The victory parade ended decades of debate about the city’s underachieving teams – and offered real heroes to displace Rocky
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The Eagles parade basks in the adulation of fans on Thursday in Philadelphia.
Photograph: Corey Perrine/Getty Images
Growing up in Philadelphia is like growing up with an uncle who cannot stop talking about sports – locker-room drama, statistics, gossip – and for some reason the authorities have put that uncle in every classroom, on the radio, at the dinner table, on TV. Whether or not you ever watched a game, the voice was there, yammering about quarterbacks and point guards, Cowboys and Lakers, how impossible it would be for the city’s teams to win.
On Thursday, four days after the Philadelphia Eagles won their first Super Bowl, as underdogs against one of the most successful teams in football history, it was as though the governor had put that uncle in charge with a mission: celebrate.
Observers had joked that the Eagles’ win would incite riots among Philadelphia’s notoriously passionate fans – toppled landmarks, fights with police, the nation’s first capital burned to the ground – Philly RIP.
Yet a few broken signs and awnings aside, none of that came to pass. For the city’s first Super Bowl parade, more than 2 million people flooded the streets , probably surpassing the crowds of Pope Francis’s visit to the city in 2015. At the art museum, where a statue of a fictional, losing boxer (Rocky, of the movie fame) had stood for decades, an Eagles banner hung between the columns and huge screens replayed the game. Fans slept in cars, set up tents on Broad Street, joked with police, and chanted the name of a team that had broken their hearts for decades, and which had finally won the ultimate game.
Around 11am the team boarded buses outside the Eagles’ stadium and before long disembarked again to mingle with the sea of delirious fans wearing green. Head coach Doug Pederson carried the Lombardi trophy to the barricades so fans could hold it, and the star quarterbacks, Carson Wentz, and his playoff replacement, Nick Foles (Sunday’s MVP), stood with their families, waving to ecstatic hordes.
Fans celebrate at the Philadelphia Art Museum. Photograph: Noah K Murray/USA Today Sports
Center Jason Kelce, wearing a sultan’s hat and a spangled Mummer’s costume, walked with the crowds, singing: “We’re from Philly, no one likes us, no one likes us, we don’t care.”
Children who either had school cancelled or cut class echoed the words.
Eventually, the team reached the art museum steps. Pederson told fans this was only the beginning: “This is our new norm to be playing football in February.”
Not long afterward, Kelce took the podium, speaking to the city’s underdog spirit – how football analysts had dismissed its lack of superstars and its unknown coaching staff for most of the season. “Hungry dogs run faster, and that’s this team,” he said.
The city let loose some of that frustration on Thursday. Strangers embraced, cheered each other on, and old friends reunited in the streets. The fans, so notorious for anger, so baffling to outsiders, were themselves a little shellshocked. For all those years of chatter and doubt, they suddenly only had cause to cheer.