A Super delivery

                              The wait has been long ------ nearly 19,390 days.
                              That 's about 465,355 hours.
                              Or about 2,793,240 minutes.
                              But who's counting?
                              That's the time that'll have passed between the Eagles' most recent world championship, in December 1960, and the kickoff of Super Bowl XLVIII this Sunday.  From the early days ofrock to the second term of Barack.  Fifty-four years.  Comparatively, eternity seems like the blink of an eye.
                              The Eagles have qualified for only two of 47 Super Bowls.  Hopes were high in Super Bowls XV and XXXIX.  But each time the Birds rustled their prospecting pan in the stream in search of football gold, the yield was sediment, not success.
                             A friend, an Eagles zealot, is convinced he'll go to his grave before the Birds' title drought rises from theirs.
                            "It's never gonna happen, is it?"  is his repeated lament. "I'm never gonna see it."
                             And so he waits.  But what if I gave him the chance to watch the Eagles take another shot at a Super Bowl victory?   I'm putting the Birds in the Super Bowl this Sunday in New Jersey, and I'm donating him a game ticket halfway up on the 50.  I'm throwing in hot dogs and beers, just because I'm that kinda guy.  I'm sure he'd accept under those circumstances; anyone would.
                             But here's the caveat for him and all men:  Your wife is in labor and all men:  Your wife is in labor and en route to the hospital on Super Sunday.  She's about to deliver your first child ---------- think first and goal from the 1 with Earl Campbell in the backfield ------ but you've also waited a lifetime for the Eagles to deliver.
                            Would you be with your wife or at the game?
                            While an informal poll I conducted this week revealed Eagles fans overwhelmingly would attend the birth, the ressponses ran the gamut:
                             "I'd be at the birth because I love my family more than I love my team."
                             "If I chose the game instead of the hospital, my wife would put me in the hospital right after I got home from the game."
                             "Hmm.  You know, I can always have another shot at being in the delivery room, but the Eagles getting to another Super Bowl isn't guaranteed."
                             "Let me ask you: How much bigger is my wife than I in this scenario?"
                             In 2011, a poll conducted by Harris Interactive showed 15 percent of men with a favorite NFL team would miss the birth of their own child to attend a Super Bowl.  Not merely a Super Bowl in which their team was playing, but any Super Bowl.  The poll also showed that 20 percent of the men would forego the wedding of a close friend or family member or the funeral of a loved one to attend any Super Bowl.
                            That same year, Visa, in conjunction with a series of TV commercials focused on the devotion fans have for football and the Super Bowl, conducted a survey that showed one in 10 men would choose to attend the Super Bowl over attending the birth of their child.
                            Whether it's 15 percent or 10 percent, I'd be interested in meeting these men and asking whether burial or cremation would be their choice after their wives got through with them.
                            Those of us blessed to have been there for the birth of our children know the experience is much like the Super Bowl:  Plenty of sweating, groaning, tension and excitement.
                            And unlike the Eagles, the wife always delivers.