Quarterback Dak Prescott of the Dallas Cowboys raised his right hand to his mouth after each of the four touchdowns he scored last Sunday. His index finger was kissed by him. He cocked his head to the side. Prescott then raised his head and gestured upward.

To claim that the motion is only muscle memory would be to diminish both the significance of the gesture and the extent to which Prescott has integrated it into his life.

Peggy Prescott, his mother, passed away from colon cаncer on November 3, 2013, at the age of 52, and he treasures any opportunity to remember her. Every opportunity to remember her, rejoice in her memory, and share in the triumphs and tragedies of the past ten years since Dak’s loss.

After each of his 218 career touchdowns (including playoff touchdowns), Prescott has directed a kiss upwards. He also pointed upwards in 2020 when he was helped off the field following a horrific ankle dislocation and complicated fracture. Before games, when he jogs onto the field? He crinkles his nose, points, and kisses for a second.

Prescott made care to “acknowledge the person who has had the biggest influence on my life: my mother, Peggy” when he accepted the Walter Payton Man of the Year Award at the NFL Honors last February. I still look to my mom as my moral compass.

You may expect him to end the discourse in that manner by this point.

As he started the upward kiss-and-point, Prescott spoke the words, “God bless.” “Mama, I love you.”

In her dying wish, Peggy Prescott urged her youngest son to channel the anguish she felt at her deаth into something positive. The burden of continuing her aspirations, ambitions, and expectations can be heavy for Dak and those closest to him at times. According to a number of phone discussions that Prescott’s aunt, uncle, brother, and friends had with Yahoo Sports this week, the strength and resilience that she inculcated in them is what they rely on the most.

On Friday, Dak’s family will commemorate ten years since the cаncer took the lives of his mother, sister, best friend, and confidante. And it’s been ten years since Peggy started to live on through Dak and his family—so palpably, so poignantly.

Things don’t happen by chance, according to Dak. My point is that she basically told me, ‘Let me be your tale.’ And before I knew it, I was the quarterback of the most [valued] franchise in sports.

I don’t think it’s a coincidence, you know.

Peggy Prescott’s wit was as sharp as her work ethic

Certain narratives emerge after ten years of telling a story without its protagonist. Some recede into the background. Thus, what was Peggy Prescott like?

The native of Louisiana is fiercely loyal to her three sons, has a sharp mind, is quite honest (almost to an extreme), and is loved by everyone she meets. To support Tad, Jace, and Dak, she worked two jobs at once: one at a RaceTrac convenience store and one at a Huddle House diner. While Dak was a high school student, he and his mom lived in a trailer park and shared a room and bed.

“Unfortunately, her story is too familiar if people bother to learn [Dak’s] story and his background,” Valrie Gilbeaux, Peggy’s sister, said this week over the phone. “A mother navigating the challenges of being a single parent and all the difficulties that accompany it.”

There was no dampening of Peggy’s enthusiasm, even if her work-around-the-clock schedule reduced the amount of time she could spend with her sons. When her sons played football, Peggy would be the vocal and forthright mother in the stands, telling Tad to “Һit somebody” and Jace to “put them on their back… stop playing pitty-pat with him” and other such things. Peggy boldly confronted Jeremy Hicks, a friend of her boys, saying, “How did you miss that tackle?” for example, to be more critical of Dak’s friend and receiver Trent Jacobs than any of Dak’s coaches before him.

‘Trent you need catch the ball,’ Miss Peggy would sаy,’ Jacobs noted. “‘Trent, you must not lose a single pass.’” She wasn’t expecting anything less than excellence. She anticipated that because she knew our capabilities.

Whenever Dak threw an interception during practice, Peggy would scold him, saying, “Don’t practice that s***!” She would then tell him that his practice will transfer into games. Peggy was prepared when a distraught Dak returned home from a yard game in which his larger and older brother had won.

Peggy advised Dak to “remain on the porch” if he was unable to keep up with the rest of the pack.

Dak swiftly spun around, bolted out the door, and returned to the field.

Peggy had high hopes for more than just her biological sons and the field. She shaped Dak’s circle today with her sharp mind and her determination that everyone in her life pursue improvement.

As a high school basketball player who “used to have a temper” recalls it, Peggy and Dak were there when he and his coach got into a heated argument. Peggy was not on board.

She allegedly encouraged him, “Maybe you have something to sаy to the coach and maybe what you’re sаying is right,” according to Jacobs. You just have to listen occasionally. Talking nonstop isn’t going to cut it. No matter what you sаy, it can’t be true.

Hicks says that Peggy was the adult in his life who showed him the ropes after he’d had a youth in “the greatest environment… always into something.” Hicks was assured by Peggy that he would not face any consequences for spending time with her sons. The Prescotts, he says, proved to him that a tranquil home is possible and that families can demonstrate love instead of hostility.

“She was strict about who could eat her food if they entered her house,” Hicks remarked. “That shaped and transformed me — because any child can be good if they have an adult they can lean on.”

The family would likely burst out laughing at Peggy’s scoldings because they loved her independence.

Peggy struck up a conversation with a familiar face among the Tad high school cheerleaders who stopped by the convenience store one day. She was asked by the girl’s friend how she knew Peggy. According to the cheerleader, Peggy was actually the mother of Tad and Jace.

The friend of hers pointed out that they are Black.

Peggy, a white woman, turned around when she overheard them discussing her bi-racial sons.

Incredulous, she exclaimed. “That is not how they looked when they departed for school earlier.”

NFL platform allows Dak to show ‘kind of person that our mom raised him to be’

In the months leading up to her deаth, Peggy was diagnosed with stage 4 colon cаncer. Dak started his first season as a starter for Mississippi State as a sophomore. Her siblings think Peggy played in three games that year, but her decline made each one more difficult. Her declining strength necessitated wheelchair accommodations, and any automobile ride was fraught with the possibility of nausea. Things lost their flavor. No longer would she want to consume it.

Peggy had planned her chemotherapy sessions around Dak’s games, timing her treatments so that she would experience the least amount of side effects possible. One September 21, 2013, she was there when Dak passed for a touchdown, caught another, then ran for two more touchdowns in a game against Troy. According to Phil Ebarb, Peggy’s brother, she sat on the couch with Dak curled up on her lap and told him how little time she had left after that game. On what he describes as “the toughest night of his life,” Ebarb watched this touching moment and went into the hallway to collect himself.

Following her passing, Dak returned home to be with his family. The very afternoon after her funeral, he returned to Mississippi State for practice.

“If I didn’t get back to work, my mom would wҺip me,” Prescott informed coaches who questioned his decision.

He returned to his job and continued working tirelessly for many more years.

Just as his aunt, uncle, brother, and friends are aware, he is as well. Peggy would want and expect them to reach their full potential. Because Peggy hoarded her athleticism for her boys and never used it herself, she would joke that her boys were naturally gifted in this area. All of a suԀԀen, it’s as if every one of them became a part of her unfinished business, her unfinished family, the love she had yet to give, and the responsibility she had yet to impose on others. The additional sources of energy and determination helped catapult Dak to an improbable position as the longest-tenured starting quarterback for any NFL club, going from being a fourth-string quarterback to starting as a rookie in the fourth round.

As big of a priority that football is, the platform that football has created is just as big a priority.

After losing the woman who had always made sure everything would be OK, Tad believes his work ethic kicked in. In remembrance of his mother, Tad went back to school during CоVID to earn his bachelor’s degree. In fact, Peggy had asked Jace to make the vow, but after Jace’s suiciԀe in 2020, Tad promised to carry it out in their honor. His degree in integrated broadcast media is set to be awarded to him in the spring by the University of North Texas.

Finally, there’s Dak’s NFL platform, which he’s used to promote and fund initiatives related to colon cаncer, early detection and screening programs, and resources for families struggling to pay for skyrocketing medical bills. Additionally, the medium through which he has been able to reach milliоns of fans and advocate for her principles.

Just as important as football itself is the platform it has provided, according to Tad. I believe my mom meant that being named Walter Payton Man of the Year will permanently demonstrate the type of man you are; that’s why she said he’s going to be remarkable.

“And the character that our mother instilled in him.”

Even with Dak’s platform and the opportunity to turn his suffering into purpose while also sharing his mom’s story, the years they lost will never be fully made up.

Sometimes, when their sister isn’t there, Ebarb and Gilbeaux think about what she may sаy. They imagine that she would be so overwhelmed with joy that she would express herself more via tears than words on joyous occasions such as Dak’s Man of the Year award or Tad’s son’s birth. They think she would be able to take criticism of Dak’s performance better than her siblings because she has given him lots of constructive criticism, so they are curious if she would do the same. Ebarb and Gilbeaux are relieved that their sister is spared the emotional anguish of hearing personal attacks directed at Dak.

The story of her life became his, according to Ebarb. It was undeniably a driving force. However, I believe that her continued presence would have made things even better.

For the past three years running, Dak has felt November 3. Whether it’s the sting of loss or the unease of nostalgia—or maybe a mix of the two—today seems different. Although he doesn’t wait for the anniversary of his mom’s passing to reflect on her, he does make an effort to commemorate the occasion.

“I wish she was here today for every reason [but] I know she’s not far from my side,” he said on Instagram about the “Amazing Guardian Angel” he’d earned a year before, on November 3, 2014.

He penned, “2 Years! ” 12 months after that. Holy cow! You were a wonderful mother, and I’m here today only because of all the guidance and support you gave me in the years leading up to your deаth.

And on the third anniversary, while Prescott was still a rookie, he wrote a greeting.

Even though it’s been a decade since he lost her, this message continues to guide him.

A heartfelt “Thank You!” and “Every Day I Live to Show Your Work!” were his parting words. “Remembering isn’t the most important thing; honoring is.”