‘Thunderstruck-proof’ hairography. ‘Hairography,’ she explains, is choreography combined with hair movement, and for someone dancing with a ponytail rather than hair down, the motion is less a toss and more, in her words, ‘a helicopter.’ Her friend Kirsten helps wind the whole thing into place while laughing that Ward should not holler at her later when it will not come out. Patricia, Ward notes, has become genuinely controversial in DCC circles and, at this point, iconic.
The bus departs at 10:15 AM sharp. Ward doubles-checked the Lucchese boot bag after packing the same right boot twice at a prior practice, a mistake she has not repeated. The candy supply, she is clear, is non-negotiable.
What the stadium looks like from inside the tunnel
The squad runs through full spacing and a rehearsal of their opening routine in the tunnel before the crowd arrives, and Ward, heading into her second season, describes the difference in mindset plainly: ‘You’ve done this before, Faith. Your mindset, you understand the routines, you know what a football game feels like.’ The first season, she says, meant learning choreography while simultaneously navigating an entirely new culture as someone who grew up in Australia, and the adjustment was real. By 3:08 PM, with the stadium packed, the pre-game performance begins.
The Cowboys win. Post-game feedback from the coaching staff is specific and direct: one cheerleader’s left boot is not rising as high as her right when viewed from the visitors’ bench, another is told her energy read as almost too high (‘Did you have an extra energy drink?’), and the group is reminded that formation lines, while not badly crooked, can still be sharper. Ward calls receiving that feedback one of the best parts of the job.
Back home by 9:00 PM, Ward does not even attempt to remove the ponytail alone. Her Australian friends, visiting for the week, take on the task together. ‘I feel like I was doing brain surgery,’ one of them says. ‘On Patricia,’ Ward confirms.
Patricia, post-game, still in need of some hair oil
After the wings arrive and the boots come off, Patricia the ponytail sits somewhere nearby, described by Ward as needing ‘some loving tonight, maybe some hair oil.’ The full geometry of the thing, from clip to hair ties to the two people required to free it, is still visible in the room.
Ward has lived in Dallas long enough now to have recovery spots, a favourite Texas barbecue, and a sense of local routine. She says her purpose has shifted: her teammates are in Dallas, her job is in Dallas, and dancing is where she finds it. The one thing she is still working on, she admits with a laugh, is the accent.
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