In the wake of the Eagles Super Bowl win in 2018, Jigar Desai’s young sons asked their dad why people always wanted to take pictures with him, and why the crowds parted for them at the Super Bowl parade.
It took Desai a few weeks to come clean. But, he sat his sons down and, without exposition or explanation, showed them the video.
Taken on Jan. 21, 2018, before the Birds 38-7 win over the Vikings in the NFC Championship game, the video is of a man in a Brian Dawkins jersey. He is standing on a subway platform pumping up Eagles fans on the Broad Street line. As the train pulls away from the station, the enthusiastic fan runs full bore beside it, face-first into a pillar.
“I wish I had a video of them watching the video for the first time. They both broke out in laughter,” Desai said. “Then I told them it was me and the look of concern took over their faces immediately.”
That video made Desai, 47, who works in omnichannel operations for a pharmaceutical company, a viral sensation and one of the most memorable fans from the Eagles 2018 Super Bowl run. With the Eagles in the playoffs again, Desai is now doing everything in his power to ensure they win it all.
Call it superstition or call it pseudoscience, but before every playoff game, Desai must now run into a pillar. If he happens to be in South Philly, he’ll visit the actual pillar he ran into at the Ellsworth-Federal Station. But if he’s not in the area, he’ll run into a pillar in the living room of his Lower Gwynedd home.
“It’s working,” he said, “Let’s not mess with a good thing.”
Desai had a rendezvous with the pillar in his living room on Saturday before he and his older son, Rohan, 13, left for the Birds NFC divisional game against the Giants at Lincoln Financial Field. It was his son’s first Eagles playoff game and Desai’s fifth “Pillarversary” (the anniversary of the day he ran into the pillar).
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Not only did the Eagles take home a win that night and advance to the NFC Championship round, Desai’s son also noticed an auspicious coincidence: The final score of the game — 38-7 — was the same as the score of the Eagles-Vikings game the day Desai ran into the pole.
“That completely blew my mind that he remembered it, and the fact he did it right when the game was ending, I was like ‘Oh my God,’” Desai said.
The day he ran into the pillar, Desai had started his morning at his brother’s house in South Philly. They’d planned to go tailgating, but his brother had work to do. Desai had a beer, then two, then bourbon as he watched the AFC Championship game on TV.
When they finally made it to the subway to go to the game, Desai, an Eagles season ticket holder, was a bottle of emotions.
“When I saw the train of Eagles fans I obviously got excited. I pounded on the train and yelled ‘Go Birds, E-A-G-L-E-S, Eagles!’” Desai said. “When the train started moving, I thought it might be good to do a final ‘Go Birds,’ but the rest is history. It was a clean hit.”
Thinking the event was “completely unremarkable” at the time, Desai — uninjured — got up, brushed himself off, and went to the game.
It was only after the game ended that he started receiving texts asking if the man in the subway video was him. At first, he didn’t believe it was. Then he watched it and realized, “Oh God, it was me.”
“I didn’t realize it was going to be as big as it was. People would tell me back in college that ‘There’s a different intensity about you,’” Desai said. “As self-aware as I try to be, the Eagles are the one thing that totally bypasses that.”
As a result of his run-in with the pillar, Desai became the subject of an NFL digital short, had a celebration thrown for him at the pillar by the NFL, and received free tickets for him and his family to attend the Eagles game against the Jacksonville Jaguars in London that year.
But it was his interaction with other Eagles fans that touched him the most. Many thanked him for the laughs and his passion, but others, who said they couldn’t have survived the embarrassment, thanked him for being an inspiration.
“It gave me reason to think and pause about my boys and how would they react in a situation like this,” he said. “I want them to be able to laugh things off and enjoy life.”
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These days Desai, whose Twitter display name is “Eagles Pillar Guy,” doesn’t get recognized often. But every once in a while, he’ll get stopped by someone in Wawa who says: “You look familiar. Are you the pillar guy?”
“If you’re going to have a knuckle-headed moment make sure it comes with big impact,” he said.
This Sunday, Desai will run into a pillar for good luck and then head to the Linc for the NFC Championship game with his wife and two sons.
“This is the best Eagles team I’ve ever seen assembled on this field,” he said. “I wholeheartedly believe we’re going to the Super Bowl again.”
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‘Eagles Pillar Guy’ still runs into poles before playoff games for good luck - The Philadelphia Inquirer
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