As I woke on an early September morning in 1991, I had the feeling. It was the same feeling a child has on Christmas Day, or before blowing out the candles on their birthday cake. To me, it may as well have been New Years. The slate was now clean, and I had built a lot of hope leading up to this day.

It was football season, and more importantly for me, it was a time of year that brought perspective and nostalgia for days gone by. I was building my memory banks with great moments, and although I realized these moments were trivial in their relation to the real world, they were moments that would define periods of my life.

I am an Eagles fan and for nearly all of my 35 years, I can remember opening day by the friends I hung out with, the music I listened to, and how my life was unfolding. To me, dressing up in an Eagles jersey and painting my face with the team’s colors is not where my passion lies. Watching the Eagles is about the emotion it allows me to experience and the senses and feelings it provokes. It is deeper then screaming and yelling at the TV.

As a warm breeze passing through my window, helped to lift my head from the pillow that bright morning, the scent of fried eggs and bacon arose from the kitchen below, as my mother prepared Sunday breakfast. All of the special feelings returned and the bitter heartbreak I suffered beginning with the end of the previous season had suddenly lifted, stored with the other years of lost seasons past.

I made my way down the stairs, and nodded to my Father, who seamlessly passed me the Sports section of the Philadelphia Inquirer as I headed into the kitchen just in time to see my mom place the last strips of bacon onto my plate. She passed my perfectly prepared sunny side eggs to me as easily and unemotionally as my Father had passed the paper to me previously.

No words were spoken, this was my time and my Parents and Siblings knew this. Don’t mess with me on Sunday morning, cause I ‘aint easy… at least at this time of year. Distant but outwardly happy, I don’t how or when I became like this… it just always was. Apparently at the age of 3, I sat with my Father as he watched TV. As the story goes, he was watching the Eagles get destroyed by the hated Dallas Cowboys, and in a moment of disgust, changed the channel and tossed the remote. At this action, I screamed and cried until he put the game back on. It was the birth of a new fan, and I still am known to cry from time to time during commercial breaks.

In fact, I generally refuse to watch a game anywhere but my own home, where I control the remote and have little fear of the channel changing.

So as I sat with my breakfast, and swallowed it down nearly whole, I read over the articles detailing the Eagles hopes for that season, player profiles, and the predictions for the game that day against the Green Bay Packers. I liked opening days like this. It was an easy opponent and the Eagles were the popular pick to go to the Super Bowl this particular year. The star player at the time was quarterback Randall Cunningham, my favorite player, but in these days, the thing to watch on the Eagles was the defense. The entire defense was studded with future Hall of Famer’s and just downright mean and nasty players like Andre “Dirty” Waters, Wes Hopkins, Seth Joyner, Jerome Brown and the already legendary Reggie White. The team was young and coming off a very promising, yet in the end, extremely disappointing season.

Each hour crept by slower and slower leading up to the 1pm kickoff and by the time the pre- game show was over I had already smoked a pack of cigarette’s, keeping pace with my Father as much as possible. The layers of smoke in our TV room gave the appearance of morning fog over a swamp and set the tone for what would be one the more disappointing moments in my sports life, and also reminded me of the infamous “Fog Bowl” the Eagles played not long before.

The Eagles received the ball to open the game and promptly drove down the field, toppling the inept Green Bay defense with a style and presence that only a championship caliber team can play with. This was it. This was the debut performance for what I was sure would be the first Eagles Super Bowl. As the Eagles neared the Goal Line with just a minute gone by in the 2nd quarter, I held my breath as Cunningham dropped back to pass. The offensive line, the teams only true weakness, suddenly caved in. Packer’s linebacker Bryce Paup had barely made it through, fell to the ground, popped back up and lunged at Cunningham, hitting him directly on the knee and effectively tearing nearly every ligament in half.

The season was over just as it had begun and the fist in my throat grew larger and larger as I tried to hold back my emotions. And that was that. The passion just emptied from me as if someone had plunged a knife in my heart and blood poured relentlessly from my chest. Cunningham was gone, and the Eagles season was essentially over.

Eventually they would go on to a winning record and play competitively, with the defense putting on what may have been the best team and individual defense ever displayed. I continued to watch every game with the same ritualistic energy that I had since the age of 6, but to me, without Cunningham, the offense was inconsistent and incomplete.

As I sat and watched the rest of the game against Green Bay, a solid 20-3 win, I argued with my Father as to whether the rest of the season was even worth watching. He loved Cunningham as much as I, but also was a fan of the backup QB, historically everyone’s favorite player in Philadelphia, no matter who held that title. I just realized that no matter how good the next QB played, it just wouldn’t be the same. There would be no domination. No cakewalk to perfection. No chance at immortality. And chance at long lasting peace. A championship for Philadelphia would have to wait another year.

As I lay my head on the pillow that evening, my heart and soul felt empty and cold as I watched the window fog over from the cooler September night. Every ten minutes or so, my stomach would churn, my fists would clench and my face would cringe, reliving the moment as I tried to conjure up ways to get back at Paup for destroying the Eagles with one play. The salve that the opening game should have provided me turned to poison and affected me in ways that are probably not normal nor should be encouraged when teaching children to love sports.

But to this day, I still have yet to miss an Eagles game, and I suspect I never will. It’s not something I’ve set out purposely to do or something I boast of. It’s a need that I have and just work around. Some people drive their kids to events, others do yard work, and many people go to church every Sunday… I just watch the Eagles. It’s not about the wins and losses, the successes and failures. It’s about the hopes and dreams it gives birth to. The passion derives from a sense of pride and a connection that could only be compared to one with family. Randall was my best friend, Reggie my Uncle, and Jerome my big brother. The pictures I have of them in my mind are the same as the ones I have of my brother, sisters and cousins. It’s as much a part of me as any birthday, Christmas, or New Years past. And this is why I am a fan.