UCLA announced Saturday that it would retire Troy Aikman's jersey Nov. 28 during the last regular-season game of the year, and Aikman said Monday that "it's as big an honor as I've ever received."
Aikman is an Oklahoma native who began his college career at OU. But he transferred to UCLA for his final two seasons and guided the Bruins to a 20-4 record on his way to becoming the overall No. 1 pick in the 1989 draft.
The last time he was in the Rose Bowl, where UCLA has played its home games since 1982? It was in 1993, for Super Bowl XXVII, when he quarterbacked the Dallas Cowboys to a 52-17 rout of the Buffalo Bills. He said he has been to just two UCLA games since he left school, and neither was in L.A.
"It's hard for me to express what this means to me," Aikman said in a conference call on Monday. "... I couldn't be more thrilled about it, super-excited to get out there in November for the ceremony."
He said he has extremely fond memories of his time as a Bruin.
"It was as much a team as anything I'd been a part of," Aikman said. "I had some years in Dallas when we were like that and had great success, but those years at UCLA were terrific. ... It was just a great experience for me after getting through a tough couple of years at Oklahoma and being in an offense I was not suited for. ...
"It's going to be a great day for myself, and my daughters will be with me. I'm pretty fired up about being back home."
Aikman, 47, who finished third in the Heisman Trophy voting as a senior, won three Super Bowls with the Cowboys. He was inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 2005.
Mike Huguenin can be reached at mike.huguenin@nfl.com. You also can follow him on Twitter @MikeHuguenin.
