Bring It Home for Jerome

It’s that time of year again when I expand my vernacular beyond the realm of ‘80s metal to include palaver regarding contractual holdouts and two-a-days in 90+ degree heat. That’s right, training camp is upon us again, signifying the commencement of another disappointing season of Eagles football. In honor of this glorious genesis, I present the following—a small portion of a larger animal—which was scribed about two years ago. Enjoy.

Having been born and raised in a suburb of Philadelphia, I eat, sleep, and breathe pro football, and I bleed Eagles green. Everyone here bleeds green. A love for the Birds is a dominant gene passed down through family lineage. Elsewhere in the world, people often engage in meaningless small talk about the weather, but not here (although I frequently discuss this topic in the summer, during the offseason – ex: “Jesus H. Christ, I can’t take this heat….I swear my blood is thicker than cake batter!”). Instead, we break the ice by talking about Andy Reid’s playcalling on third and short. It is assumed that you love the Philadelphia Eagles. It is assumed that you know exactly how many passes the fifth-string wide receiver dropped during Thursday’s practice. It is assumed that you have memorized the precise times every linebacker on the roster ran the forty-yard dash at the combine. It is assumed you would give your left testicle (or left ovary...right, ladies?) to see the Eagles win the Super Bowl. Rooting against the Eagles is like rooting against America during wartime. That may sound extreme, but it isn’t. It’s considered blasphemy.

Apathy is absent on Sundays in these parts, especially today. This afternoon, the Eagles are hosting their iniquitous division rivals, the Dallas Cowboys, and the parking lot is already a celebratory mob scene of feverish diehards. Even when it’s twenty below zero outside, the parking lots along Broad and Pattison will be more than half-filled by 8:00 AM with an array of people partying and tailgating for a game that isn’t set to kick off until 4:15 PM.

Several years ago, I saw the Rolling Stones perform across the street from the asphalt where I currently stand. That day, people of all walks of life trekked from up and down the Eastern Seaboard to watch one of the greatest rock bands in history. I met a few interesting characters in the parking lot that evening, dabbled with some herbs and heinous chemicals, and drank my weight in imported booze, but the pre-show festivities paled in comparison to what transpires before an Eagles home game. Here, you can find anything if you look hard enough – More nitrous tanks in plain sight than three dentists’ offices and two Dave Matthews concerts combined…Bare-chested fanatics shotgunning beers and taking hits from a three-foot bong in a rickety midnight-green school bus…Thirty-eight year old accountants with their faces painted like ancient Philistine warriors, chopping out lines in an RV after guzzling numerous cold ones. Nothing is off limits here.

Now, before I go any further, let me get one thing straight: my goal is to paint a picture of reality as my eyes see it. In no way whatsoever is my intent to reinforce the adverse reputation of Philadelphia perpetuated by the national sports media. The so-called “experts” love to liken Philly fans to bloodthirsty savages who sacrifice farm animals in pagan rituals and seek to achieve immortality by feasting on the flesh of small children. After all, they jeered Santa Claus as if he was Hitler. They’ve launched batteries at opposing teams’ players. They even ejaculated in unison after Dallas receiver Michael Irvin was nearly crippled for life on the field, unable to move any phalanges as he laid immobile on the Astroturf. But the truth is that Philadelphians are the most loyal, hardcore, knowledgeable sports fans on the face of this planet. Can you blame them if they get a little restless? No metropolis with four major sports franchises has experienced a longer drought without a national title. If you were standing next to me right now in the midst of this green ocean, you would concur that the sight of more than fifty thousand people, whom comprise a variety of ages, races, and socioeconomic statuses, joined together for the exact same purpose is a beautiful fucking thing. For people of my generation in and around the City of Brotherly Love, Sunday is the closest thing we have to Woodstock. Except we’re not protesting the Vietnam War (or, sadly, the Iraq War either, for that matter); we’re protesting the Dallas Cowboys or New York Giants or whichever group of uniformed neo-gladiators steps into our house that given week. To some people, this may sound rather pathetic. Those people more than likely voted for Bush twice, listen to Coldplay, and identify with Dane Cook’s irreverent brand of comedy. And they probably root for the Cowboys. So they can go fuck themselves.