Joe: You want tix? Wear Blue
Joe Judge intends to grant ticket requests to family and friends for Thursday’s Philadelphia homecoming on one condition:
They have to wear Giants colors.
“My only rule is really anyone who shows up, that I either grew up with or have blood ties with, they gotta wear blue, you know what I mean?” Judge said Tuesday with a smirk. “I respect their love for the Eagles from here in town, but hey, look man, you ain’t showing up and cheering against my kids’ Christmas now. So you better put on the blue and cheer for us.”
Judge, 38, grew up in Doylestown, a Bucks County Philadelphia suburb, and attended Lansdale Catholic. His extended family stretches from Northeast Philly’s Mayfair neighborhood to Jenkintown all the way north to Warrington and Doylestown, where he was raised.
So he has plenty of ticket requests, including “a large number of cousins who requested tickets as early as back in the summer when the schedule was out.”
But the most meaningful fans in the stands could be his immediate family making the trip from North Jersey: wife Amber and children Sean, 14, Michael, 11, Emma Riley, 9, and Ella, 6.
They haven’t seen Judge coach a game as the Giants’ head coach in person yet, with no fans at MetLife Stadium during the pandemic and road games in Chicago, Los Angeles and Dallas.
Now they have a chance since the City of Philadelphia began allowing 7,500 fans per game at Lincoln Financial Field last Sunday.
So while Thursday is a school night, it sounds like the Judge kids won’t take no for an answer.
“My wife and kids, I’ll see if they can make it,” Judge said. “The kids got school on Friday. So we’ll kinda see how they’re gonna manage that. They’ve gone to school plenty of times tired before making games. It’s something they don’t like to miss. The opportunity that it’s such a close game and the opportunity that it’s gonna be the first game they’re gonna be available to go to with fans, they definitely don’t want to miss it.”
Tim Stairiker, a longtime Judge friend, told the Daily News last week that a host of Judge’s friends will be at Thursday’s game to support him, too, although they’ll have to alter their normal postgame ritual for safety reasons.
“Normally we would all go over to Joe’s after the game and cook cheesesteaks and hang out,” said Stairiker. “This year is obviously a little different, and we are all in agreement that social distancing after the game is best practice.”