After the latest Super Bowl parade, Amy Rannabargar stumbled upon a mysterious jacket and found an unexpected message from one fan to another.
On Feb. 14, Rannabargar, a La Salle University graduate and longtime Philadelphia Eagles fan, was walking in a crowd leaving the Eagles Super Bowl victory parade when she came across an Eagles starter jacket. It was hanging on a light post, she said, seemingly left behind on accident.
“I thought, 'Oh no, someone left their jacket,'” Rannabargar recalled to NBC10 Philadelphia in an interview. She picked up the jacket and spotted a note attached to its lining.
“If found, do NOT return," the note, which Rannabargar later shared to Facebook, reads. "This jacket belongs to you! I found this jacket on the night of the Super Bowl in 2018 and it only felt right to release back into the city when the Eagles won again. Enjoy the jacket. I hope you get the opportunity to release back into the world with another SB win soon. Go Birds.”
The Eagles fan and self-described "Deadhead" quickly connected the gesture to a tradition within the Grateful Dead's fanbase, miracle tickets, in which fans may give out last-minute tickets to other fans, sometimes for free.
“That immediately went through my head. I was like, 'Oh, my God, this is kinda like an Eagles version of that.”
Eager to share the news of her score, Rannabargar posted her story and a photo of the note to Facebook.
“I posted on my Facebook page and then decided to post it on the Philadelphia Eagles fan page because I’m sure everyone would get a kick out of this and did not expect it to just spread the way that it did, but I love that the joy has spread like that,” Rannabargar explained.
"I found this jacket at the parade on Friday as I was leaving the art museum. I cannot wait to pass this along on the next Super Bowl win," she captioned the post. The story quickly gained traction, receiving thousands of likes, over 15,000 shares and hundreds of comments from fans eager to find out if she will continue the tradition of paying it forward.
"Keep the note, add your own and the OG note year!" one wrote.
Rannabargar says she will, in fact, carry on the new tradition and plans to keep the jacket in her possession, for what she anticipates will only be for a short time.
“I’ll hold onto it for now,” she said. “But when the Eagles win another Super Bowl, I can’t wait to pass it on and keep this tradition going. Go Birds!”
