PHILADELPHIA (KYW Newsradio) — To some, Philadelphia sports is a religion, and that’s exactly what 34-year-old Mike Cordisco intended to show by photographing dozens of Eagles tailgates over a roughly seven-year span.
“Considering that [my] working thesis was just how strong Philly identity is [interwoven] with its sports teams, it really, to me, was like having a religious identity,” Cordisco told KYW Newsradio.
The son of a family with a New York background, the Delaware Valley native avoided rooting for the rivals after growing up around Philadelphia fans. Photography is a self-taught hobby that Cordisco picked up after being fascinated by the scenery of sporting events. And he recently combined the two by independently publishing a book sequencing 50 photos of various shots he gathered from the lots of the South Philadelphia Sports Complex.
His goal was to highlight Philadelphia sports culture and how fans will skip Sunday church to gather for their beloved Birds. He wanted to show that, like religion, this is a tradition shared through generations. And as there are hymns and songs, Eagles fans sing “Fly Eagles Fly.”
“Just even ‘Go Birds’ is like saying ‘Amen.’”
And thus, Cordisco presents “Sermon on the Lot,” a limited edition hardcover visual homage that, as of late this week, was nearly sold out.
Cordisco is quite proud of his passion project.
But what makes it even more meaningful is that Dan McQuade, who heartbreakingly passed away from cancer in late January at 43, wrote the foreword, or, as Cordisco calls it, "the sermon."
“It’s like one of the most Dan things that I could imagine,” said Defector editor David Roth, a longtime colleague and friend of McQuade's.
Roth isn’t surprised McQuade agreed to write “the sermon,” even though Cordisco was not even an acquaintance at the time he reached out at the beginning of the last Eagles season.
And appropriately, as “Go Birds” is “Amen” to Cordisco, the origin story of the often-said phrase by Eagles fans around the globe was a fond one of McQuade's. Hence, that’s what McQuade wrote about in “the sermon.”
“If you asked [McQuade] to just sort of extemporaneously talk for 10 minutes about the ‘Go Birds’ thing, he could’ve done it,” said Roth. “You could’ve woken him up in the middle of the night, and he could’ve done it.”
Cordisco is grateful that McQuade contributed. He recognizes it’s one of the last things McQuade wrote. Cordisco said McQuade got to see the final product before he passed. “The sermon” is another example — like McQuade’s recent cameo in The Simpsons — that his memory lives on.
“He’s everywhere in Philadelphia,” Roth said. “I don’t see that fading anytime soon.”
Cordisco’s passion project — with the help of McQuade — is a success. Nearly seven years of photographing 40 straight tailgates paid off. Believe it or not, Cordisco said he’s never seen an Eagles game in person before. I think he’s earned a trip inside the Linc this upcoming season.