Coming Out and Lifting Up

Coming out to my parents as gay has been my proudest achievement. Because of this, I was inspired to start the Gender and Sexualities Alliance at my old school, and had a whole new thing to be proud of.  However, what started out as a fun after school club ended up showing me underlying issues of bias that existed in my school and across all schools in America. Not once has the LGBTQ+ community ever come up in one of my classrooms in a positive manner. The use of hate speech is all too common in my high school and high schools everywhere. Staff intervention and inclusive lesson plans are the best ways to ensure this use of ignorant speech does not come up again, and could be great resources to teach about the community and other minority identities, but these results are not present in classrooms.  The LGBTQ+ community has no positive representation in their mainstream education, and their educators are not properly trained to handle the struggles that come with being LGBTQ+, and I desperately want to combat it. 

Without the proper training to support LGBTQ+ students, not only will teachers not be able to put a stop to the stigma against the LGBTQ+, but they will not be able to stop their own bias. In the tenth grade my drivers’ education teacher called transgender people “faggots” in front of the whole class, and upon me reporting him, only received a slap on the wrist. In the eleventh grade, I found out that some  teachers at my school did not know what the acronym LGBT stood for. This amount of ignorance and lack of training amongst staff was appalling and caused me to be quite disappointed, but motivated me to find a way to change this. I reached out to the past Gender and Sexualities Alliance adviser at the school, and with those resources and support, I made a plan to rejuvenate my heteronormative high school. 

Ignorant teachers, hateful students, and misunderstood LGBTQ teens plague schools nationwide, and this was my plan to fix mine. I started simply with printed out safe space posters and gave them to teachers I knew were allies to the community and also known to be very good listeners to their students. I would ask them to hang it up and quiz them about their knowledge of the LGBTQ+ community, offering more information they didn’t know to ensure they could better help students. From there, after receiving a positive response to the posters, I created a new poster.  On the back of each one was the definition of a majority of sexualities and gender identities that exist that teachers may not know of. I made every teacher who received a poster read the back as soon as they got it to start a conversation about how best to support LGBTQ+ students. 

Still, I had not reached all teachers, and a poster can only do so much, so I sat down with my principal to see how she supported LGBT students, and how better to reach more staff members with my message. She offered me the chance to sit in on a department head meeting and finally I felt like my start to a solution was being heard and breaking through to teachers. In the meeting, I listed off the definitions of sexualities and identities to them so we would all be on the same page. From there I  went on to describe how our school district has multiple homeless LGBTQ students, how hate speech is commonly used in classrooms, and how they as teachers could be the only adults in these children’s lives who could understand them and help them and could be the only ones who tell children to not use hate speech. 

The GSA changed how I view the education system, causing me to realize how steep the upward battle it is for a queer inclusive and safe education . With the club’s existence, the conversation about protecting and supporting LGBTQ+ students started, and I will fight to keep it alive no matter what I do or where I go.  There is so much more work to do to help LGBT youth in schools and end ignorance amongst students and staff, but with courage, passion and the will to start a conversation, change is on the horizon.

The 2018-19 Dover High School GSA

Leaving My Mark in High School

At the start of senior year, I had one goal for myself: do something you can be remembered for. This is when an idea hit me. My freshman year, our school had made a lip dub, and, in all honesty, it wasn’t all too good. Not only had they decided to only use television theme songs, but it was also filmed after school on a half-day causing fewer people to show up. I knew that I could put together such a feat that would ultimately be better, but it would take a lot. When the video was complete, I knew that I would have left my mark.

First, I had to talk to some higher powers of authority to have any sort of chance to get this pulled off. I went to the teacher last responsible for the previous lip dub: the journalism teacher, Mr. Ringel. Luckily, I had him as a teacher that year. When I approached him with the idea, he said “Yeah, I think that’d be a great idea. We just have to talk to Principal Manka before we start making any progress, so it doesn’t get shut down”.

Starting with only four people, we put down some songs that would presumably energize people as they heard it played throughout the halls. Narrowing it down to six, we next remixed the songs into one seven-minute track and chose a route through the school to walk that would not only be able to show off our school but would take the same amount of time as the track.

In early November, I met with Principal Manka to discuss our plans. As I explained what we were going to do, he seemed to be weighing out the pros and cons in his head. It appeared every suggestion I was proposing would have gotten the response “Well…” or “Yes but…”. After my explanation, he asked questions that only applied to explanations I hadn’t brought up. I took a deep breath and managed to answer his follow-ups while reiterating the information I previously told him. Finally, with a big smile on his face, he said: “I love it, let’s get started as soon as we can!”

November was a bit slow because it was mostly seniors and we all had to work on our college applications. Come mid-December, things kicked into full gear. The most important thing we needed to do was find a cameraman. Luckily one day the perfect one stumbled into Mr. Ringel’s room.

“Hi, I’m looking for the lip-dub thing or someone to contact about it” he confidently said walking in with a handheld tripod. Ringel and I turned our heads in unison. “Well, that’s reassuring that you’re holding a camera” I mentioned. His name was Will Bloom and he had taken photography for all high school. After a brief explanation of what we’d need him to do, it was clear he was the perfect person for the job. We worked as a trifecta from then on.

I handled the seniors who wanted to physically be in front of the camera. I took the songs and divided them into 34 roughly equal parts meant for two people to lip-sync at once. Then people had a first-come-first-serve opportunity to select which part they wanted. Once selected, Will had hand-drawn a map of the route we were taking, and we had to place where everyone would go. Simultaneously, Ringel was sending emails to all the staff to see who wanted their clubs promoted and if so, how many people would be there so we could control hallway space. Yet again, we found ourselves back on the map all working diligently to make sure every possible space was taken up and not too claustrophobic.

Finally, the day had come. Time to put all that hard work planning this event into a mere half-hour of actual production. It all went by so quickly. When I got to the where the video had ended and everyone was cheering at the top of their lungs, I was filled with excitement and content. Stamford High had redeemed itself from its previous, inferior lip dub. And my impact was able to impact my classmates with school spirit and unforgettable memories as well.

Hotel Scare

Often, people learn about you from the things that they hear. It is pretty interesting just how often your name comes up in conversation when you are not around. Some have good things to say, others not. The unfortunate reality of this aspect of life is that we are not always around to defend our reputation. Weirdly, it is very rare that we speak on ourselves. Living your truth, your story, and putting it into writing is a liberating feeling. 

    I pride myself on being as humble of a person that I can be. A steady balance of confidence and humility goes a long way. Rather than describe myself with words, I prefer to speak through my actions. Your actions, and the way you carry yourself is the way you write your own story. Your story is constantly being written each moment, and people are constantly reading. An action that took place in my youth, exemplifies myself as a person far more explicitly than through words. 

    In January of 2008, at the age of nine years old, an event in my life took place that I will never forget. On this Saturday morning, my family and I were taking the weekend to celebrate the fifth birthday of my younger sister at a hotel. The group consisted of my grandmother, elder great aunt, younger sister, three younger cousins, and me. We woke up this morning without the presence of my grandmother, leaving me, as the oldest cousin, in charge. This was not rare for us, she often attended AA meetings every morning. However, this normal Saturday morning turned scary as the hotel fire alarm went off. Being as young as we were at the time, most of my younger cousins and siblings went into panic. As with most fire alarms, there is always the thought of, “is this a test?.” Or, “is this the real deal?.” In the midst of my panicking cousins, all eyes turned to me for comfort, safety, and a plan. As a nine year old, I was fearful myself, but I understood that keeping my composure was key. If everyone saw that I was calm, than everyone would remain a sense of comfort. I came to the conclusion that making our way to the hotel lobby was the best move for us. Making it there was not as easy as it seemed.

    The task ahead of us was steep, literally. We were staying on the 16th floor and very top floor of the hotel building. That is 16 flights of stairs for my great aunt, who uses a walker and has very bad asthma. Yet, we were on the move. Our journey down the stairs was brutal. It almost felt as if each story was taking ten minutes to conquer. Constant stops for pumps of air from the inhaler, and rest of legs for my great aunt. My younger cousins and siblings were crying with fear. Again, even though there was fear within myself, I understood that I had to continue to lead and instill comfort. Slowly but surely, about an hour later, we made our way to the lobby. What a journey. Just to find out that the alarm was a drill. 

    As we made it to the lobby, we let out a collective sigh of relief. Everyone was calm and back to normal. Although it felt all for nothing, seeing everyone relaxed made it all worthwhile. The manager of the hotel was impressed with the way I acted upon the fire drill. He told me that I showed great courage and leadership. He went on to inform the City of Wilmington of my story, and a few months later I was honored by the city. The City of Wilmington represented me with a “Youth Citizenship” award. That day was one of the most proudest moments for my family and I.

    The thing about that day, was that I didn’t need to be rewarded for me to feel proud. The simple fact that my family was ultimately safe was enough for me. I could have used the last 700 words using different adjectives to describe myself, but this story is more representative of who I am.


From Career To College: A New Chapter

You may be thinking to yourself, why? Why would anyone go back to college after already forming a successful career.  You may be thinking, why would someone choose to leave structure, security and benefits to surround themselves with chaos, uncertainty, and doubt of the college lifestyle? Well, my name is James Davis and I’m here to explain to you my choice to part from Active Duty Coast Guard and start a new chapter at the University of Delaware.

Fresh out of Boot camp, 2011, assigned to Station Ponce de Leon Inlet, New Smyrna Beach Florida, awaiting my first voyage underway on a 47’ Motor Lifeboat.  The 47’ MLB is basically a huge floating fishing bobber on top of the water, which I was soon to find out. Our mission for the day was to travel down the eastern shore to watch the space shuttle launch out of Canaveral.  Extremely excited to see the shuttle launch for the first time and to be underway on a Coast Guard boat for the first time–not foreseeing how this trip would go so badly.  

The boat rocked back and forth and side to side with the unsteady slosh of the ocean waves.  I then began to yawn, then I started to burp. “Oh no! I am getting sea sick” I thought to myself. I had never been seasick before because I had never been out at sea before.  So there I was, brand new, surrounded by seasoned Coasties, about to blow chunks all over the place. How embarrassing it would be to chum for sharks my very first time underway.  But at this time it was pretty much inevitable. Three, two, one… Shuttle launch! I quickly made my way to the bow (front) of the boat, barely keeping down my breakfast. Within 5 minutes the launch was complete and I made my way straight to the taft rail on the stern(back) of the boat. Chunks Away! It was at this time I found out that the ocean and I were not going to be very good friends. Unfortunately for me I was already sealed in for 4 years of service. What a long, sea sick, shark chum filled four years it was.  

Oh just blowing chunks on the aft(rear deck) of the 47' motor life boat. But I never miss a photo op.

Not only were those four years filled with over-the-rail-hailing and fetal-position-life questioning moments, but also lengthy periods of time away from family and loved ones.  Four years and a thousand miles from home, I missed a lot. Birthdays, babies being born, holidays, opening days, weddings, first days of school, etc.. Being so far away, I was lucky to get to see everyone maybe three to four times a year. Losing friends is another casualty of military life. Everyone is constantly shifting, moving, just like the ocean sometimes you just want to put your feet back on solid ground and regrow some roots.  

Solid ground is something not easily found in active duty lifestyle.  Now out of Florida and newly stationed to Station New York my job was about to change. Ferry escorts, ferry escorts, ferry escorts, every day for hours upon hours at a time.  I was a bow gunner on the 29’ Response Boat Small. It was a new boat that was recently introduced into the Coast Guard. Riding in the 29’ RBS was like riding in a flat bottom aluminum Jon(fishing) boat on 4 foot seas.  It was named by some as the back breaker, or spine compressor. I see now that I am going to be stuck doing the same job, day in and day out for three more exhausting years on this horrible boat platform.  This is when anxiety started to kick in.

I remember the first time I got anxiety on a boat  The feeling of being trapped, unable to do what you want, which for me was to get back on solid ground. This is when I decided to complete my active duty tour as soon as my contract was over.  Approaching eight years of duty, I needed to find a new path to follow, on solid ground, with some roots. 

So why would someone leave security and structure for the uncertainty and chaos of the college world?  In my case, it was sickness. Physical and emotional. This is why I chose College–why I chose education and why I chose to study wildlife.  I felt this was ultimately the best way to achieve my new goal in life, to establish a new career to develop new roots on solid ground.

Prepare for the worst

Throughout my childhood, I was a competitive dancer. My afternoons, almost every day after school, were spent at my dance school practicing tap, jazz, ballet and hip-hop.  I was extremely committed to being a dancer, and although practices were demanding, I enjoyed every minute I spent at dance. However, as I was preparing to enter middle school, I decided that I was going to make a big change.  I wanted to try-out for a team sport, which I’d never done before. To do so meant I had to leave my competitive dance team so I’d be able to commit to team practices and games. That meant that I would be attending my last dance competition in April of 2011. Since it would be my final competitive experience, I decided that I was going to do something a bit out of my comfort zone. I wanted to dance a duet with one of my really close friends, Kaitlyn. I had never done a solo or small group performance, and the prospect of doing so was both frightening and exhilarating at the same time. I  was nervous at first, but I knew that if I practiced enough I would be okay. 

Kaitlyn and I began practicing close to every day- whether it was with our teacher’s guidance or not. It took a ton of effort to learn the whole dance and we did struggle quite a bit with some of the moves. We had to make sure that we were perfectly in sync if we wanted to score well. I had a lot of trouble with the timing because there were numerous moves that I hadn’t learned before and I wasn’t really able to do them fast enough. As  the competition was nearing, I was growing more and more nervous. I began to start practicing at home during all of my free time. The dance became all I thought about. When it came time to leave for the competition I was feeling more anxious than ever before.

Finally, the big weekend arrived! I was handed the schedule.  I scanned it quickly, and immediately noticed that our duet was scheduled after all of my regular group performances. Of course!  I was going to save my best for last!!!

 The first day I performed my two group dances. Both of those dances went very well and we received a gold score for each of them. Once we finished with our dances for that day, Kaitlyn and I decided to practice our duet again. However, when we practiced this time, we were way off tempo and I was having trouble remembering some of the parts. I began to worry even more. How could I fix this?  The duet had to be perfect for tomorrow! I didn’t wantt to let Kaitlyn down, and I certainly couldn’t imagine the embarrassment I’d feel if I screwed up my dance moves and worse yet, if I fell out of sync with the music! I wasn’t able to sleep much that night because I was doing everything I could to remember the dance. 

The next day when I woke up I was so nervous I could barely eat. As I was getting into my costume and putting my makeup on, I was running through the routine in my head. This time I was able to remember all of the steps. Once I was ready, I nervously sat in the audience with the rest of my dance school. I remember that during the competition, there was a moment when a song briefly stopped, and the dance team looked around nervously, wondering what they should do . I remember turning to Kaitlyn and telling her how nervous I was that it would happen to us. Everyone around me assured me that it wouldn’t, and I believed them.  It had to be a fluke thing,……right? 

 Immediately prior to going backstage, we decided that we had to practice…just once more. This time, we had everything down. We knew all of the steps and we were perfectly in time with the music. At this point, I was excited to get on stage. All of our friends even came backstage with us to support us. It finally came time for us to climb up the stairs toward the stage and take our places.

The Thanksgiving Day Surprise

It was a beautiful, brisk November day. The ground was abstractly painted with auburn, brown, and faded yellow, and the smell of pumpkin-turned-evergreen adorned the household. It was Thanksgiving, and in my household, Thanksgiving is one of many holidays that all 37 of my cousins, 16 aunts and uncles, both sets of grandparents, and any close friends come over for a feast. After our holiday guests departed, bellies stuffed with turkey, mashed potatoes and every flavor of pie, my parents decided that this very evening was the perfect time to announce some news to my younger brother, Evan, and I.

In 2010, mom was 41, and my dad was 43. I had a perfect, little family of 4, and I had just began my third grade year. My parents told Evan and I to sit down and that we had to look at a picture. This wasn’t an ordinary picture by any means. It was an ultrasound. After playing a guessing game of “who is this baby”, my parents broke the news. My mom was pregnant with a baby girl, and pretty soon, our family of 4, would become a family of 5.

As an eleven year old, this was very exciting. I remember thinking of all of the things I could do with her, and how we would be best friends forever. However, after she was born, I was in for a rude awakening.

Shortly after my new baby sister, Olivia, was born, my parents both went back to work full time, leaving me with the part time job (unpaid and involuntary, of course) of babysitting her along with my brother every day after school. This was especially difficult because Olivia and Evan fought everyday.

The experience of having a sibling who is over 10 years younger than you teaches more lessons than you’d think. Primarily, it teaches responsibility. Learning how to care for a child is an irreplaceable skill. Next, it teaches you how to be a leader. I learned this talent through mediating many arguments between my younger siblings. But, the MOST important thing I learned was the value of time, and living everyday to the fullest. My sister has been growing up so fast, and I have learned to cherish every second I possibly can.

Morality within a Personal Narrative

 In a close knit society such as ours, I imagine that it would be an important lesson to accept people rather than contort them into a vague comparison to what they once were or could easily be. Arguably, that in fact is how a close knit society, such as ours, functions. As a young girl I have approached life with the notion that equality is a gift; an expectation we, as a society, may all receive. What I have come to realize as a young adult, is the correlation between equality and society is close to nonexistent. Growing up in an impoverished town gave me this perspective through a first hand basis. Being a middle class resident, surrounded by friends and classmates who were significantly struggling, led me to appreciate what I assume to be wealth and health. The constant suffocation of my small town had  angered me when addressing a larger scale of world afflictions. Society, I discovered, was inherently unjust and unequal. Unbelievably so, we don’t and won’t, accept any possibility in changing that. As much as some people ridicule societies inter-workings, remarkable changes are impossible.  It’s the idea we strive for, that a sin-less moral person exists; I’ve yet to meet the angel. As we agonize over our first world problems we can’t ignore real life tragedies. But we do. We are selfish, it’s in our nature. Some go to church, some study philosophy, and some become teachers as we commonly address that the youth are our future. From this, I now approach life with two senses; that of personal conflict and public conflict. What we don’t realize is although we may morally be on a path of righteousness, when it comes down to it, people always choose themselves. 

Paté the Bunny

I drive like a goddamn idiot. That is to say, I drive like a teenager who got her license less than a year ago. I also have two black and white rabbits. Their names are Poppy and Clover and they’re adorable.

I’m not exaggerating about how I drive. I inadvertently run red lights, I always go at least 15 miles over the speed limit, and I listen to heavy metal at maximum volume because it makes me feel cooler than I am. I don’t get distracted necessarily, but I get wrapped up in some Mad Max-style fantasy.

It took me years to work up the courage to sit behind the wheel of a car. When I was twelve, a dead buck unexpectedly came flying through the windshield of my mom’s car one night. My mom didn’t have time to swerve before the glass broke and there was a dead deer’s head on my lap. My mom pulled into an empty parking lot and screamed for two minutes before calling AAA.

After that night, riding in the car was difficult for me. I didn’t trust myself to drive because I didn’t know what I would do if I hit an animal or had a panic attack when I was in control of a vehicle. Still, I hated feeling powerless if someone else was driving, regardless of how much I trusted them.

I’d been asking for a pet bunny since I knew how to talk. I love rabbits to the extent that my childhood bedroom looked like a temple to an all-powerful rabbit god. Three years ago, I finally adopted Poppy and Clover.

We begin our story on the night of April 20th , 2019. I’m driving home from something at around 10 pm. I was taking my usual route home on the same road the deer incident happened on a few years prior but that was the last thing I was thinking about; I’d been feeling overconfident about my driving at this point. I couldn’t see well more than fifteen feet ahead of me. The road was marked 35 mph, but I was going 55.

A flash of brown in the corner of my eye.

A thought comes to my mind–bunny.

The rabbit begins to run across the road

There’s a car behind me. I’m going too fast to stop.

NO! STOP!

I freeze while my car keeps rolling forward. I know there are only two possibilities: the rabbit got across the road in time…or…. it didn’t.

I pray to every deity I can think of that they were swift enough.

Please. Please no.

It comes like a dagger in my heart. The most awful sensation in all the world. Time seems to slow down as my car moves forward and I feel it-

thump.

I begin to scream and cry and panic all at once, the same first reaction my mother had when she hit an animal on this road. I pull into the same empty parking lot she did and continue screaming and crying and staring wide-eyed at the spot where the rabbit had been in my vision.

I start to rationalize with myself.

Maybe you didn’t hit it. That could’ve been a stick; that could’ve been anything.

I force myself to turn around and drive slowly back up the road. I crane my neck and look for the spot where it happened. I don’t want to describe what I saw. I had definitely hit it.

I cry the rest of the way home.

As soon as I get to my house, I pick up my rabbits and hold them close and confess what happened. I get tears on them and apologize over and over and I vow to them that it will never happen again.

I’m still not a great driver but I do drive with more care now. I’m growing out of my recklessness and invincibility and I now realize that driving doesn’t exist within a bubble- my stupid decisions can affect the world around me and that which I love. I still blast music with the windows down and speed on open roads but I’m always looking for the small brown blur before it’s too late.

Sympathy for the Devil

Growing up with a brother who requires a lot of attention was quite challenging. My youngest brother Hunter was 2 years old when he was first diagnosed with Type 1 Diabetes. It was hard to understand why my life went from shared attention to a lot of attention on my brother. Through maturing and understanding what exactly Hunter was going through, I learned to become a more empathetic person, and this influenced many of the decisions I made growing up and had an impact on my future.

            In the early months of 2006, I was a 4-year-old girl with not a care in the world. My parents adored me, I had the most amazing dolls to play with, and everything felt perfect. However, all of this felt like it changed when my parents took my brother to the hospital and found out he was a Type 1 diabetic. This type of diabetes is a chronic condition where the pancreas does not produce enough or any insulin which is used to break down sugars. Essentially my brother had an allergy to sugary foods like candy and other kinds of desserts. Type 1 diabetes runs on my dad’s side of the family, my grandpa and great uncle both had it and now my brother did too. 

            Since my brother was only 2 when this occurred, my parents had to help a lot with all his needs. They would have to prick his fingers multiple times a day to test his blood sugars and give him shots of insulin when he was low on it. All of this craziness happening right in front of my little eyes and I had no idea what was going on. From my perspective it seemed like my brother was getting all this attention and I felt like my parents did not even care about me (which was obviously not the case but what four-year-old wouldn’t think that). I started to resent my brother because I felt that my parents loved Hunter more than they loved me. I felt so upset and jealous, but it was not until I started to age that I realized the needs his condition came with and why my parents needed to tend to him so often. 

            As I started to grow up, my parents would tell me more about why Hunter is always getting his fingers pricked, getting shots before meals, and drinking so much apple juice. I remember a particular incident where he was having trouble getting his blood sugar to go up one night and he was low all night long. I vividly remember him and my parents getting no sleep trying to take care of him and I began to sympathize. I knew he did not want to be up all night drinking juice and eating cookies to raise his sugars and he didn’t want to be so taken care of. He just wanted to have a normal night’s sleep like any other typical kid. He did not want the attention, he needed it. Hunter needed my parents to help him because he was so young and was not able to tend to himself yet. My parents also would explain to me why they were so worried about Hunter and it was because it was a new diagnosis they did not know how to handle, and they wanted to pay extra attention to him to make sure nothing bad happens to him. 

            Through watching what my brother has been going throughchanged who I was as a person. I realized I had to understand what people were going through before making any judgements. I have become a much more empathetic person than I had been when I was younger. Empathy is the ability to understand what a person is feeling. I vowed to myself that I would always try and understand what other people were going through which helped me choose the career path I want to go down. Through becoming more empathetic I realized I wanted to help people in any way I can and that’s when I decided I wanted to be a teacher.

            I am so fortunate to have grown up the way I did because without that I would not have been the person I am today. Without being able to understand what my brother was going through; I would not have been the person I am today. Learning to empathize with others and understand the situations they are going through allowed me to find the profession of my dreams and I couldn’t be more excited to see what the future holds.

Eagles Fans Are A Different Breed

“Eagles fans are the people who get into fights at an eight-year-old girl’s T-ball game, possibly with the eight-year-old girl (Meltzer)”. Being an Eagles fan for my whole life, I can agree with that statement. In some peoples’ views, Eagles fans are the scariest fans in the NFL, but statistically, they are number five. The Philadelphia Eagles fans are the scariest and most passionate fans.

They are also the scariest fans in the NFL, and I personally have experienced it. Back in 2006 when Terrell Owens left the team, I wore one of his jerseys to the game. Keep in mind I was 7 years old at the time, and a group of Eagles fans came over and started yelling at me because I had one of his jerseys on. Terrell Owens was not the best teammate and he was not a nice guy, but they still should not have harassed me because I was wearing his jersey.

The Eagles fans are a different breed of fans. When the Eagles won their first Superbowl, there was a parade hosted in Philadelphia. 700,000 people (including me) attended it, which was a once in a lifetime experience. The one thing that influenced all the fans was Jason Kelce’s speech. He basically talked about the Eagles being an underdog in all three games leading to the Superbowl. Even though they were underdogs in all three games, they still won all of them.

The Eagles fans are the most passionate fans in the NFL, but also the scariest fans, because they start fights with other teams and occasionally with the same team. The passionate part of the fans overpowers the scariness of them because 700,000 fans came to support the Eagles after they won the Superbowl. Jason Kelce’s and Nick Fole’s speech emphasized on the fans of Philly and how great we are. By far, that overcomes the scary part of the fans. The fans of the Philadelphia Eagles are the scariest fans and the most passionate fans in the NFL today. I learned after I saw the fight occur that it is very stupid to get in a fight with someone else over a football game, especially with your own team.