The Archive: When the Eagles won one for Philadelphia

On Saturday night, Jimmy Murray was in the back of a chauffeur-driven limousine, gliding down the Schuylkill Expressway toward Center City. The lights were shining brightly along Boat House Row, the downtown skyline was glowing warmly in the distance.

Murray had just finished a show at the WPVI-TV studios, a one-hour football special beamed live back to Dallas. The program was called " Shootout In Philly" and it was a preview of the NFC Championship game between the Eagles and the Cowboys.

Much of the hour was spent discussing the Philadelphia fans. A Dallas film crew spent a week in our town, shooting daytime scenes in the Italian Market, night-time scenes in Mary's Irish Rose Pub on Two St. "Real Real People," you might call it.

They interviewed a bunch of teenagers standing around a trash barrel fire in South Philadelphia. They were typical street-corner kids, decked out in leather jackets, their collars turned up, their shoulders hunched stiffly against the wind.

The kids talked, they sang but, mostly, they sneered. They sneered at the Dallas Cowboys the way they sneer at the cold every winter night. These kids learn early to size up strangers, figure out who can survive in the alley and who can't. The Cowboys, they agreed, were a team in short pants and Buster Brown collars.

"We're gonna beat you, Dallas," one kid shouted, jabbing his finger at the camera." We're gonna beat you baaaad."

Drew Pearson was on the panel with Murray. He watched the videotape a while, his eyes bulging. "Is this for real?" he asked in a whisper. "Man, these people are crazy."

An hour later, Jimmy Murray was riding back to town, shaking his head. He could just imagine the people in Dallas watching all this Philadelphia footage. Surely, they thought they were tuned into a National Geographic special about lost civilizations. I mean, people like that don't exist anymore, do they?

"No way those people can understand any of this . . . no way," the Eagles' general manager said. "In Dallas tonight, they're all talking about how many head of cattle they're gonna ship to market. They're saying, 'I hear the price of crude is going up another five cents a barrel.'

"Those people are into oil barrels, we're into trash barrels. They're wearing Gucci everything and we've got guys with no shirts on in zero degrees. But, hey, this is Philly. Unless you're from here, you can't appreciate what this game means.

"Playing Dallas here for the NFC Championship? Are you kidding me? This is the Super Bowl. The indoor game (in New Orleans) is nice but, for Philly, this is the Super Bowl."

Murray looked out the window at the icy city, all white and glittering like something you'd see on a model train platform. It was quiet for the moment, but Murray could feel the emotion rumbling beneath his feet, a geyser that had waited two decades to erupt.

"This town is gonna explode tomorrow," Murray said. "Absolutely explode. This is like Christmas Eve, I can't wait."

Jimmy Murray drifted slowly through the Eagle locker room yesterday afternoon, moving from one embrace to another like a man in a dream. His hat had been smashed down on his head by too many playful hands. His tie was pointing due east.

Tears were trickling down his cheeks and dripping into this great rain barrel of an Irish smile. The way the little guy was glowing, you would've thought he spent the day standing in a reactor puddle at Three Mile Island.

Every so often, Murray would roll his eyes and say the magic word.

Champions. The Eagles dragged themselves to the top of the National Football Conference, burying the Cowboys, 20-7, at Veterans Stadium. It was a great moment for the players who worked like galley slaves to get here, but it was an even greater moment for Jim Murray because, well, this was his valentine to Philadelphia.

Jimmy Murray grew up in West Philly, went to West Catholic and fell in love with this town's sports teams back when they had trouble tying their shoes. For years, he sat in the upper deck at Franklin Field, rooting for the Eagles. He'd get heartaches that lasted all winter.

He went away for a while, working for a minor-league baseball team in Atlanta, then running a restaurant in Malibu, but he always knew he'd come back to Philadelphia. When he joined the Eagles in 1969, it was with the thought that someday, he would give the old gang from the upper deck something to cheer about.

Yesterday, it all came together. The Eagles and the City of Philadelphia tossed 20 years of bitter memories over their shoulders and floated off into a bright, if frigid, new day.

"I never experienced anything like this, ever," Murray said, his voice still trembling. "I looked around before the game today. There's 70,000 people in the stands, all singing 'God Bless America.' There's the Bishop McDevitt band unfurling that flag. People were crying, holding hands. Hey, that's what Philadelphia is all about.

"No way the Cowboys were gonna beat us. Not here, not today. We threw the Polish-American string band at them. We threw Andrea McArdle at them. The Cowboys weren't only playing the Eagles today, they were playing this whole town and they just weren't prepared for that.

"There's no words to describe what this win means to Philadelphia," Murray said. "There's no words to describe how good this is gonna make so many people feel. All over this whole area, people are dancing in front of their TVs right now, feeling proud. Dinners are burning on the stove and nobody cares.

"Do you think there will be some people smiling on the streets here tomorrow?" Murray said. "It's been 20 years since the Eagles gave this city a championship but these fans hung in there. This is their moment, they deserve it."

Leonard Tose did not always have the warmest relationship with the Philadelphia fans. In the early '70s, his limousine was pelted regularly in the Veterans Stadium parking lot. Air traffic controllers booed his helicopter. Three straight playoff seasons have changed all that. Yesterday, as Leonard Tose enjoyed his finest moment, he spoke first of the fans.

"I'm thrilled that we could do this for the people of Philadelphia," Tose

said, "and I'm thrilled with the way our fans responded. Today they showed

the rest of the country what real fans are like. These people are the best,

just like the guys in this (locker) room."

"The fans," strong safety Randy Logan said, his eyes glowing, "were like nothing I ever heard before. The only thing I could compare it with was the Michigan-Ohio State game at Ann Arbor. That was 105,000 people, but even then . . .

"We could feel it when we went down the tunnel to the field today. It was more than just the noise, it was the feeling, the emotion in the air. It was almost a spiritual thing, where the players and the fans were drawing strength from each other.

"The very first play, it was unbelievable. (Tony) Dorsett carried the ball. We hit him for no gain and the stadium just shook. I knew then what kinda day it was gonna be."

"They stuck with us, too," linebacker Jerry Robinson said. "We had some tough breaks but they picked us right up. I was thinking, 'Hey, I can't let these people down.' I wasn't here all those bad years but I know what it's like to be hungry. I can relate to that.

"The Cowboys might be America's Team," Robinson said, " but we're Philadelphia's Team and that's better."

"This is a special day," Jimmy Murray was saying. " My old friend, Bobby Ellis picked me up this morning. We drove past our old parish, Our Mother of Sorrows, 47th and Lancaster. We couldn't resist, we had to stop.

"We asked the nuns to let us in. We walked in, said a few Hail Marys. Then Bobby drove past Franklin Field. He said, 'I can see where I sat for the (1960) championship game.' I was getting goosebumps.

"Things flash back to me, like all the tough times. I thought about Joe Kuharich. I talked to him the other day, before he went back in the hospital. He looked at me, a twinkle in his eye. He said, 'You're gonna do some good against Dallas.' I feel like we won for him, too.

"Hey, this win didn't come easy. We had a touchdown called back, we had opportunities we failed to convert, but they guys never quit, they never lost their faith. They just kept battling back and battling back. It was a real, a real . . . "

Jimmy Murray paused, then smiled. "A real Philadelphia kind of win," he said. It was the ultimate compliment. The kids on the street corner, the ones standing around the trash barrel, sneering, they would understand.

(This article was originally published in January of 1981.)