Super Bowl Champion Eagles!!

As I begin this post, the Philadelphia Eagles Super Bowl Parade is culminating with player and coaches speeches on the Art Museum's steps with thousands of people cheering, clapping and celebrating the first Super Bowl Championship in Eagles history.  It is a glorious day in the City of Brotherly Love!

For those of you who are not familiar with the remarkable story of the 2017-18 Eagles season, it is truly a wonderful tale.

The story of a 2nd year coach, hired amid doubts and the disappointment of the Chip Kelly years, coming off an initial 7-9 season during which his football intelligence and pedigree were openly questioned.

The story of a GM who was emasculated during those same years, but who stayed with the team and honed his skills, culminating in two amazing off seasons during which he traded up to draft a franchise quarterback, signed a number of important free agents, and even wrangled a mid-season coup to bring a workhorse running back to compliment an already strong offensive team.

The story of a rookie quarterback who played more like a veteran from week to week, who made the impossible play routine, and who led the team to a league best 9-2 record despite losing their Pro-Bowl offensive lineman, star running back, best special teams player and star middle linebacker.

The story of a backup quarterback who all but quit the game just two years ago, but decided to give it one last shot, who signed on as the rookie's relief, just in case, and them was thrust into the limelight and pressure when yet another season-ending injury struck the rookie quarterback sensation.

And the story of a team of players who worked in unison towards a single goal, who absorbed one hay-maker after another as their teammates fell, who took the cliche, next man up to its fullest expression, who ignored all the experts and pundits who not only discounted their chances to win, but actually made them underdogs in all three playoff games, including, for the first time ever, the games they hosted.

Finally, the story of a team who won for themselves, their fallen teammates, and their fans, beloved in the Delaware Valley and besmirched everywhere else, and who walked among them on this very day, high fiving and celebrating this tremendous victory of cooperation and collaboration.

Cooperation and collaboration.

Sports is clearly not the real world.  Games played by adults for large sums of money in cathedrals akin to those celebrating religious rites.  Entertainment for the masses to distract us from reality, and the hard truth that our exploits in athletics as kids were just fun and games.

But there are lessons being taught and learned on sports fields everyday.  Lessons about perseverance which can result in the best team overcoming a team with the best players.  Lessons about loyalty, even in the face of personal injury or failure.  Lessons about winning humbly and losing graciously, the first being displayed to the man by the Eagles, the latter less so by the losing Pats.

I bemoan the money in sports, the obvious priority that winning takes over an education in college athletics, the lure for those born in less economically advantaged situations when an education should be paramount over the slim chance of a professional athletic career, the sheer magnitude of the economics, when our schools and infrastructure are in such dire need of resources.

But for those who follow the political scene, who tune in to the shows that inflame our passions for or against those who adhere to a different economic or political philosophy, this Eagles story and victory should be a required course of study.

You see, it is possible to take a group of people from all areas of America, with as myriad a variety of backgrounds, with different skin colors, different religious beliefs, different perspectives on patriotism, gun control, social justice, and have them work together, despite their differences, to achieve the seemingly unreachable.  

To come together and seek the best ideas, regardless of its source, and evaluate that idea based on its merit. To put partisanship aside and stay fully vested in the welfare and happiness of all of the fans, or all of the country.  To remember that if your only goal is to advance that which benefits you, then those you need to work are more likely to advance only that which benefits them.

That a stalemate is not a win for either side, but a loss for all sides.

So again, hail to the Philadelphia Eagles, and its legion of sometimes boisterous but always passionate fans for their Super Bowl LII victory.  And hats off to my brother Paul who flew in from Texas to be there, and to represent all of us who could not or did not attend.

E-A-G-L-E-S   EAGLES!!!