“Daddy, my friend at school told me if the Eagles win the Super Bowl they will have a parade to celebrate. Can we watch?”
I picked Adam up at school a few weeks before the Birds were even in the big game, and that was the first thing he said to me. No pressure or anything. I’m generally not a superstitious person, but when it comes to sports that’s not something I’d be talking about so early. I let him know they still needed to win a few games before that could happen, but then we talked about how fun it would be and ran through some of his favorite players on the current team. That was only the start of our journey.
I’ve written in this column how before we even started talking about having children, Sarah said that I had thought more about what I would be like as a dad than as a husband. It wasn’t meant in a negative way, and truthfully, she was absolutely right. One of the things I specifically had thought about was this exact type of moment, when I could celebrate the success of my team with my children the way I had with my own dad. And even though I lost my dad a few years ago, I felt fulfilled carrying on our sports traditions with my own children.
The night after Brandon was born in 2017, I sat in the hospital while Sarah was sleeping holding our newborn son while watching the Falcons and Patriots in the Super Bowl. I dreamed of when he would be old enough to really watch and enjoy the game with me, even if at the time it didn’t seem likely that our own team would be playing in it (which is something I whispered to Brandon that night). While the Eagles have made it to the big game since, this year was the first time I had two sons old enough to really understand what was going on. And lucky for me, they are really into it!
In the two weeks leading up to the game, the boys were so excited. We counted down the days, talked about the game and made plans for how we would watch. I was lucky enough to attend some playoff games this year, and each night at bedtime, the boys and I would watch videos I had taken inside the stadium. Then after I put Adam to bed, we would hear his own player introductions over the monitor and listen to him singing the Eagles fight song long after the lights went out. When I took the boys for haircuts the day before the game, they added some green spray so, as Adam said, “it would go with their jerseys when they watched the game.” To say they were psyched before kickoff seemed to be an understatement.
I often joke that my emotions are influenced by the success or failure of the sports teams I root for, but experiences I was able to make with the boys – even before kickoff – made me take a step back from all the emotion and appreciate these moments even more.
As the game started, we watched together. Sarah already knew what I’m like, but the boys got to see a different side of me. They saw just how anxious a sports fan I truly am and got to laugh at me a bit while cheering on their team (they thought it was funnier than I did, and Sarah was mildly amused too). But it didn’t matter because we were doing it together and, as you know, it was absolutely awesome.
And even though they didn’t stay awake for the final whistle, the first question Adam asked the next morning was, “Daddy did they win?” When I told him the Eagles won the Super Bowl, he gave me the biggest hug and said, “So we get to see a parade?” Then while we ate breakfast, the boys both sat down with me to watch the replay of the game before they went to school so we could relive the excitement together. I realized I could not have asked for anything more because while the Eagles may have won the game, as a dad I won so much more.
