Rodgers: Dad passed down a love of the Eagles, and fishing

“You’ve got to be taught before it’s too late. Before you are six, or seven, or eight.” — Oscar Hammerstein II

“This shall not excuse the injuries thou hast done me …” — William Shakespeare, "Romeo and Juliet"

The truly best thing about the Eagles winning the Super Bowl was that I got to watch them finally win the whole darn thing with my dad. 

As with most Eagles fans, the genetic code to root for the Birds was passed down through my dad: The veins of the custom of rooting for your hometown team ran deep as the anthracite layers of his Pottsville home.

There would be no trying to boost your self-esteem by rooting for some team half a country away around our house, no sir.

And so it came to pass that I was born and bred to suffer through decades of failure with the Birds and to hate all things Cowboys (particularly Lee Roy Jordon, whom Dad referred to as a cheap shot “artist” in front of us, and cheap-shotting SOB when he thought we weren’t listening). 

Dad and I would listen to scratchy AM radio renditions of the fight song on rides back from church while my mom and brother suffered as through secondhand smoke, the voices of Andy Musser, Charlie Swift or Merrill fighting through the static. 

They’d regale us with the exploits of the Sneads and the Liskes and the Gabriels ( I was thrilled when the Birds picked up Roman Gabriel — my dad scoffed, said Gabriel was in his “dotage” and ran like he had “rickets”). 

Running backs named Po James and Tom Sullivan ran into terrifying thickets of tacklers, and more often than not we’d anguish through another week of a Birds loss.

I fish today because my dad took me then. We’d fish a local stream and dad would hang around the bridge. He’d let me explore on my own and, no doubt sowing the seeds of a “catch what’s there” headboat captain I’d steam up the creek catching creek chubs, smallmouth bass, suckers and only rarely a trout. 

I’d come back and he’d have a creel full of rainbows.

“Well, John,” he said with wry grin, “this IS where they stock them.”

Well, too, I remember a Little League practice scheduled for the first day of trout season. I stuck around after practice to talk to the coach, telling him that I wouldn’t be there. My dad asked me what I was talking to the coach about and I, naively, told him. 

It was a long ride home that night and you best believe that I was not only at practice, but early. My mom dropped me off at the creek later and my dad and grandfather were all smiles with a bunch of trout. 

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That wasn’t the first time I was mad at my dad, nor the last, but like every other time I knew, deep down, he was right.

Because of my dad I never ran out of hooks. Or bait. He’d always take the time to stop and get it for me, stopping after work or football practice. Because of my dad I read Robert Travers, and Ernest Hemingway, and Aldo Leopold before I ever saw an alder thicket or lit up marlin.

So Dad, thanks for all of that. The win was worth all of it: the years of dropped passes, the heartbreaks, the 2-12 seasons, and the long bus rides home from the Vet in defeat.

The Birds finally did it, and we got to watch it together through all the years. No ref can take this one away. Nor Texx Shramm. This one’s all ours. Take that, Lee Roy Jordan. 

Ya’ cheap-shotting SOB.

Reports, comments or questions to captjackrodgers@comcast.net.