{"id":1019474,"date":"2026-08-23T18:18:16","date_gmt":"2026-08-23T18:18:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/1019474\/"},"modified":"2026-08-23T18:18:16","modified_gmt":"2026-08-23T18:18:16","slug":"cowboys-rookie-gets-warm-reception-from-navajo-nation-in-arizona","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/1019474\/","title":{"rendered":"Cowboys rookie gets warm reception from Navajo Nation in Arizona"},"content":{"rendered":"

GLENDALE, Ariz.\u2014Toward the end of the night, one of the biggest cheers from a paid attendance of 62,674 at State Farm Stadium was for Cowboys guard Shiyazh Pete.<\/p>\n

He played six snaps in the Cowboys<\/a>\u2019 34-13 victory over the Cardinals<\/a> on Saturday night. On the road in Arizona, which has a large Native American\u00a0population, Pete had the largest cheering section.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Pete is the first NFL player from the Navajo Nation.\u00a0<\/p>\n

A large base from the Navajo Nation Reservation took up the lower bowl from behind the Cowboys bench toward their tunnel to support Pete.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Before the game, Cowboys owner and general manager Jerry Jones<\/a> took pictures and spoke with\u00a0Buu Van Nygren, the president of Navajo Nation.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe people who showed up to support me, celebrate my name and wear my jersey, I lost count of how many Navajo Nation flags I saw,\u201d Pete said. \u201cI saw a\u00a0Salish Nation flag as well, which was awesome.\u201d<\/p>\n

At first, Pete didn\u2019t know what was happening around him after the game. But after seeing fans wearing his jersey and carrying signs with his name the emotions of the moment took over. Pete\u00a0high-fived and signed autographs as he did a sort of victory tour from behind the Cowboys bench to the tunnel.<\/p>\n

\u201cI had a feeling,\u201d he said. \u201cPhoenix is home to a lot of Native American tribes, obviously we got to see that. It was incredible.\u201d<\/p>\n

Coach Brian\u00a0Schottenehimer asked Pete to break the team down in the locker room after the game.<\/p>\n

Pete standing with a group of smiling players made a brief speech to his teammates that was released through the Cowboys social media accounts<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cWell, that was an incredible win,\u201d Pete said to his teammates. \u201cI am very fortunate to be amongst you and to play on the same field wear the same star holding on our chest. I\u2019m proud of us and proud of how far we\u2019ve come. This game, fate, brought us here as strangers but this game, this star, this game, will make us brothers.\u201d<\/p>\n

The players gave a loud cheer to Pete after his speech.<\/p>\n

The Cowboys signed Pete as an\u00a0undrafted free agent after he spent four seasons at New Mexico State (45 games). He played 12 games in 2025 at Kentucky.\u00a0<\/p>\n

At 6-9, 320 pounds, Pete has played guard and tackle for the Cowboys in training camp.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ll say this, maybe one of the hardest workers I\u2019ve been around,\u201d Schottenheimer said. \u201cMaximized all his opportunities. Everyone loves him because he\u2019s like the way he is today. And like I said, when he broke it down, I mean the room went crazy just because he spoke from the heart and he talked about how this family has brought us all together and now we\u2019re bonded for life.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"GLENDALE, Ariz.\u2014Toward the end of the night, one of the biggest cheers from a paid attendance of 62,674…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":1019475,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[5135],"tags":[5229,10768,1596,358,290737,344603,290739,3187,67,586,132,5230,68,2969],"class_list":["post-1019474","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-dallas","tag-america","tag-brief","tag-dallas","tag-texas","tag-tp-brian-schottenheimer","tag-tp-jerry-jones","tag-tp-nfl","tag-tx","tag-united-states","tag-united-states-of-america","tag-unitedstates","tag-unitedstatesofamerica","tag-us","tag-usa"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/117146203466227593","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1019474","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1019474"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1019474\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1019475"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1019474"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1019474"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1019474"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}