What it was like in Philadelphia the night we won the Super Bowl
It was right around 10 p.m. Sunday and for some reason I couldn’t remove myself from the hardwood on my friend’s floor. I was glued to it. My face was wet. I have no memory of how I got there. Two minutes before, I had been standing and yelling and staring as the Eagles won it all. Now I was in a puddle on the ground.
I cannot tell you what you will do with your body when your team finally wins a Super Bowl. I can assure you I lost control of mine. I lost the ability to stop tears from pouring down my face. I lost the capacity to care about the will or desire of another person’s team. I only had control of the present moment, which belonged to Philadelphia and our victory — a God’s Dream residents like me imagined for generations.
A few people in the house suggested we run to Broad Street, the agreed meeting place for pandemonium and championship shenanigans. We ripped several shots of alcohol and bolted for the elevator. Fireworks and gunshots already were exploding into the night.
Outside people were running. Boys running in Kevin Kolb jerseys, a reminder of the impotent franchise that used to live here. Women were laughing after long pulls from green flasks. It was as much of a purge as it was a carnival for the football demented. If there was any law to be respected that night, it was surely forgotten.
Hundreds became thousands in minutes walking on Broad Street and Fairmount Avenue. Then, a phenomena many shared began happening for blocks. Classmates who hadn’t seen each other in years embraced in the middle of intersections. Fans cried together with strangers over the thought of something so magical happening in front of them. There were waves of emotion on every side of every street and everyone understood.
In front of City Hall, beautiful black boys playfully chided Tom Brady with police officers. There was even a crew of us, through giggles, forcing one officer to say “Free Meek,” a nod to the imprisoned North Philly rapper whose “Dreams & Nightmares” intro, if it already wasn’t, catapulted to Philly’s “If I Ruled The World.”
“Say free Meek, bro!” one said.
“Say it, bro!” another said.
“I’ll give you two dollas!” said a third.
“FREE MEEK!” the officer blurted out. And everyone lost it.
At that moment, I looked at everything and everyone, taking in the commotion. There were people hanging from street signs and lamps mounted on poles. Fans climbed the gates of City Hall and probably had a party inside. Kids were moon-diving off hotel awnings at the Ritz-Carlton. A gentleman ate literal horse shit. A woman got engaged with a 40 of OE in her hand. Several people just decided, randomly, to get naked. Many yelled “Big Dick Nick” on Chestnut Street, honoring Nick Foles for his ballsy performance. Dozens sat atop dump trucks while others wrote “Fuck Tom B” on the front to record the night in history, or at least until the truck gets cleaned.
I can’t tell you anything about how post-championship parties happen, who is exalted and protected during them, why the majority are allowed to act this way compared to other, more important, riotous occasions regarding American life and the outpour of disgust that follows when you compare the two. All I can tell you is: if you weren’t there, you do not fully know.
You do not fully know what it is like to weep with the people who have shared the pain fandom can offer to a fan base for 60 years. I cannot describe the euphoria that occurs standing next to throngs of folks, once dejected, now heralded as champions. It is impossible to give weight to watching middle-aged white people rap numerous, non-slurred, bars of a city’s rap champion because he is a figure of triumph from underdog status this city, this fan base, this team has always known or leaned into.
All I can tell you is that there was love in Philadelphia that night. It was in the people there and the stories they told, the passion they spoke with. It was not the unrequited love we sometimes pour into our work, our families, or our teams. It was the real-life interaction we only see firsthand, that is reciprocated, that is mighty but also unique to our lives when it is peaking. It was a fondness of the same struggle, background and collectiveness that Philly has always known yet doesn’t always show. It was our soul, our pathos, streaking — a bright moment in our pained history.
Around 1 a.m. that Monday, as we were still in the streets near Broad and Catherine, a man approached my group with a boombox. Of course, he was playing “Dreams & Nightmares” because by this point of the night, I had seen teenagers twerk on SUVs to the song, so it was expected. He, I, and a few dozen spent three minutes going bar for bar. Each word another flourish, every crescendo a non-stop flurry of hype and drama drawn from redemption.
Boombox Man went to leave after laughing and saying “I ain’t never seen shit like this before. We really won this shit.” To which I nodded and laughed with him, a nervous one because this still didn’t seem real.
Honestly, Philly probably wouldn’t have it any other way. A team full of the doubted for a city full of the hesitant, the counted-out, the unruly. Eventually, I found my way home as the celebrations died down. A friend called and both of our voices were gone, both of us recognized each other in Eagles gear, and both just bawled. I opened my phone and scrolled on Twitter and saw more of the same: fathers and sons embracing, couples kissing, people honoring the moment for themselves and their families who didn’t live to see the day.
It was refreshing. For the entire night — like most of my time overzealously devoting myself to this city and its team — it was clear as day: I was not alone. Philly lived and breathed together in championship ecstasy.