Eagles fan’s 15 minutes of fame has a happy ending with a London trip
The moment in the spotlight isn’t over for a Philadelphia Eagles fan who stumbled into fame as a viral video star after running into a subway pillar this year.
Jigar Desai is the subject of an NFL digital short feature, shot ahead of the Eagles’ game against the Jacksonville Jaguars in London on Oct. 28. In the short, he’s surprised with tickets for himself, his wife and two kids to attend the game in England.
“From ‘mind the pillars’ to ‘Mind the Gap’ … London, here we come!” Desai said Friday.
Back in January, Desai, sporting a Brian Dawkins jersey, was trying to rally subway passengers for the NFC Championship Game against the Minnesota Vikings. He was filmed running alongside the train on the platform, and then all of a sudden slamming into a pole and bumping off the train.
Passenger video of his fan fail took off on social media, prompting everything from Philly sports pride to general mockery.
“At the end of it all, if you are going to have a knucklehead moment caught on camera from two angles, then it better have results,” said Desai, who works as a consultant with a life sciences and health care company.
Folks with the NFL reached out to him in the spring about the video project and last weekend they went to his home in the Philadelphia suburbs.
The filmmakers said they told him they wanted to see the pillar and they took the subway to the scene of the injury, the Ellsworth-Federal stop on the Broad Street subway line. That’s when Desai said he noticed Eagles cheerleaders, Swoop the mascot and a Mummers string band gathered around the pole for a celebration. Swoop presented him and his family with the tickets to London.
“It was a total surprise, and as a dad, it was so great to be there with my kids. My youngest always says ‘So you hit a pole. So what?’ ” he said.