The Quick Answer: a 25 cent football helmet machine.
The Long Answer: From years of agonizing ups and downs
where loyalty is tested in the hell fires that spawned
little annoying demons of silver/blue, red/blue, and red/orange.
Growing up in Las Vegas, the "Entertainment Capital of the World", in the late 70's was about as entertaining as watching an off-broadway stage play starring Tony Danza in drag. (Which I think actually ran at the Riviera for a while). But like all desert dwelling kids with nothing to do, I found ways to pass the time.
Like other kids, I had a paper route and blew most of that money on Asteroids,
Space Invaders, and Pinball. I always saved a couple bucks for football cards
(Topps or Fleer chipboard gum-stained variety - we didn't have 'upper deck'
glossy cards back then)and our neighborhood version of childhood gambling:
NFL Football helmets. Yep, thats right, put a quarter in and DAMN if you didn't
get another lame Baltimore Colts or New England Patriots (2-14 that year) helmet!
EVERY quarter was a crap shoot.
I admit, at the point of near-vomiting, I was a bit of a front-runner at 11 and I think the winningest team of the day was the Steelers. I knew nothing about them, I just knew they recently beat the Los Angeles Rams on TV and that was good enough for me. I put a quarter in the NFL Helmet lotto dispenser and instead of a black and gold helmet, out came a Green helmet with silver wings on each side. I thought it was very cool looking. I kept it, despite wanting to trade it at first, and through a little magazine called "Football Digest" (We didn't have ESPN or nfl.com back in those days) I discovered that this was the Philadelphia Eagles, and with a "superback" named Wilbert Montgomery, was a serious up-and-comer in the NFL.
I read anything I could find about them, magazines, football stats from the backs of my Topps, chipboard, gum-stained cards, anything. The next season, I was going to watch for this team.
It just so happened that the season I chose to start following the birds was the 1980 football season. For a little 11 year old front runner, the timing couldn't have been better. I only saw one televised game in Las Vegas that year, Eagles vs Saints (of course we didn't have DirectTV back then). Which was an Eagle blowout. This Eagle team went on to a 12-4 record and I watched them destroy the only team I truly hated in the NFL at the time: The Dallas Cowboys. This new favorite team went to the Superbowl the first season I followed them. It was fate. I'm sure.
I began to trade my worthless Franco Harris, Stallworth, and Bradshaw cards
for the more valuable (in my mind) Jaworski, Carmichael, and Montgomery cards
(which I still have today). I couldn't wait for the Superbowl, my best friend
at the time was (and still is) an avid Raiders fan. He couldn't believe that
I was turning on him and his team to support the Eagles! He was still ticked
off at the Eagles because earlier that year Philadelphia played Oakland and
beat them 10-6.
Coming into this Superbowl game, the Raiders were the "underdogs"
(a new term to me that I would NEVER forget in the subsequent Eagle seasons).
I was sure that my new favorite team was guaranteed a Super Bowl victory
over the evil black jerseyed Raiders!
Then, reality set in, the game started, Rod Martin of the Raiders was EVERYwhere,
he intercepted so many of Jaworski's passes that I think he started calling for
"fair catch" every time Jaworski dropped back to pass (a la John McKay of the Buccaneers). It was awful. We managed 1 touchdown to Keith Krepfle, not even Montgomery or Carmichael! and one Tony Franklin field goal. Despite the
touchdown cutting the Raiders' lead to only 2 touchdowns (24-10)
our defense: Bill Bergey, John Bunting, Randy Logan, etc.
just couldn't stop Pumpkin-head Plunkett and his offense from getting
into field goal range. They scored the final points of the game bring
the final score to 27-10.
At the end of it, I confess, I was 12 years old and crying like a baby. I don't know why. As a 12 year old boy, I knew that crying was evil and make-fun worthy by every OTHER 12 year old boy, but I couldn't help myself. I sensed a great disappointment of missed opportunity. In fact, prior to that game I NEVER had any emotional attachment to any team besides maybe the little church soccer teams I played for, this was truly something I'd never felt before.
In hindsight, I believe that this new found 'attachment' was what made me a true Eagles fan. Even though I had never set foot in Philadelphia and was trapped in a mob-infested desert hell-hole in Nevada: I was still emotionally attached to this football team on the other side of the Earth.
I somehow, came to identify with a professional team, 'bled green' with, if you will, and Dick Vermeil was my new hero and my destiny as an Eagles fan would forever be cemented, despite that loss to the Raiders in Superbowl XV.
Part 1 ends with the Eagles reaching the Superbowl, part 2 will catalogue the excruciating tests of loyalty I was soon to face as a new-born Eagles supporter.
