By Lisa Scottoline
It’s Super Bowl weekend, the Eagles against the Chiefs!
And I’m an Eagles fan, but it got me thinking.
Yes, I know. Some of you believe a thinking Eagles fan is an oxymoron.
Or that we’re morons.
But don’t hate us.
No more hating.
Because we live in divided times, but we can’t let the times divide us.
It shouldn’t be Eagles fans against Chiefs fans.
Because the Super Bowl isn’t litigation or war, it’s a game.
I believe the sentient among us understand that, even us Eagles fans.
Obviously, it’s fun to be in a tribe, and sing the songs, and wear the team colors, and get a little crazy. Case in point, I was wearing my Eagle’s jacket this week when I went into Nudy’s restaurant in my town, and they were giving out free breakfast to everybody in Eagles gear.
Wow!
In other words you didn’t have to be nude at Nudy’s.
And it was fun to see everybody dressed up in team gear and know that we felt the same way about at least one thing – free food.
Tribalism is fun, but you have to know where to draw the line.
And we do, all the time.
For example, only two teams are in the Super Bowl every year, but everybody watches it, enjoys it, and even throws a party. The Eagles have rarely been in the Super Bowl, but I watch it every single year and love every minute. I have opinions about the commercials, the half-time show, the refereeing, and even the play-calling.
Meanwhile I never played football in my life.
The Monday after the Super Bowl, everybody’s a Monday morning quarterback.
And everybody’s got opinions.
And I love that everybody loves to talk about their opinions and share them and discuss it and maybe even disagree. We rank the commercials. We decide whether the halftime show compares to Prince’s. We have a lot to yak about.
But nobody gets up in arms.
Or fights about it.
Or hates over it.
Or thinks of someone else as the Other, but rather just Another.
An unusual thing happened to me yesterday, which reminded me of that lesson.
I dented my car and I brought it into a body shop, and lo and behold, I found out that the owner was my cousin.
My actual cousin.
I had no idea he even existed. We have family reunions now and then, and he had not been at them. But as soon as I looked at him, I saw a faint reflection of my late father’s eyes.
And I teared up, like a big baby.
It turns out that our grandfathers were brothers, back in Italy, and they came to this country at about the same time, speaking only Italian and having nothing but a dream of this remarkable country and the willingness to work hard. That’s exactly what they did, and remarkably enough, only one generation later, their grandchildren, two total strangers who speak very little Italian, met by chance.
And besides the personal story, it made me realize something else, especially this Super Bowl week, in these crazy times when everybody is a Republican, a Democrat, a Libertarians, or a vegetarian.
We really do have more in common than we have different, and that is our shared humanity.
Any one of us could be the other’s family.
Because in truth, we are.
Everyone is someone’s family.
We’re all one big team.
And if we start thinking this way, we all can win.
Go, us!
Copyright © Lisa Scottoline 2025