It’s not every day that you can be personally invited to an Eagles game by the team itself. However, Brigid Dillon, a pre-K teacher at Philadelphia’s St. Jerome School was.
On Jan. 23, Dillon posted a TikTok video of her students chanting the letters of the week, which just happened to be “E-A-G-L-E-S.” The video instantly blew up with views and likes. And then the Philadelphia Eagles joined in.
Gaining Eagles attention
Not only did team members like and comment on Dillon’s video, but they also followed her account.
The day before the NFC Championship against the San Francisco 49ers, Dillon noticed a message on her TikTok account. Seeing that it was from an Eagles account, she just figured it was a fake account until she clicked on the team’s page and realized it was for real.
The message said, “Hi, we’re wondering if you have plans for the game? Would you want to come down and watch the game at the Linc?”
“I lost it, I screamed, I could not believe it,” said Dillon. “I thought, if anything, maybe they would repost it, and then they commented on it. Never in my wildest dream did I think I would get tickets.”
Dillon and a “plus one”
The Eagles also gave Dillon an extra ticket to bring whoever she wanted. And she wanted to bring her father Terry.
“There was nobody else I would have brought. He’s my buddy. We watch sports together, we already planned to watch it together, so of course I would bring him,” she said.
Terry Dillon, a lifelong Eagles fan, is retired license and inspection from the city of Philadelphia.
“It meant everything, it was such an incredible and gracious thing that the Eagles did. To go to such a big game like that with Brigid, it was just really great, a dream come true,” said Terry.
This was only Terry’s second-ever Eagles game. His first was last year when Brigid treated him to endzone seats late in the season.
This time, not only were the Dillons treated with tickets to the game, they were also given field passes, and Terry knew exactly what he had to do once he got on the field.
“I had to take it all in at first, the view from being on that level. I was taken aback by such a big stadium. I got to touch the grass, real corny stuff, but I did it,” he said.
On the day of the game Dillon received a message from the Eagles asking her to meet at a certain location for a social media post. Dillon assumed she would pose for photos or do an interview for her school. However, it was a TikTok all about Brigid.
Eagles TikTok
A few days later, Dillon got a notification that the Eagles made a TikTok all about her.
“It was weird being followed around by a camera, I was constantly worried about what I was saying, but then after seeing the video, I cried, they did such a good job. They really captured the excitement of the two of us,” she said.
Of course, the Eagles were not able to capture all of the excitement, especially the part where Terry tried to photobomb the Eagles Cheerleaders.
Going back to school on Monday was also a pretty cool day for Ms. Dillon, as all the older students now thought she was the coolest person ever. Her class of four-year-olds, however, had no idea what was going on. Nonetheless, the Eagles bought little footballs for her class and she will be getting them soon.
“It was just an amazing day, I don’t think I will ever get over it,” said Dillon.
