It doesn't take much for Steve Odabashian to channel Eagles head coach Andy Reid. But Philly fans can't get enough.
"Yo, Andy. You gonna run the ball today?"
Tailgating before an Eagles game sometimes starts before the sun is up. By two hours before game time--and on the Sunday before the Bears game earlier this month, which had a 4:15 start--the parking lots around Lincoln Financial Field are a sea of green-painted buses, 4-by-6 Eagles flags and beer cans.
In the center of it all, dressed in an Eagles coat, a Motorola headset and a pair of small glasses is Eagles coach Andy Reid. Wait. He only looks a lot like Eagles coach Andy Reid.
His name is actually Steve Odabashian, and he just plays Andy Reid.
Nearly everybody in the parking lot is wearing some sort of Eagles paraphernalia. There must be millions of dollars spent each year on official T-shirts, hats, jerseys, flags and giant inflatable cartoon-style Eagles players, not to mention all the money spent on nonofficial items--bootleg T-shirts and enough green paint to cover an entire school bus. There are even flat-screen TVs propped up on the sides of RVs.
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| Double trouble: Andy Reid (above) sometimes doesn't enjoy being Andy Reid as much as Steve Odabashian (below) does. |
Some tailgaters have it down to a science: a giant Mack truck, complete with foldout awning, covering a living room setup costing thousands of dollars. The tailgaters range from couples in complementary jerseys--say, a Donovan McNabb and a Reggie Brown--drinking a six-pack of Natty Ice in the back of their Toyota to a double-decker bus roaming around the Wachovia Complex parking lot to corporate-style tailgating packages bought off websites.
On this unseasonably warm afternoon Odabashian, 38, is dressed in a winter Eagles coat and long pants. He has an Eagles polo shirt on underneath, but because "it doesn't really look as good," he keeps the coat on for the character.
Hey, nobody said playing Andy Reid was easy.
"Yo, Andy!" a man yells as Odabashian walks through the Spectrum parking lot. "You gonna run the ball this week?"
Steve Odabashian is really smart.
You don't graduate from law school and pass the Jeopardy! test four times without being a little knowledgeable.
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| Steve Odabashian as Andy Reid. |
But growing up, he wasn't all that adept at schoolwork. He focused on sports--he wrestled and threw the discus in high school--watched the Eagles like everybody else and, frankly, didn't like to read.
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