http://www.mcall.com/news/breaking/mc-philadelphia-eagles-fans-vandalize20110110,0,1905189.story
Lehigh Valley professor learns lesson about rooting against Eagles
Wisconsin native Craig Coenen says Eagles fans lived up to their reputation and vandalized his car outside the Linc.
By Tracy Jordan, OF THE MORNING CALL
6:25 a.m. EST, January 11, 2011
A college professor from Lower Macungie Township who wrote a book about the first 50 years of the NFL knew Philly fans had a reputation for mistreating visiting fans, but the Wisconsin native said he didn’t know how bad it could be until he went to the Eagles game Sunday.
Craig Coenen and his father, Peter Coenen, left Lincoln Financial Field jubilant after watching their beloved Green Bay Packers defeat the Eagles in the NFC wild card playoff game.
“We were just thinking about how nice a day it was and it was a good memory,” Peter Coenen said. “Then I looked up and said, ‘Oh my God.’ ”
His son’s Toyota Camry had been stomped on, kicked and beaten (kind of like the Eagles). Fans tore out the windshield wipers and motors and used them to scratch the paint, broke off the side mirrors and left footprints and dents on the hood, trunk and roof.
“It was just drunk, obnoxious Eagles fans,” Craig Coenen said Monday after getting a repair estimate of $2,163. “Philadelphia is notorious for this, but hopefully the fans who did this are the exception, not the rule.”
More likely, it will go down as another example of Philadelphia sports fans at their worst and add to their reputation as out-of-control, violent, destructive drunks and all-around sore losers.
“When I left Green Bay everyone said to be careful — the Philadelphia fans have a reputation,” said Peter Coenen, who still lives in Wisconsin and took his son to the game as an early birthday gift. “My son had a Green Bay Packers shirt on. As we drove in, they gave us the finger.”
The reputation dates to 1949 when fans threw glass bottles at an umpire for a bad call during a Phillies game. Incidents continued over the years, including the hurling of snowballs at Santa Claus at Franklin Field in 1968 and at the Dallas Cowboys at Veterans Stadium in 1989.
In April, Philadelphia Phillies fan Matthew Clemmens, 21, of Cherry Hill, N.J., became known as “Pukemon” after he purposely vomited on other Phillies fans, an 11-year-old girl and her father, an off-duty Easton police captain.
Coenen, 40, who grew up 20 miles south of Green Bay’s historic Lambeau Field, has been a Packers fan all his life. While working on his master’s degree at Lehigh University in Bethlehem, he embarked on research that eventually became a book, “From Sandlots to the Super Bowl: The National Football League 1920-1967.”The book ends with the Green Bay Packers winning the first Super Bowl in NFL history.
Coenen, who now teaches at Lehigh as well as Mercer County Community College in New Jersey, said he became well aware of Philly fans’ reputation during his research and from living in the Lehigh Valley for 18 years. And he admitted he should have known better than to wear Packers clothing to Sunday’s game.
After paying $25 to park, Coenen said he and his father stayed in the car listening to the Ravens-Chiefs AFC playoff game on the radio while a group of drunken young men carried on outside. Once inside the stadium, Coenen said he and his father enjoyed friendly banter with the Eagles fans.
“We had a very positive experience … until we went to the parking lot and the car was pretty well trashed,” Craig Coenen said.
Another car belonging to Green Bay fans met a similar fate, Coenen said. The owners, from Maryland, filed a police report at the same time as Coenen. He said they all agree the likely culprits were the group of six men in their 20s who were parked between them in a black extended-cab pickup truck.
“By the time we got back, the truck was gone and there was an empty case of Busch Light,” Craig Coenen said. “And someone had vomited in the parking spot as well.”
This isn’t the first time an out-of-towner had a car vandalized at a Philadelphia sporting event. In May, Flyers fans are suspected of vandalizing a car with a Canadian license plate belonging to a sports writer for the Montreal Gazette. He wrote a column about the city’s lack of brotherly love and the damage to his car, which included a flat tire and broken-off bug deflector. He wrote that Philadelphia fans may be as bad as Montreal fans, who booed the U.S. national anthem a few weeks earlier.
Coenen sees no comparison between fans in Philadelphia and Green Bay.
“The Packer fans are very cordial with fans who come to Lambeau Field,” he said, adding he feels confident even Eagles fans would “be treated nicely” there.
And he said he’ll never venture to another game in Philly.
“I still love football; it’s great,” Craig Coenen said. “And I’m very happy the Packers won — even more so, the Eagles are done for the season.
