A day to remember forever in Philly sports
It was worth the wait.
If you’re not from here, it’s hard to express to people just how much the Eagles first-ever Super Bowl championship means.
To the city. To the entire region. To anyone who considers themselves a long-suffering Philly fan.
Luckily, we no longer have to try to explain it.
We showed the world yesterday just how much it means – and how to throw a Super Bowl Championship Parade.
This was the day we’ve been waiting for - after Sunday night of course. We prayed for it. Agonized over it. Got close a couple of times. Never quite grasped the brass ring.
Some of us have been waiting longer than others.
The Eagles won their last championship in 1960. Before many of today’s fans were born. It’s a championship many today have only heard about. Savored by their fathers, mothers and grandparents, all die-hard Eagles fans. In that game, the Eagles beat Vince Lombardi and the legendary Green Bay Packers at Franklin Field. This time around it was another icon and dynasty, Bill Belichick and the New England Patriots.
This time Destiny felled Dynasty. And Eagles nation rejoiced. That’s the thing about this team. It’s something that was on display again and again yesterday. It’s family. It spans the generations. It’s handed down from fathers to sons - and mothers to daughters, and everything in between.
It is the heartbeat of sports Philly sports in particular. It is a rite of life, passed down from generation to generation.
For Philly fans, that included an inordinate amount of bad teams, losing records, and listening to fans of other teams bragging about how many rings their team had.
We all know how many Super Bowls the Eagles had won before Sunday night.
That would be zero. None. Goose egg.
It was part of our DNA, the sneaking suspicion that for some reason we are inferior. Sandwiched between the power of government in Washington, D.C., and the power of everything else in New York City.
We couldn’t even claim the effete snobbery of the folks in Boston, let alone the smugness of those fans of the guys with the stars on their helmets.
Dallas. Don’t even get us started.
It took 58 years to shed that inferiority complex. It stemmed from a lifetime of being second best, or worse.
Of teams like those led by Joe Kuharich, Mike McCormack, Ed Khayat and Marion Campbell.
It was the ebullient youth of Dick Vermeil finally beating the evil empire from Dallas before coming up short against the Raiders in the Super Bowl.
It was the years of success with Andy Reid, but seemingly always running out of time outs, coming close, routinely making the playoffs, but still wandering in our Super Bowl-less desert.
Endure that, keep all that emotion in check, swallow all that bile, say “next year” enough times, and when you pop that cork, something extraordinary happens.
Something like what unfolded along Broad Street and the Benjamin Franklin Parkway.
No one is exactly sure how many gathered in the city, swarming one of the city’s icon’s, the Philadelphia Museum of Art, and its famous steps.
It’s believed to be well over 2 million people.
Some spent the night on the Art Museum steps.
Others got up at 3 a.m. to wait in line to board regional rail trains.
All to celebrate a football team. That is one of the wondrous things about sports. It is a shared experience. Unlike a movie or TV show, it is something we experience together, at precisely the same time.
Earlier this week, Eagles head coach Doug Pederson offered this novel idea, at least for residents of Philly.
“This is the new norm,” Pederson said, suggesting fans should get used to Eagles teams that play into February each season.
But first we had to come together in one more bonding rite, forever purging all those years of disappointment and reveling in our newfound lofty status, looking down on the rest of the sports world.
Yesterday we shared that experience with about 2 million of our closest friends.
This was our moment in the sun, not just locally, but for all those national pundits and media outlets who delight in pointing out our foibles, who let no opportunity go by without reminding us of our calling card – once booing Santa Claus.
There were no boos heard yesterday on the Parkway.
There was only a shared bond with a football team that wasn’t supposed to do this. A team that overcame the odds. A team that embraced the role of underdog. They took on the mantra of another mythical Philly icon, a journeyman boxer named Rocky Balboa. Yo, Philly, we did it. Our Iggles have finally helped us shed our loser’s image forever. It was a day to remember. Our long wait is over. We’re Super Bowl champions. Savor every minute of it!