NASCAR driver Jamie McMurray is living proof that big boys do cry. And why not? After all, he won the Daytona 500. Yes!
"It's a dream, it really is," said McMurray, in Victory Lane, who was first in the No. 1 Chevrolet across the checkered-flag finish in the Great American Race.
It's perfectly fine to cry during the thrill of victory. McMurray was asking for his wife. That made me think about my wife, Sera, and I cried (inside my head). After all, this is just another assignment, even if it is the Daytona 500.
There is a big difference between crying and being a crybaby. The crybabies are the ones who get into wrecks and complain about it.
Dale Earnhardt didn't cry. But he wasn't a crybaby, either. Whenever somebody caused him grief on the track, pay back would come on the track either that race or at the end of the race or even the next race.
Jeff Gordon has cried a lot, at the NASCAR banquets for his multiple championships. Jimmy Johnson could have cried when that pothole caused his flat and ruined his race, but the four-time Sprint Cup champion didn't whine about it.
Perhaps Kevin Harvick was whining in his motor-home because he wasn't available after blowing his lead and falling back to fourth.
Dale Earnardt Jr. showed he wasn't a crybaby, even though he finished as the runner-up, coming all the way up from 10th in the span of one lap, and congratulating the winner.
And like his old man, Junior was the first to bump McMurray's Ganassi-Earnhardt Chevrolet with his own 88 Hendrick Chevy.
"I'm happy for Jaime," Earnhardt Jr. said. "That's a good group of guys."
So, too, are countless NASCAR fans. He set a record by winning the Daytona 500 after leading only two laps, but he made them count.
JamIe, cry to your heart's content. After all, you won the Daytona 500!