Philly fans' rogue image got boost when Santa booed in 1968
PHILADELPHIA -- Those famously churlish Philly fans can't hide behind
the urban legends. The truth is out there: They simply booed Santa Claus.
Frank Olivo -- the erstwhile Santa in question -- wasn't drunk, nor was his
red suit in tatters that December day in 1968 when he walked onto the field for
the halftime show, only to be met by a chorus of jeers and a snowball fusillade
from Eagles fans.
But by all accounts, they had cause for an ugly mood.
"The fans carried on like that because the Eagles were horrible," Olivo
said.
The antics at halftime of the Eagles' final regular-season game, beamed
around the country on Howard Cosell's national sports show, helped cement
Philadelphia's reputation for having rogue, rowdy sports fans.
"There's nothing that sounds worse than throwing snowballs at Santa," said
sports radio host Glen Macnow of WIP-AM in Philadelphia. "It's like spitting
on Miss America."
While the vibe in Philadelphia is decidedly more brotherly this year with
the Eagles headed to the Super Bowl, the 1968 team, at 2-12, was truly bad.
Quarterback Norm Snead threw for 11 touchdowns and 21 interceptions that
season. Coach Joe Kuharich led the team to an 0-11 start, and fans flocked to
old Franklin Field wearing "Joe Must Go" buttons.
One Sunday, the throng cheered as a plane flew overhead, towing a banner
suggesting the coach leave more than just The City of Brotherly Love.
Of course, the Eagles were just good enough to give Buffalo the top pick in
the next NFL draft -- running back O.J. Simpson.
Olivo, whose family held Eagles season tickets from 1958 to 1985, revels in
his unlikely place in franchise history. The booed Santa affair merits an
entire chapter in "The Great Philadelphia Fan Book," which Macnow co-wrote in
2003.
"I'll be dead and that book will still be at the bookstore or on somebody's
shelf. That means something to me," said Olivo, 56, of suburban Media, who
toiled as a barber, craps dealer and car salesman before health problems forced
him to retire.
Still, he wants people to get the story right.
"They say, 'He was drunk. He had a rotten outfit.' They don't even
remember. A lot of them weren't even here," Olivo said.
Gov. Ed Rendell, a longtime Eagles season ticketholder who attended the 1968
game, agrees that fans were venting their frustration not at the sad-sack
Santa, but at the Eagles -- even though they had played to a first-half tie with
Minnesota.
"Most of the time, they're not really as tough as they seem," said
Rendell, who moonlights as an Eagles commentator for a local cable channel.
"They boo players who don't make an effort."
The buildup to the bombardment of Olivo probably began four years earlier,
when Kuharich took over and Sonny Jurgensen, who became a Hall of Fame
quarterback, was traded for journeyman Snead.
By 1968, Olivo, then a skinny 20-year-old kid, had been wearing a Santa suit
and fake white beard to the last Eagles home game for several years. As
halftime approached in the game Dec. 15 against the Vikings, the Eagles'
entertainment director asked him to replace a hired Santa stranded by the
snowstorm.
As instructed, Olivo ran downfield past a row of elf-costumed "Eaglettes"
and the team's 50-person brass band playing "Here Comes Santa Claus."
Thunderous boos erupted from a crowd of 54,535.
"When I hit the end zone, and the snowballs started, I was waving my finger
at the crowd, saying 'You're not getting anything for Christmas," Olivo
recalled.
He was startled at first, but later laughed it off. Local sports writers
made scant mention of the episode until the Cosell broadcast.
"It became a thing that Philadelphia sports fans became famous for doing,
and it will never die, I guess," Olivo said. "Look how many years it's
been."
Kuharich, whose team lost 24-17 in what proved to be his last game with the
Eagles, had been pelted with snowballs at halftime.
It's a tough town.
Philadelphia fans famously booed native Kobe Bryant when he came to town for
the 2002 NBA All-Star Game.
Former Phillies slugger Richie Allen often thrilled fans with tape-measure
homers at rickety old Connie Mack Stadium. Then he would strike out and be
booed all the way back to the dugout.
Even the now-beloved Donovan McNabb, who has quarterbacked Philadelphia to
four straight NFC championship games and this year's Super Bowl, was showered
with derision in his infancy as an Eagle.
In 1989, even Rendell played a role in the misbehavior when he bet fellow
fans in the rambunctious 700 level of Veterans Stadium that they couldn't reach
the field with snowballs.
He lost, in more ways than one.
Rendell, then the city's district attorney, made good on a $20 bet, but
later apologized when the story inspired bad press.
"I assume they used my $20 to buy beer," he said.
Macnow says fans everywhere have committed sins. The crowd in Cleveland --
infamous for raucous deportment in the "Dog Pound" -- once reduced its own
quarterback to tears. And a visiting equipment manager was injured when
disgusted fans at Giants Stadium threw frozen projectiles.
But the "Booing Santa in Philly" legend -- in all its forms -- lives on.
"It's become one of these great urban tales, handed down in sports from
generation to generation," Macnow said.
Copyright 2005 by The Associated Press
This story is from ESPN.com's automated news wire. Wire index
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