"This" is a halftime tribute Monday night to Ryan and almost two dozen former Eagles players who played for him when he was the Eagles head coach for 5 years from 1986 to 1990.
The "Otho Davis thing," named after the Eagles' late trainer, is the 13th annual Otho Davis Scholarship Foundation awards dinner, which will be held tomorrow night at the Sheraton Society Hill. Ryan is one of the guests of honor.
Even though it's been more than 20 years since he last coached a game for the Eagles, Ryan almost certainly will receive a long and thunderous ovation from fans at the Linc Monday. With the possible exception of Dick Vermeil, Ryan might've been the most popular coach in franchise history, which is an amazing thing when you consider that his five Eagles teams managed to win just one division title and had an 0-3 playoff record. I mean, even Rich Kotite managed to win one postseason game, and I don't think they're going to be honoring him at halftime any time soon.
The same fans, or at least the sons and daughters of the same fans who so badly want Andy Reid run out of town for failing to win a Super Bowl even though he's taken the Eagles to the playoffs nine times in the last 11 years and the NFC Championship Game five times, still revere Ryan.
A lot of it has do with the personality differences of the individuals. Eagles fans, especially the beer-swilling blue-collar types who occupied the 700 level at the Vet back then, loved Ryan's brashness and candor. They loved the way he predicted victories and trashed opponents and referred to the team's car-salesman owner, Norman Braman, as the "man in France."
The former army master sergeant from Frederick, Okla. was them, and they were him.
"You've got to be yourself or people will think you're a phony," Ryan said. "You're not going to go very far being a phony.
