{"id":925475,"date":"2026-06-22T05:09:18","date_gmt":"2026-06-22T05:09:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/925475\/"},"modified":"2026-06-22T05:09:18","modified_gmt":"2026-06-22T05:09:18","slug":"from-franklin-to-fathers-day-passing-the-philly-fan-torch","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/925475\/","title":{"rendered":"From Franklin to Father’s Day: Passing the Philly Fan Torch"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Eagles<\/a>\u2022More PHL<\/a>\u2022Phillies<\/a>\u2022Unique Columns<\/a><\/p>\n

\"\"Credit: Philadelphia 76ers-Facebook <\/p>\n

As a boy growing up just outside of Philadelphia<\/a>, some of my fondest memories of spending time with my father and grandfather revolved around sports.<\/p>\n

I spent summer weekends at Veterans Stadium trying to catch Phillies foul balls, went to The Palestra for Big 5 Basketball, and made the annual August pilgrimage<\/a> to West Chester University for the dawn of another Eagles<\/a> season.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Blocking out Sundays to catch the Eagles game with my Dad wasn\u2019t a choice in my household. Nothing else at the end of the week was permitted to matter\u200a\u2014\u200aand I wouldn\u2019t have had it any other way.<\/p>\n

Sports are a passion as old as Philadelphia itself.<\/p>\n

When a weary seventeen-year-old Benjamin Franklin walked out to an October sunrise<\/a> some 300 years ago onto the Market Street Wharf in 1723\u200a, he brought with him a love of sport that would carry him for the rest of his life. Franklin\u2019s passion was swimming, and he would often go for a dip in the Schuylkill River. Swimming requirements in Philadelphia-area high schools actually come in part from the efforts of Ben Franklin.<\/p>\n

Like many of you, I come from a family of Philadelphia sports fans and passionate writers. Nope, it doesn\u2019t go together like a horse and carriage. My grandpop saw the Eagles<\/a> at Training Camp in 1934 at Atlantic City, hid in the restroom at Connie Mack Stadium to see a free second game of a Philadelphia Athletics double-header, and listened to the Eagles win Championships in 1948 and 1949.<\/p>\n

He always told me how they should have won it in 1947.<\/p>\n

When it was my Dad\u2019s turn, he grew up with a love of Philadelphia sports, too. He watched the Eagles win a Championship on the day after Christmas in 1960, LaSalle<\/a> College rise to one of the top college men\u2019s basketball <\/a>programs in the country in the late 1960s, and saw The Fight of the Century<\/a> when Philly\u2019s Smokin\u2019 Joe Frazier defeated Muhammad Ali in 1971.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>Photo Courtesy of Wiki Commons.<\/p>\n

You\u2019ve probably already guessed what Philadelphia passion they passed along to me, and what we discussed each Father\u2019s Day in June when everyone was together. They taught me to weather the losing seasons for that feeling of euphoria. I saw the color in their cheeks and the celebration in their faces when Brad Lidge struck out Eric Hinske to win the World Series for the Phillies in 2008<\/a>. And when the Eagles secondary knocked down the last-gasp Tom Brady Hail Mary Pass a decade later in the Super Bowl<\/a>. Those moments were ours.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf you want to write well,\u201d they said, \u201cwrite what you love.\u201dThat\u2019s exactly what I did.<\/p>\n

Benjamin Franklin was actually estranged from his son William\u200a<\/a>, who was exiled from America for being a loyalist to the British cause. William left America in 1782 and would never return (though he attempted to mend his relationship<\/a> with his father in 1784).<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>Credit: Philadelphia 76ers-Facebook<\/p>\n

Shortly after arriving in Philadelphia\u200a, Franklin became a writer and publisher. As depicted in the show Franklin on Apple TV+<\/a>, Franklin would travel overseas with his grandson (William Temple Franklin<\/a>), where he would visit his son William one last time in 1785.\u00a0<\/p>\n

After Benjamin Franklin\u2019s funeral in Philadelphia<\/a>\u200a\u2014\u200aattended by nearly 20,000 people in 1790\u200a\u2014\u200aWilliam Temple Franklin honored the memory of his grandfather by taking the writings that he had been bequeathed and published them into an autobiography in London and in Philadelphia between 1816 and 1819\u200a\u2014\u200aincluding his experiences and love for swimming.<\/p>\n

When my father cleaned out my grandpop\u2019s nightstand in 1989, it was my Dad\u2019s book resting atop my grandfather\u2019s pile of great reads. When I did the same for my father thirty-three years later, the article was on top of my Dad\u2019s pile.<\/p>\n

That article was mine.<\/p>\n

Discover more from Philadelphia Sports Nation<\/p>\n

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Tags: 2008 Phillies<\/a> 2018 Super Bowl<\/a> Benjamin Franklin<\/a> Eagles<\/a> Father’s Day<\/a> Fathers<\/a> Joe Frazier<\/a> La Salle Explorers<\/a> LaSalle<\/a> LaSalle University<\/a> MLB<\/a> NFL<\/a> Philadelphia Eagles<\/a> Philadelphia Phillies<\/a> Phillies<\/a> Super Bowl LII<\/a> Super Bowl LIX<\/a> The Palestra<\/a> West Chester University<\/a> <\/p>\n

Categorized:Eagles<\/a> More PHL<\/a> Phillies<\/a> Unique Columns<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Eagles\u2022More PHL\u2022Phillies\u2022Unique Columns Credit: Philadelphia 76ers-Facebook As a boy growing up just outside of Philadelphia, some of my…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":925476,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2068],"tags":[123331,123332,123333,25,31559,31583,7,123334,100920,123335,123336,6060,6,242,109,14736,2476,14735,8494,10302,123337,123338],"class_list":["post-925475","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-philadelphia-eagles","tag-2008-phillies","tag-2018-super-bowl","tag-benjamin-franklin","tag-eagles","tag-fathers-day","tag-fathers","tag-football","tag-joe-frazier","tag-la-salle-explorers","tag-lasalle","tag-lasalle-university","tag-mlb","tag-nfl","tag-philadelphia","tag-philadelphia-eagles","tag-philadelphia-phillies","tag-philadelphiaeagles","tag-phillies","tag-super-bowl-lii","tag-super-bowl-lix","tag-the-palestra","tag-west-chester-university"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nfl\/116792037774919482","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/925475","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=925475"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/925475\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/925476"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=925475"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=925475"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=925475"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}