Philadelphia Eagles superfan Tara Miller has witnessed the team win the Super Bowl in the past. But Philadelphia’s 40-22 win over the Kansas City Chiefs in Super Bowl LIX was a different experience for her.
“When we were in Minnesota (for Super Bowl LII in 2018), I have got to be honest, I was so terrified and so desperately wanted to win a Super Bowl. I feel like I did not enjoy all of the experience around it because I was so focused and nervous about the game,” Miller told rolling out before heading home to Philadelphia. “Even when that Super Bowl ended, I still thought (New England Patriots tight end Rob Gronkowski) is going to catch the ball in the end zone, so when that was over, I said, if I ever get another opportunity, I want to experience everything. Not just be so caught up in my nerves; I want to experience everything.”
She was able to do that again during Super Bowl LIX.
“It was wonderful doing, like, my own little private kind of press tour,” she expressed. “I got to be on our local news, Good Day Philadelphia, I got to do Good Morning America. It was pretty amazing.”
But, outside of Philadelphia’s win, her interactions with Eagles players made the trip to New Orleans unique.
Miller, who attended her first Super Bowl in 2005, reminded Eagles defensive end Brandon Graham about a meeting 10 years prior that he remembered more vividly than she did.
“I just feel like our players are just so authentically friendly and welcoming and appreciative of the fans in the city,” she said. “It was amazing meeting (Eagles defensive tackle) Jalen Carter for the first time, and his mom who is like such a dynamic person, so that experience was really cool.”
Of the actual game, Miller was surprised Philadelphia won so easily.
“I really did enjoy that game, and I was hugging strangers before halftime,” she said as eventual Super Bowl MVP Jalen Hurts and the Eagles led 24-0.
Miller, swayed by her father, Tyrone Miller, says she has been an Eagles fan since birth.
“My mom used to tell me a story that when I was like two and my dad would go to watch the game with his friends, I’d sit by the door crying because I didn’t want him to leave, and she (eventually) told him “you have to take her with you” and he did so I started watching football with my dad and his friends, or if his friends came to our house, I would sit in the basement with them.”
The icing on the cake for Miller was meeting her favorite Eagles player of all time.
“I met (former Eagles quarterback Randall Cunningham) yesterday, and he gave me a hug,” she recalled. “I was walking, and he said hi, and then I turned into a 12-year-old kid. “You are the quarterback of my childhood.””
