What is striking is the large picture to the left: Kolb, football in hand and looking to throw, wearing his Eagles uniform. If this were Friendswood, Texas, or some other Houston suburb, the image might not seem as odd.
But this small town, labeled the "Cowboy Capital of the World," is just 70 miles west of Dallas, home of those other Cowboys. And the townsfolk of this Bible Belt community are as caught up in the heated Eagles-Cowboys rivalry as any Eagles fan.
So it's jolting to see Kolb in midnight green - although there's another picture of No. 4 in his high school days - and it's mildly surprisingthat his Eagles likeness hasn't been vandalized. Imagine if Tony Romo were from the
Philadelphia area and a similar billboard were erected in honor of the Cowboys quarterback on I-95.
But around here, there is one team more important than the Cowboys, and that's the Stephenville Yellow Jackets. When one of their own makes it big, they make it big, too. And while Kolb has yet to make it big-big, Stephenville is standing behind him as he begins his tenure as the Eagles' starting quarterback.
"If you got right down to it that's the way everybody would be," said Mike Christian, a manager at Bruner's Motors used-car dealership farther down 377 as you near downtown. "Kevin was well-liked. Everybody's rooting for him. I don't care if he plays for the Eagles.
"There might be some of, 'I wish he was playing for somebody else' type deal, a lot of kidding around. But blood runs pretty deep around here when you're talking football."
50 years behind
A rural, middle-class town with a population around 15,000, Stephenville could pass for Odessa, Texas, the town immortalized in the nonfiction book
Friday Night Lights. It's where men hang out at the Dairy Queen and talk football until it's time to head to the high school to critique practice.
