When the Eagles won their first Super Bowl in 2018, I left Brooklyn and booked a hotel on Broad Street in Philly, ready for whatever was coming. When the clock hit zero, I muttered a few words in disbelief before gathering provisions and libations for the celebration. Hurriedly pouring Tito’s into a Poland Spring bottle, I thought about all the people I’d met throughout my life who, at that moment, were feeling the same unfiltered joy. Friends and family. Strangers and enemies. Teachers, coworkers, and random folks in Eagles jerseys I’d given the sports equivalent of a “Black nod” to over the years. To most, it’s just a game—but anyone from Philadelphia will tell you it’s much deeper than that. An unhealthy passion for the Eagles is embedded into people in the area from birth, and for every year of our lives before 2018—that passion ended in heartbreak. 

Birthright fandom is like family because you don’t get to choose whom you share that connectivity with. There are people from Florida who decide to root for the Los Angeles Lakers, people from Texas who decide to root for the New York Knicks, and kids from Iowa who decide to root for whatever team LeBron James plays for. 

This is not that. 

Birthright fandom is stressed moms in 20-year-old Eagles sweatshirts simultaneously cursing and praying to themselves. It’s Catholic priests leading their congregation in the team fight song at the end of mass ahead of a playoff game. It’s my uncle lying in a casket, his cold hands clutching a Birds hat, while the eyes of the toughest man I know well up with tears.

Eagles fans, by and large, are born Eagles fans and hold onto that fandom through generational trauma, poverty, addiction, relocation, incarceration—through it all. It’s one of the only things I’ve seen bring the two Americas together in genuine brotherhood. There’s freedom in being bound together sometimes, even if bound by something as seemingly trivial as professional sports. 

That night, in 2018, with car horns blaring and fireworks crackling overhead, the first thing I noticed as I stepped out of my Broad Street hotel was a white cop high-fiving Black teens and people with open containers as they walked by. (Turns out I didn’t need the water bottle.) I saw raw human happiness on thousands of faces—a glimpse of what life could be like if things weren’t the way they are. Folks had taken off their cool, their masks, their political lenses. It was brief but genuine—and I’m not sure many folks have experienced that feeling outside of a place of worship. 

A week later, during the Eagles championship parade, I witnessed a man scattering his grandfather's ashes. I’d later come across photos of fans holding urns of loved ones, trying their best to share that feeling with those who didn’t make it to see the Birds win it all. Tombstones throughout the area were covered in Eagles gear. Some might find it strange to care this deeply about a game or a team—and that’s okay. But I actually pity those who can’t and won’t ever understand that level of fanhood. They’ll never know the joy and gratitude of moments that can only be born from years of pain and heartbreak. They’ll never know how it feels to see a stranger—someone who shares only this one thing in common with them in this world—and still feel palpably happy for them. 

This year, as the Eagles put the beats on NFL darling Patrick Mahomes and the Kansas City Chiefs, I wasn’t in Center City, Philadelphia. I watched from home with my wife and 3-year-old son. We cheered the tush push touchdown, screamed during Cooper DeJean’s birthday pick-six, crip walked with Serena during Kendrick’s halftime show, and hugged and popped sparkling cider and reveled in a moment that I understood my son may very well never experience again. 

News and YouTube will show you people climbing poles or flipping cars and will likely portray the celebrations as riots or “Philly being Philly.” But their ire comes more from ignorance than malice; frankly, I’m too blessed to be stressed. Beneath that chaos is something deeper: a city united by brotherly love—if only for one night. 

Getting calls and texts from joyous friends you haven’t heard from in years is not just sports. Swelling with pride as your team’s Black quarterback—a devoted fan of Philadelphia’s own Maze and Frankie Beverly—is named Super Bowl MVP is not just sports. Seeing a genuine “I love you guys” in your group chat with other grown-ass men and feeling the same way is not just sports. 

For those who aren’t sports fans, I truly hope something in your life brings you this feeling—something that connects you to others in ways words alone can’t fully explain.

Go Birds.