Eagle Joe's Joy Ride

By Tim McManus
The Phanatic Magazine

Eagle Joe answered the phone poolside, where he had been reading football magazines through blind eyes.

It was at this very spot where he had received the call weeks prior, the one that brought a 57-year-old man to tears. The one that made him the luckiest man on the planet.

Ironically enough, Joe’s journey was born out of a distaste for travel. He never cared much for long trips, preferring instead to stay local during his week vacation from ACME. With this in mind, a friend back in 1975 suggested that Joe take a short drive to Widener during his time off to watch an Eagles practice.

That was it.

“Call it love at first sight, call it what you want,” Eagle Joe said. “It was one of the best times I’ve ever had.”

Joe came to an immediate conclusion – he would schedule his vacation around Training Camp, and join the Birds every summer as they prepped for another season.

He has been there every season since.

Getting to his favorite destination has been harder and harder in recent years, however. He was diagnosed with retinitis pigmentosa 25 years ago, a condition that strikes at peripheral vision and impairs night vision. Things have worsened lately, and in March Eagle Joe was deemed legally blind, forcing him to quit the job at ACME that he had held for 41 years.

“I’m not one to give a sermon,” Eagle Joe quipped, “but they often say that the man upstairs closes one door and opens up another. That’s what happened to me.”

Only this door was a luxury model.

Determined to still make it to camp this season, Eagle Joe wrote a letter to Andy Reid and contacted members of the organization, telling them of his dilemma. In class fashion, the Eagles responded with optimal news: They had arranged a limousine service to pick Joe up in the morning and drop him off at night for four different days of Training Camp. Said they couldn’t have their training camp without Eagle Joe.

“I was out here by the pool, like I am now,” Joe said. “I sat here with tears running down my face, and I almost fell through the floor.

“How many football teams or Fortune 500 companies, if that’s what you want to call them, would do something like this for anybody? They’re busy putting a football team together and getting ready for the season, and they found time to think of me.”

So just like he has for so many years now, Eagle Joe will be at Lehigh to get a sneak peak at the talent. As in years prior, they will lift the velvet rope for him, giving him access to the field and players that most fans will never be granted.

And don’t think it goes unappreciated. As Eagle Joe sat poolside outside his Exton apartment complex, with his trip to camp just days away, he conjured up the image that has come to define gratitude in the midst of struggle.

“I consider myself…because of what these people have done for me, how they accepted me and brought me in as one of their own…I consider myself the luckiest man on the face of the Earth.”

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You can contact Tim at tmcmanus@phanaticmag.com