Though he cherished celebrating the Eagles’ first Super Bowl title, in the 2017 season, with thousands of other fans on Broad Street, Gordon, of South Philadelphia, said he regretted not going to the game in Minneapolis. He vowed not to miss another one — if it ever came.
After the Eagles walloped San Francisco in the N.F.C. championship game in January, Gordon, at the urging of his wife, Lauren, purchased two tickets in what he described as his present for every birthday and holiday for the next several years.
But then, last Monday, on his way to pick up a package for a neighbor, he took a misguided shortcut and tried scaling a small fence. He jumped, landed on his left heel and, he said, “saw stars” immediately. He could not get up. His foot twitched and trembled. He felt like vomiting.
In that moment, he said, two realizations arrived at once — one pragmatic, one emotional. And, dear reader, you can decide which is which.
“Well, I’m not 14 anymore,” Gordon said, “and then, welp, I just ruined a trip to the Super Bowl.”
After a few urgent care visits, multiple X-rays and a long night in an emergency room, Gordon, almost 36 hours after the fall, found himself on Wednesday morning in the office of Dr. Derek Donegan, an orthopedic trauma surgeon at Penn Presbyterian Medical Center in Philadelphia.