He got an Eagles Super Bowl LVII tattoo, then added a crying Michael Jordan when they lost
"I would still do it if I had to do it over again,” Eagles fan Malcolm Garland said.
The day after the Eagles lost the Super Bowl to the Kansas City Chiefs, Malcolm Garland found himself incredibly upset — not at the Eagles Super Bowl LVII champs tattoo he’d gotten inked on his thigh a week prior, but by something unthinkable he witnessed at the store.
“I was at the dollar store and I seen some guy was returning his Eagles stuff. That made me so mad,” Garland said. “People ask me would I cover up my tattoo. I would never. I love the Eagles to death. That’s why I did the dumb thing.”
Instead of covering up his premature Eagles Super Bowl LVII tattoo — which includes the Lombardi Trophy and a Batman signal projecting the words “It’s a Philly Thing” — Garland doubled down and asked his tattoo artist, Fon, to add a portrait of a crying Michael Jordan above it, a nod to the long-running meme sports fans use to express sorrow over their team’s loss.
“He didn’t know what he was tattooing until I got there,” Garland said. “Literally during the whole tattoo he’d stop sometimes and laugh, and then we’d both laugh and say ‘This is crazy!’”
» READ MORE: ‘It’s a Philly thing’ is the Eagles’ Super Bowl slogan, but what does it mean?
In true Philly fashion, Garland, 31, a mover from Elkins Park, said he has no regrets about either tattoo.
“I was absolutely confident they would win. I would still do it if I had to do it over again,” he said. “They laughing at my [Instagram] page all over the world, but it’s fine because anything I love and believe in, I don’t have a problem with. It could be me vs. the world and I’m OK with it.”
Garland actually wanted to get an Eagles Super Bowl LII tattoo back in 2017, when the Birds were previously in the playoffs, but his tattoo artist at the time was booked.
“I would have been successful in that year,” he said.
When the team made the playoffs again this year, Garland wasn’t going to miss his chance.
“I wanted to get it, clearly, before the Super Bowl,” he said. “I told Fon my idea and he was like ‘Let’s do it.’ He didn’t say wait and I wouldn’t have listened to him anyway.”
People said “some crazy words” to Garland about getting the tattoo early, but he ignored all that. Mainly, he remembers when someone told him that he’s the embodiment of “if having faith was a person.”
Garland, a father of three, watched the Super Bowl at his house and then went over to his cousin’s club in Feltonville to watch the end of the game.
“I believed we were going to win up until the last play. I said, ‘It’s eight seconds left, we about to run this back,’ that’s how much of a fan I am,” Garland said. “People think I’m not realistic, but if I believe in something, that’s what it is.”
When the game was over, he just sat for a little bit, with one word running through his head: “Wow.”
“I could not have been mad, we had a great game. All I could think about is how great Jalen Hurts is,” Garland said. “He reminds me of myself — when somebody doubts you, you just want to prove them wrong. He’s probably in the gym right now.”
Shortly after the game was over, Garland texted Fon to tell him he wanted to make a deposit and come back for another tattoo that week.
“I didn’t know what I was going to get. At first I was going to get all this crazy stuff about Kansas City,” he said. “Then I was watching something and saw the Michael Jordan meme and that exactly describes how I feel.”
He briefly considered getting a tattoo of Eagles coach Nick Sirianni crying during the National Anthem at the Super Bowl, since it was widely compared to the Michael Jordan meme.
“It was out of those two, but I felt Jordan was more iconic,” he said. “When I actually got the tattoo it was Michael Jordan’s birthday, so it happened to work out.”
Garland, who has more than 50 tattoos including portraits of his kids, an eagle holding the Liberty Bell, and a Flyers tattoo that reads “Philadelphia’s Flyest,” said he loves his new tattoos, which took Fon several hours each.
Even if the Birds make it to Super Bowl LVIII and win, Garland said he’s not just going to add another “I” to his existing tattoo.
“That tattoo is very detailed. The Phoenix skyline is in the tattoo letters,” he said. “It’s for this Super Bowl. I wouldn’t want to change it for another Super Bowl.”
Garland said he’s glad he took a chance on something he believed in, even if it didn’t fall in his favor.
“It’s the thrill of having faith in something and if it would have played out it would have been one of the greatest moments,” he said. “Just because it didn’t play out the way I wanted, it’s still a great moment. I can’t be mad. We had a great season, an amazing season.”