Go Birds
Updated: Sep 14
A design I drew that will be made into shirts for The Fairmount Tavern, our third space/Cheers/Paddys Pub -like little slice of neighborhood love. Stay tuned, all of us involved in the process have terrible attention spans and
will forget the intention to do this multiple times before it actually comes to fruition.
Football feels weird to watch. On one hand, damn the NFL for blocking over a decades worth of concussion research. On the other hand, Go Birds.
Large crowds are not my thing, so tailgates and stadiums are out. But I have found a home at a corner bar where Ellie has learned how to cheer-hoodle along with touchdown celebrations and I can sit in a corner where I'm not worried about getting incidentally bonked in the head by errant triumphant fists. And where Ellie can get all the love and hoodle-y encouragement .
Before I moved to Philly, I used to cheer halfheartedly for the Patriots (where my dad’s family is from) and the Eagles (just a short 45 minute drive from where I grew up). Fun fact, if you’re ever unconvinced of the existence of Central New Jersey, the elementary school I went to had a mix of Giants, Jets, and Eagles jerseys pretty evenly split. And if you need further proof that Central NJ exists, Jon Stewart, CNJ native, will fight you (allegedly).
When I lived in Queens, I could take or leave football games, no real attachment to any team. Philadelphia doesn’t allow that kind of ambiguity; you live in this city and you are a Birds fan. It’s an essential and joyful part of the culture, so much so that GO BIRDS has become the Philly 'aloha'. You must say it back when someone says it to you, and you can add a little extra spice with a ‘dickhead’ attached to the end. This can be both affectionate and derogatory, and I love that for this city.
Philly's superstar athletes are invested in the community; you can find the Kelce's heavily involved with Eagles Autism and local athletic groups. Several Eagles and Phillies players have made cameos on Abbot Elementary. The Lorrie family jumpstarted the very first sensory friendly room at an NFL stadium for autistic fans.
Also if you, like me, are also obsessed with accessibility and hospitality, the Bills have just made history by making Highmark Stadium the most accessible stadium in the country (check out this instagram reel of folks taking a tour of the new digs earlier this August).
Sundays in Philly are for the Birds, and the season becomes a roller coaster of highs and lows, yelling at the screen, singing the fight song, and as of last year, finally getting Ellie to hoodle along with the cheers for scoring.
There is a lot of joy involved in the micro and macro communities of this city, especially around the ‘iggles’.
And then….
There are moments when watching hard hits can physically feel like a sucker punch. For example, when Tua Tagovalia sustained his big hits a few year ago, I watched in horror as his hands and arms spasmed while he lay prone on the field. I felt some kind of empathetic echo in my chest, dull and painful.
Get out, I wanted to scream through the TV, it’s not f*cking worth it. Even if, as a quarterback, he faced less injuries than others in different positions. Aaron Hernandez. Vincent Jackson. Phillip Adams. Jovan Belcher. Junior Seau. Dave Duerson. Mike Webster. So many more.
Granted, I cannot imagine what it would have been like to learn about the dangers of concussions while I was already on the path to that career. Nowadays, athletes have a little more foreknowledge, but I still can’t imagine having the skill and determination to make it big, and having to weigh future brain injuries against that chance.
I don’t know what I’d do if I knew then what I know now.
I loved my sport. I still love lacrosse. I’m a nerd who has enthusiastically followed the development of the PLL and the WLL, as well as the Olympics bid and the efforts to ensure the sports creators are represented at those games. I was taught how to play by family, and I found family through the sport along the way.
I do know that if my coach in college hadn’t point blank told me she would never put me in the goal again, I would have battled hard to get back onto that field, to return to play. (One of the symptoms of concussions and long term brain injury is poor decision making. Unclear whether this was a natural instinct for stupidity or an earned one.)
Even if the sport lead to my disability, I am still thankful for the gifts and the community it has brought me. Those things eventually lead to my move to Philly, where I live around the corner from college teammates and where I’ve made friends with the local bar owner who moonlights (daylights?) as a collegiate men’s lacrosse referee. A few pro players who live in the neighborhood as well.
Moving to Philly, although immensely hard to leave my friends in Queens, has been the best decision I’ve ever made. It’s not just the proximity to my parents, the cost of living, or the access I have to swim most days and get good exercise without hurting myself; in Philly I’ve found community and camaraderie, which has been more important to building resilience and healing than I ever fully understood.
So Sundays are for the Birds. And I love it in a way that has nothing to do with the NFL and everything to do with the city of Brotherly Love.
Note: I do currently run two fantasy football leagues. Relative Dominance, where the cousins seek to destroy each other with great glee, and the Wieners of Fairmount, a local league named in honor of the hot dogs of Fairmount Tavern. Neither of these leagues are about football so much as they are about glory and smack talk. A different form of loving community.
See you at Tav next Sunday, Philly phans.
Go Birds, DH.
P.S. Ellie's adoptiversary is coming up soon and I'm selling t-shirts to raise some funds for her rescue! Check them out here: Happy 5 Year Adoptiversary Ellie!
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