PhillyMike
As some of you may know, I moonlight with The Green Legion running their social media pages, but before becoming an employee, I was a long-time traveler and customer. I don’t travel to every road game, but when it was announced one night before Super Bowl 52 (where the Eagles beat the Patriots, 41-33) that Brian Dawkins was to be enshrined in the Pro Football Hall of Fame Class of 2018, my friends and I decided inside McGillin’s Olde Ale House where we were warming up for the Super Bowl, that this weekend’s trip was a no-brainer.
Instead of spending the weekend in Canton, we made the executive decision to stay in Cleveland, about 60 miles away. We had over 1,000 travelers with our group alone and Canton just doesn’t have the capacity or quality that we were looking for. Those that were traveling by bus from Philly to Cleveland gathered down on Columbus Avenue at 7 A.M. on Friday morning and if you don’t think there were more than a handful tailgating a bit, you don’t know any Philadelphia Eagles fans. That’s right … tailgating a bus ride. Never change, Philly.
While all the Eagles fans were awash in green smiles, the weather certainly didn’t cooperate. There were flight delays and cancellations all day long. My own flight was cancelled, so I changed it to Pittsburgh, and some other long-time friends happened to see this and stopped to pick us up on the airport to drive the rest of the way (thanks again Jeremy and Piggy!)
So here’s my quick review about Cleveland: not that bad! The city was clean and walkable. Everyone was friendly and curious as to what the hell was going on in their city with all these Eagles fans swarming the streets. Every restaurant we ate in was amazing and they’ve also got a big craft brewery scene, which seems like could be said about every city nowadays. The curious thing though was that downtown was dead throughout the weekend, similar to Kansas City last year. The streets were empty and there was no real traffic on the roads at all, except for fans in green chanting and hollering the whole time.
Saturday was a complete celebration to remember. We took over the entire Jerzee’s Canton facility, inside and outside with a three-hour open food and drink party. There were two DJs that got people dancing, Eatz and Treats provided an absolutely amazing dessert spread, and the fans took full advantage of the Eagles helmet ice luge. It was hot all day, but everyone enjoyed themselves.
Getting inside the Hall of Fame was no easy task as we had to wait an hour in the blistering heat just to get in. One employee mentioned that they “weren’t expecting any of this,” which is baffling as this year’s class was basically a “Who’s Who” of the last decade in the NFL, with three fan bases [Chicago, Baltimore, and Philly] within one day’s drive. You’ve probably seen or read reports that Eagles fans outnumbered all other fan bases combined and there is no hyperbole with that statement. The Hall was all high fives, chants, and “GO BIRDS!” and we wouldn’t apologize for any of it.
After spending a brief time inside, we popped back over to the party because, well, it was a party. Fueled up for the rest of the day and at 6:15 P.M. began our signature Green Legion March To The Stadium. Let me say this, it’s always fun to go to a road game to cheer on the Birds, but the underappreciated aspect of these events is rolling in with 1,000+ other fans chanting the whole way. The police on hand actually held up traffic for 10 minutes for us to all cross the street together as one. That’s right, the Canton police shut down traffic at the Hall of Fame an hour before the ceremony began on their busiest day of the year.
Once we got through, some buddies and I decided that we’d skip some of the first speeches to walk around and check out the scene and saw these grown men in full Dallas Cowboys uniforms with pads! One of them thought he was Captain America with a 76 jersey and “America’s Team” on the nameplate. Captain America’s Team decided to bring his daughter around for this terrible display as well! My buddy Kev and I debated whether we’d still hear Dawkins’ speech if we called Child Protective Services and decided we’d better not. I decided to take an ironic picture with them. My buddy Kev decided to tackle the one wearing T.O.’s uniform. My other buddy Jeff criticized Kev on his poor tackling form.
After laying waste to the Cowboys fans, it was time to enter the stadium. Brian Urlacher was finishing up as we made our way to our seats. The following 30 minutes were probably the most emotional moments in Eagles history. Six months to the day of the Eagles raising their first-ever Lombardi Trophy, Brian Dawkins gave one of the most memorable Hall of Fame induction speeches I’ve ever heard. There is no homer-ism in that statement. It was a joy to hear in person and we went absolutely bonkers when B-Dawk saved the best for last in thanking all the fans that made it out there. We were loud and proud and gave Dawk all we had.
I hope my voice returns soon enough to get back on the airwaves with the Philly Influencer crew and shut Jigsaw down again.
Once Dawkins was done, a few of us went behind the stage where a smaller press area was set up for the inductees to make some comments. We were all screaming and hollering for our newest Hall of Fame member and thanked him over and over with “E-A-G-L-E-S EAGLES!” and “BRI-AN DAW-KINS!” chants. I hope he got the picture of how much he meant to all of us here in town.
After a long day of fun and emotion, we rolled back to Jerzee’s and everyone enjoyed a couple more beverages, food, and fun before boarding our buses for the long trip back to Cleveland before returning to Philly on Sunday. It’s safe to say everyone had a blast and it was the perfect way to kick off our first Super Bowl Championship defense season. We all made a lot of new friends and got to finally meet a lot of fans from all over the country who joined up with us.
If you couldn’t make it and feel like you missed out, you’d be right. We’re already planning the next trip to Ohio in 2025 when “The Bodyguard” Jason Peters is elected on his first ballot.
Now our sights are set on NFL Opening Day one month from today. It’s time to rest up and recharge and get locked in for an amazing 2018 schedule and watch our future Hall of Famers start their journey to Atlanta in February 2019.
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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