A Story Of Family, Exorcising Demons, And Football
Part I
“Fuck you Tom Brady! I hope this is the… the worst day of your professional life!”
My mom doesn’t curse that much, but she sure fuckin’ did during the Super Bowl – pardon, THE Super Bowl, the only Super Bowl that’s ever mattered; the one where the Philadelphia Eagles defeated the New England Patriots by a score of 41-33.
But in her defense, well, Fuck You Tom Brady, I hope that particular Sunday was the worst day of your professional life, too.
Less than 24 hours earlier, sitting in a San Diego bar, I made the not-super-thought-out decision to buy a one way red-eye to Philly. Until that exact moment I had been at peace with my Super Bowl plans: get drunk after work on Saturday so as to time travel through the night into Sunday morning, sleep as late as possible, then get pork roll and beer in preparation for 3:40 PST, at which point I’d lock the doors, close the blinds, make some questionable but legal herbal decisions, and lock-in on the TV. Depending on how the game played out, I would immediately buy a plane ticket home for the parade and then run screaming down Garnet Avenue to the Philly bar about a mile away. My fiance was invited to a Super Bowl party nearby featuring a cotton candy machine; I told her politely that I couldn’t think of a worse way to spend the night that would determine my mood for the rest of my life.
I was on track: it was Saturday evening and I was in a bar stool with a beer in my belly. The Eagles were about to play in the Fucking Super Bowlâ„¢ – which I sincerely thought they could win – and I didn’t have any work obligations for the next 5 days. This game had my complete and undivided attention.
I texted my sister.
Roughly 12 hours later, descending over the city, the plane came low enough that I could see the Phillies’ jumbotron ablaze in a midnight-green glory. The Eagles Fight Song blasted over the airport PA. I could fucking feel it, and couldn’t help but smile – maybe it was the jet lag, maybe it was the 24 hours of uninterrupted consciousness, maybe it was the Yeungling at Chickie’s and Pete’s, maybe it was a lot of things – this was exactly where I wanted to be. No one else understood, no one else could possibly understand – with the exclusive exception of the millions of Philly fans – my people – whom I was now amongst. Misery (and doubt and anxiety and tension, apparently) does love company.
Regardless of the outcome of the Super Bowl, my parents had no idea I was coming home. My sister called Mom Sunday morning to say that she and Rob were coming down to watch the game with them.
“Oh good, I won’t tell your father; he’ll be so surprised!”
My sister, Rob, and their dog walked up the steps to the front door while I snuck in through downstairs. I was excited; a retired cop, my dad is impossible to surprise, and I was pretty sure we had pulled it off. I opened the door and walked in.
Huge, wide eyes; actual shock.
“You gotta be shittin’ me! Get outta here!”
He actually turned red. The Irishman who looked Puerto Rican was visibly blushing. My mom just stared, wide eyed, holding the dog. She then referenced her recent health scare.
“Um, Kev, remember the heart attack?”
It was around here, when the adrenaline and natural response to sunlight ran dry, that I realized I’d completely ruined my plan to sleepwalk until kickoff; instead of getting shitfaced and being as unconscious as possible – for as long as possible – I instead flew east, where the game started 3 hours later, and then also stayed awake the whole time. As far as plans go, I had really fucked that one up.
I had a beer with my dad in the hot tub where we reassured each other that this team was different – we’re not praying for TO to go full-Jesus and miraculously heal to save us; Foles is gonna hold his own; and that defense? That front four, man, that’s how the Giants beat ’em. Twice.
Finally, the unthinkable was at hand. We gathered in front of the TV – hoping for the best but expecting the worst, in the most Philadelphia way. I had a semi-legitimate fear that the earth would explode, or something equivalent, in the closing seconds of a game that the Eagles led, right before the final Nick Foles clock-killing kneeldown, allowing just enough time to fully comprehend that the game wouldn’t – couldn’t – go down in the books because there would be no more books and thus the Birds would never, officially, be champions before being obliterated off the planet. I knocked on wood just in case.
I picked a stool by the counter so as to more easily get up and run around and yell. My sister’s dog is a rescue and he came from an abusive home. As much as I love him and he loves me, he REALLY didn’t appreciate all the violent gesturing and fist-pumping that accompanied my yells of joy, disbelief, and righteous indignation. He couldn’t help it, so as we got into the 4th quarter and the game got more tense by the second I just picked him up because I got tired of having to take my eyes off the TV to tell him to fucking cool it after every fucking play. It’s harder to violently fist-pump with an armful of dog, but not impossible.
So that’s how I watched the Eagles win their very first Super Bowl: power walking in anxiety-driven circles with a 25 pound Westie in my arms. Just like I drew it up.
Every Eagles fan went through a semblance of the same sequence: The ball hit the ground; the clock says 0:00. There are no flags. No flags. Ok. That means the game is over. The score is 41-33; the Eagles are winning. If the game is over and the Eagles are winning, that means the Eagles won. OK. This is the Super Bowl. Does that mean th-
I grabbed two fist-fulls of my dad’s shirt and I just saw his eyes, huge and white.
“They won!” he said, softly, speaking truth into existence.
Half a heartbeat; pandemonium.
I finally went to bed around 2 AM EST. I had been awake for something like 42 hours with what some might consider a power nap on my connecting flight from Miami. I was drunk, delirious, and a fan of the best team in football; I slept with a smile.
Part II
The words I’d like to use to describe this day don’t exist; trying to describe the peak of perfection is fucking impossible.
Here goes nothing.
The parade.
The fuckin’ Parade.
My friend rented a bus, and we left at 5:30 AM. I cracked my first beer as we got on the Parkway; my mom looked over, trying really hard not to judge.
I shrugged. “It’s a parade.”
We joined the throngs of sleepy, still-not-sure-if-this-is-real fans rolling down the streets. My dad led the way as we crossed in front of the Phillies’ stadium and saw the beginnings of the joyous, insane, delirious motherfuckers lined up and down the parade route. We set up in front of K Lot, where this team – this beautiful fucking team – would officially kick off the parade that every Eagles fan waited their entire life for.
There was a tree to our left and after couple beers and most of a hoagie I tapped Todd on the shoulder. Gesturing with my chin to the tree, because my mouth was still full of hoagie, I then somehow made the international symbol for, “Can I get a boost?” in spite of, or maybe because of, the beers I also held in each hand.
Todd nodded.
I tapped my dad on the shoulder and put my boots at his feet. “I can’t climb in these, watch them for me?”
“What?”
“Thanks.”
Todd boosted me up until I got my socked foot on a cut off branch I used to hoist up above the people.
It was fucking beautiful up there. I could see the crowd – the vast, seemingly endless sea of green; I could see all the buses lined up just beyond the gates, and the people – players, presumably – visibly eager to kick this shit off.
The energy was palpable, real.
“Hey! Get down!”
A guy in an official-looking windbreaker had forced his way through the crowd and was shouting at me.
“Get the fuck down!”
“What?” I yelled back.
“Get the fuck down!”
“Yea, you go up and get him,” a dude with two beers in each hand laughed. Fuck it. Philly had my back. I ain’t goin’ nowhere.
“Get the fuck down here or I’m getting the cops!” He pointed, and an officer made eye contact, walking away from the K Lot gate towards me and talking into the radio pinned to his shoulder.
Fucker. I climbed down and put my boots back on. I was kinda bummed, getting duped by a guy in a windbreaker, but then the gates opened and Jeffrey Lurie held the Lombardi Trophy aloft.
The crowd exploded.
Bus after bus went by, full of dudes who had done the impossible; for them, for us, for the city. I yelled and chanted and pointed and cheered and pumped my fist like every asshole in Seaside (are guidos still a thing?) with the sun at just the right angle to go straight into my fuckin’ eyeballs, thus making it pretty much impossible to see anything at all.
Suddenly a blur of bright colors flashed by, slapping every outstretched hand and accepting every beer offered along the barriers, screaming in song. I assumed that some drunk fat guy with a beard jumped the barrier.
I wasn’t wrong.
My dad turned. “That’s Jason Kelce!”
Jason Kelce, the physical embodiment of Philadelphia. We like to think we’re Chase Utley – all cool and shit – but Chase’s way too skilled, too good looking; he might even not be real (I have a theory that Chase Utley absorbed Mike Richards, but this is not the time or place). Philadelphia is Jason Kelce, and Jason Kelce is Philadelphia: unheralded, overlooked, but secretly fucking awesome, with questionable facial hair and a beer belly.
Long Live The King, Jason Kelce.
Too quickly, the buses were gone. In the mass euphoria my parents and I were separated from our group, so we went to SEPTA to catch the speeches at a bar. There were a few missteps, but we actually, somehow, caught up to the parade and were able to yell our faces off one more time in appreciation of those fucking magical humans who changed everything, for everyone.
Mom, Dad, and I rolled down Broad Street through the aftermath, drinking rum and diet Pepsi out of cans, which was more conducive for my violent hand gestures, and ate edibles that looked like Teddy Grahams. Well, some of us did. Confetti, broken bottles, shit smashed beyond recognition, the streets full of worshipers in green who finally got to say, and give, Thanks.
We wound up at a bar on South Street, somehow got a table, and settled in.
On the bus ride in I sat next to a kid named Johnny and wound up talking to him pretty much the whole time. He asked if I went to the Phillies’ parade. I replied that I had, and it was awesome, but this one would be better; it had to be, because there would never be another one like it.
“This is going to be cathartic for the city. Today’s the shrugging of the monkey off our back, collectively – and forever, because that shit is over. This is an exorcising of the demons, and it’s going to fucking rule. You’re going to see a city in recovery, a city that’s whole for the first time in history. This is closure. Get fucking ready dude, because this is going to be fucking awesome.”
The Friday before the Super Bowl I called my mom and she mentioned that a friend asked Dad if he was going to any Super Bowl parties. Dad replied, Hell no, he wants to watch the game, and he will do so at home with his wife – and anyway the only other people he’d watch the game with were my sister and I, and I was in California.
That thought, apparently, gnawed at me.
When Brad Lidge struck out Eric Hinske I was in a Glassboro bar. I stood up wildly, knocking my chair over. I didn’t know what to do; I had never been a part of this before, this being a team I love actually winning the whole thing. Each team, in their own way, had been close – a lot – but in my lifetime the Phillies were the first, and I’ll love them forever as a result even though I barely even like baseball. Sports are stupid.
As elated as I was, in the back of my head I was disappointed. While everyone was cheering, the only two people in the entire room who reacted similarly played it way cooler. I hugged those guys and then immediately was like, Alright, people gotta be going apeshit around here somewhere. My apartment complex was where folks traditionally went apeshit but somehow no one cared there either.
So I jumped on an old mattress in my backyard until the wee hours of the morning, drinking Andre Cold Duck straight from the bottle, randomly shouting at the top of my lungs.
It was glorious.
In retrospect, though, it felt like I missed out on the cathartic, celebratory, pinnacle moment – no one who gave a shit like I gave a shit was around.
My dad is 66 years old. He’s been following the Eagles, decade after decade of high hopes and crushing disappointments. He’s seen the Phillies and Flyers win – he sold beer at the Spectrum back in the 70’s – but never the Eagles. He made stupid little insane people out of my sister and I, and, given that her three favorite people were so unhealthily obsessed, my mom eventually caved, too – though she really was happy for us more than anything.
My dad lives and breathes Eagles football; the Birds are part of his identity. There are countless anecdotes that illustrate his fandom – the seasons of VHS tapes recorded without the express consent of the NFL; his wardrobe of jerseys, personalized and authentic; the time he met Lawrence Taylor and the first words out of my dad’s mouth were “I’m an Eagles fan,” (“Then what the fuck are you talking to me for?”) – but I think the most demonstrative would be the time he chopped down a tree with a hatchet after an Eagles loss – a regular season loss.
This was sometime in the early 90’s, which is an Eagles’ era probably best remembered from afar. After another loss and – according to Dad – “dogshit officiating,” he had finally had it. Our house at the time was basically in the woods, so he had plenty of targets when he picked up his hatchet – not an ax, the smaller version.
Whichever tree he chose bore the full brunt of his frustration, hack! after hack! after hack! until it finally succumbed. Presumably sweaty, maybe panting a little, and probably a teeny bit embarrassed, I picture my dad calmly dropping the hatchet to his side before trudging home, red and black flannel (and possibly his Fu-Manchu) carrying bark and splintered wood, to resume his life as a normal human being. For him, anyway.
Knowing what this Super Bowl meant for the guy who cut down a fucking tree with Baby’s First Axâ„¢ made the decision to fly home a no-brainer, in retrospect. My dad and I watched Ray Diddinger cry talking about what it would mean to experience the Eagles winning the Super Bowl with his son. The entire Philly pregame show was hosts and anchors talking about what this game meant for mothers, fathers, daughters, sons. The scene unfolding in my parents living room was repeating itself all across the tri-state area.
For one night, with a football game as the backdrop, we were thankful. Thankful for the memories – or not, in some cases. Thankful for all who put up with our obsessive shit, which is the very definition of “unnecessary.”
Thankful for the seeds that were planted that allowed this moment to bloom all these years later. Thankful for being a part of the best fans on the planet – intelligent, emotional, dedicated assholes; we’re the only one’s allowed to pick on our teams; no one else has earned the right.
Thankful that we shared the moment with the people who endured alongside.
The Birds are the center of it all – not the reason(s) we loved each other, but our common bond. We shared those moments in front of the TV, frantically swerving through traffic with a head full of Merrill, in the stands, in bars, in parking lots – together, through all the bad shit, until Now.
This game was bigger than all of us as individuals, functioning almost specifically for Philadelphia to express how much we loved each other without actually saying the words. The game was almost secondary.
Almost.
We sat at that bar on South Street and sang We Are the Champions for the first time as bona fide, honest to god champions, arm in arm – with my parents, the bar, the entire city of Philadelphia – I’ve never felt closer to any group of people, on such a monumental scale, in my entire life. I was surrounded by millions of strangers, but they were my best friends, the only ones who knew, really knew, what this meant.
That song, that moment, was perfect. Someone must have been cutting onions (as one does at the bar) because there were wet eyes everywhere.
Let’s remember these moments forever, before the NFL goes down the tubes for good. Let’s pay tribute to this team – this fucking team! – that truly, genuinely liked and played for each other, which is rare in any era yet especially so with a salary cap. Let’s be thankful that Lurie abandoned the Chip Kelly Experiment so quickly, and that Howie was still there to pick up the pieces.
Let’s all collectively apologize to Doug, because I know I said some shit (Sorry, Doug).
Let’s hold on to those who we were lucky enough to share this beautiful, improbable moment with – without whom none of this would have ever mattered.
Let’s feel like this forever.
I don’t want to come back down from this cloud.
Go Birds.
Fuck the Cowboys.