PhillyMike
We all have them, those little routines, superstitions and idiosyncrasies as fans that give us the confidence our teams are going to pull through and win the game. Maybe it’s a special seat on the couch at home or a bar stool at the end of your corner neighborhood bar. Sometimes it’s a trusty old hat or a jersey that you only wash after losses, if it all. For me, it’s the LoVE shirt.
The LoVE shirt was gifted to me by my friend Ali back in 2008 when a group of us attended an Oktoberfest beer festival at the old 23rd Street Armory. She saw it up in New York at one of the numerous Eagles bars throughout the city, the Town Tavern, and thought I’d appreciate it. After wearing the LoVE shirt for every single game since it was given to me 10 years ago, it’s safe to say she did a great job.
Crafted out of a cotton blend in the classic kelly green color, the front of the LoVE shirt features the Philadelphia sculpture from Robert Indiana that is as iconic as the park now named after it. The back of the tee features the 2007 Philadelphia skyline in silhouette that needs an update because there is not one but two new skyscrapers that rise up from Center City in 2018. When it was first given to me, it was soft and bright and, well, new. Now it is so paper thin it’s nearly translucent. The pinhole sized burn hole at the bottom is now the size of a dime. I was heavier in 2008 and my friends would joke that it was too tight. Now that I have lost 30 lbs., they still say that it’s too tight.
The longest memory I have with the LoVE shirt was the Green Legion trip to San Francisco that October, on of my favorite sports trips I’ve ever taken. The entire trip was memorable with the Phillies in the middle of their own championship run, a trip to the Skywalker Ranch, a Fleet Week performance by the Blue Angels, and of course, a big Eagles 4th quarter comeback victory at old Candlestick Park. The LoVE shirt stayed with me throughout the rest of the 2008 NFL season culminating in a surprise run to the NFC Championship and while that didn’t work out for us, a bond was secured.
In 2009, the LoVE shirt made the Green Legion Invasion to Pacific Beach in San Diego where we saw LaDanian Tomlinson’s 100th career TD during an Eagles loss and followed that up in 2010 with another Invasion in Nashville, yet another loss. It was there in Nashville after throwing my Brand Graham rookie jersey into the trash that I decided I was done with wearing jerseys altogether. I still preferred my LoVE shirt which had nothing to do with the fact that I would throw away my jersey every year after a bad loss.
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Free of the constraints of a jersey covering it up its glory, the LoVE shirt fired back with back to back road trip wins for the first time, Miami in 2011 and New Orleans in 2012. We took a year off the road together in 2013, but you better believe the LoVE shirt was with me under 20 layers during that sub-zero playoff game vs. the Saints during Wildcard Weekend that year.
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There were more memories made together since then, with trips all over the country and adventures to Playa Hermosa in Costa Rica. The LoVE shirt witnessed Carson Wentz’ knee buckling at the LA Coliseum last year and gave me the strength not to give up. Every Eagles win and loss we were together and there have been too-many-to-count games where I had to dig it out of the bottom of the hamper from the previous week and wear it under something else to save me from the ridicule of stains and smells.
The fondest memory with the LoVE shirt is obviously this past February 4th where I was able to watch and celebrate with friends who I have enjoyed friendships with two or three times as long me and LoVE have witnessed Eagles games. With the Championship secured, the parade attended, and pictures with both the Lombardi Trophy and a real Eagles Super Bowl ring (thank you Torrey Smith, Jr!) I’m now faced with this conundrum: is it time to retire the LoVE shirt and go out on top, starting a new tradition? Will we, through such blatant disrespect, be faced with karmic retribution for breaking this tradition?
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I’m at a loss here in the same way all the other crazy, diseased Eagles fans out there may be struggling with a similar decision. I have plenty of other amazing pieces of Eagles game day gear, but can LoVE ever really be replaced? I’m leaning on retiring on top, bringing it back for big or important games, like my very own Kate Smith. I’m curious to see what everyone else who’s grappling with this dilemma is planning on doing for the upcoming season: continuing with tradition or retiring their hat/jersey/socks/LoVE shirt and beginning a new one. If the players have moved on, why is it so hard for us to do the same?
PhillyMike is a contributor to Philly Influencer. You can follow him on Twitter (@PhillyMike) and e-mail him at [email protected].
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