So Eagles fans, obviously excited to see their team playing in their fourth Super Bowl, and their second in the last five seasons.
There are so many across NEPA proudly sporting their midnight green right now, and for one fan in Clarks Summit, the Eagles have a special place in his heart.
When Phil DeSarno and his wife built their Clarks Summit home 11 years ago, he made only one request.
“One day when we finish the basement, you have to give me the ability to do whatever I want, and she agreed to it. It was a year or two that I started working on it, and as I started putting it together, everything was fine until the paint color started going up and then she said, ‘Oh my God, what are you doing?’ We’re doing an Eagles man cave, and we’re gonna do it the right way,” explained DeSarno.
The walls are packed to the edge with green stuff, but Phil’s love of the Eagles started back when he was growing up, thanks to his father.
“The Eagles were the one team that every season he would get so excited to watch. The connection with the Eagles was really with my dad. Every single Sunday with my dad watching them play, that was our time when we connected,” explained DeSarno.
After Philly was eliminated in the playoffs by New Orleans in 2013, DeSarno spoke with his dad like always. It would be their last conversation.
“Literally talked to me and said all I wanted to do was to live and see them win a Super Bowl and I was like, ‘Dad, me too, but we got this.’ That night he went to bed, died in his sleep, and he never saw them win a Super Bowl,” said DeSarno.
DeSarno is a teacher in the Abington Heights School District. One of his former students, an employee of the Eagles, helped to honor the memory of the man that passed his love of the birds down to Phil.
“Sent a nice letter with it too, thinking of your dad. And the football says in loving memory of Pasquale ‘Pat’ DeSarno. Of anything that I have, that token right there of gratitude and love is probably my favorite possession down here,” described Desarno.
Desarno, who has passed down his love of the Birds to his son and daughter, was in Minneapolis for the Eagles’ Super Bowl LII triumph, and says he’ll be in Philadelphia with his wife for LVII. And is he confident?
“100 percent, 100 percent. We’re the best team in the NFL this year,” stated DeSarno.
