Shiyazh Pete played his first NFL game for the Dallas Cowboys.

It was short, but it gave other Navajo people a happy memory.

In August, he played in a preseason game against the Arizona Cardinals.

Thousands of fans from the Navajo Nation cheered and waved tribal flags.

Pete played only six snaps.

Then he went back to the sideline, and the fans stood up and cheered.

He was the first Navajo Nation member to sign with an NFL team.

The Cowboys later let Pete go.

Now he is a free agent.

He went home to the Navajo Nation.

He is thanking fans and looking for his next NFL chance.

He surprised students at his old school, Shiprock High School.

He came to their homecoming pep rally.

He was also the grand marshal of the Northern Navajo Nation Fair Parade.

On Monday, he will meet fans at an Indigenous Peoples Day event in Albuquerque, New Mexico.

Pete joins many Native athletes.

They broke barriers in sports.

They became role models for Native children.

Jim Thorpe was from the Sac and Fox Nation.

He won the decathlon and pentathlon at the 1912 Olympics.

He also played professional baseball and football.

Louis Tewanima was Thorpe's teammate at Carlisle.

He took second in the 10,000 meters at the 1912 Olympics.

Duke Kahanamoku was a Native Hawaiian swimmer.

He helped make surfing known around the world.

Runner Ellison Myers "Tarzan" Brown won the Boston Marathon in 1936 and 1939.

Billy Mills was an Oglala Lakota runner.

He won Olympic gold in the 10-kilometer run in 1964.

Patti Catalano Dillon has Mi'kmaw heritage.

She was the first American woman to finish a marathon under 2 hours, 30 minutes.

Ryneldi Becenti was the first Native American WNBA player.

She played for the Phoenix Mercury in 1997.

Aaliyah Nye is from the Match-E-Be-Nash-She-Wish Band of Pottawatomi.

She joined the WNBA in 2025.

Golfer Notah Begay III has Navajo, San Felipe and Isleta heritage.

He won four PGA Tour events in 1999 and 2000.