Joe Banner

Eagles owner Jeffrey Lurie married Philadelphia resident Tina Lai in a private ceremony this weekend. Lurie, 61, announced last July that he and Christina Weiss Lurie were getting divorced after 20 years of marriage. Lai will have no official role in the Eagles organization. The wedding was attended by family and close friends. "I am happy and excited as Tina and I begin our lives together," Lurie said in a statement. Lai, 39, is from a family that owns restaurants in Philadelphia, including the Vietnam Restaurant in Chinatown and the Vietnam Cafe in University City.

Daily News columnist Elmer Smith spoke with Eagles president Joe Banner last night about the Eagles' signing of Michael Vick. Here is some of what he told Smith: On fan reaction: "We got quite a few calls from people who were upset. But there was a fairly significant, large number, in favor. I'd say there was a smaller number opposed ... "We've been hearing anecdotes of people in sports bars who were enthusiastic about it. There were some chants for Vick here at the game. " On the decision-making process: "I just hope the people will understand that we did our research.

More than two months after it was first reported, Joe Banner was officially named chief executive officer of the Cleveland Browns Tuesday after NFL owners unanimously approved Jimmy Haslam's purchase of the team. "It was a long ride that was actually quite short," Banner told the Inquirer . "It's incredibly exciting. Everybody is wired differently, but this is something I've been looking forward to for some time, something I've wanted to take on. It's the same way I felt when I first came to Philadelphia.

Repress your rage, if you can for a moment, over Eagles ticket prices, $7.50 stadium beers, hoagiegate, Staleygate, the opening-night shutout. Joe Banner, chief executive officer of the Philadelphia Eagles, has a team you can cheer for without mixed feelings. Every school morning, an army of young adults in red "City Year" jackets gather at the foot of City Hall, then disperse to the city's most understaffed public schools. They aid teachers, they clean grounds, they tutor and mentor.

It seemed pretty clear. And now? Well, now it doesn't. The Eagles can thank Joe Banner for that. After the Birds' season ended, Andy Reid held a news conference and was immediately asked what would happen with Donovan McNabb moving forward, whether he would be Reid's quarterback next season or if Reid was thinking about making the switch to the Hog Hunter (more traditionally referred to by his Christian name, Kevin Kolb). Reid normally dodges direct answers the way Asante Samuel avoids physical contact and tackling, but for once he was candid.

The shock waves in the sports community suggest that the Eagles cutting Joe Banner loose is a matter of cosmic proportions. "There is a God," was one Philly.com comment. "WE ARE DOOMED!!!" a fan posted on the Eagles message board. "No one in Philly could have envisioned Andy Reid outlasting Joe Banner w/Eagles but it's happened. End of world next," tweeted Tim Panacchio of Comcast SportsNet. The news was broken overnight by The Inquirer's Jeff McLane that Banner was out as team president after 18 years.

Imagine that you've spent two years doing right by the world by devoting your time to charity work. You might see it as good karma when a friend asks you to run his professional football team. Instead, you find, as Eagles executive vice president Joe Banner has, that there is a special place in hell for the managers of Philadelphia sports teams with losing records. Ask him about the past year and he takes a moment to gather his thoughts. "It has been very difficult," he says slowly.

With the Eagles preparing to travel to Jacksonville for the Super Bowl, team president Joe Banner spent four hours yesterday at a Philadelphia City Council hearing that explored why dozens of subcontractors who built the team's stadium in 2002 and 2003 still have not been paid in full for their work. During the emotion-filled hearing, Councilman Rick Mariano, who had convened the hearing and issued subpoenas compelling Banner and others to attend, got into an obscenity-laced scuffle with a contractor, Jamal Johnson, who wasn't part of the stadium situation.

PHOENIX - There has not been a Round 2 of Lurie vs. Banner at the NFL owners meetings. Lifelong friends and business partners for 18 years, Jeffrey Lurie and Joe Banner exchanged verbal blows in January after the Eagles hired Chip Kelly as coach. During the coaching search, a report on CBSsports.com claimed that a "drunk with power" Howie Roseman had scared away potential candidates, including Kelly, and that other general managers were reluctant to make deals with the Eagles GM. The Eagles believed that Banner was the source behind the report.

It's a vision that has shimmered like a mirage for four years now, sometimes looking so close you could reach out and touch it, sometimes threatening to vanish forever. "I imagine a Monday night game to open the 2003 season," Joe Banner said. "The new stadium is all lit up. There are fireworks. Everyone is excited about it. And then the team takes the field and it's a great team with Donovan [McNabb] in the prime of his career. That image is the one that kept me going through all of this.

NEW YORK - Andy Reid's first pick with the Eagles in 1999 was second overall, and it was greeted with a barrage of boos at Madison Square Garden from Eagles fans yearning for Ricky Williams instead of Donovan McNabb. Entering his 15th season as a head coach and his first with the Kansas City Chiefs, Reid used his first selection - first overall - to take Central Michigan offensive tackle Eric Fisher. The draft has since moved a few blocks uptown to Radio City Music Hall, and the response was overwhelmingly ambivalent compared to what McNabb endured.

Inquirer Eagles writer Jeff McLane finished in a tie for fourth place in the Associated Press Sports Editors' breaking news category, it was announced Thursday. Staff writer Mike Jensen received honorable mention in the explanatory category in the over-175,000 circulation division, which included national websites. Both had previously been named top 10 nationally. McLane broke the news that then-Eagles president Joe Banner was leaving the team, and Jensen wrote an article about the Philly tradition of sneaking into big sporting and other events.

PHOENIX - There has not been a Round 2 of Lurie vs. Banner at the NFL owners meetings. Lifelong friends and business partners for 18 years, Jeffrey Lurie and Joe Banner exchanged verbal blows in January after the Eagles hired Chip Kelly as coach. During the coaching search, a report on CBSsports.com claimed that a "drunk with power" Howie Roseman had scared away potential candidates, including Kelly, and that other general managers were reluctant to make deals with the Eagles GM. The Eagles believed that Banner was the source behind the report.

PHOENIX - Joe Banner regards himself as a fix-it man. A problem-solver. The guy you call when everything goes to hell. The guy you call when the pipes are leaking and the heat's not working and the toilets are backing up and the bank is sending you a stream of foreclosure notices. "My strength is in building something, putting something together," the former Eagles president and new Browns chief executive officer said in an interview at the NFL owners' meetings. "If you were in business, I'd be the guy that you'd bring in to bring something back that was headed in the wrong direction, as opposed to somebody who would continue to operate something that was doing reasonably well.

FOR YEARS, Washington Redskins owner Dan Snyder was the poster boy for free-agency stupidity, spending millions on big-name veterans in March and regularly finishing 5-11 or 6-10 in December. Then, two summers ago, the Eagles blew Snyder right out of the water by going on the mother of all free-agency shopping sprees. "Somebody wrote the words, 'The Eagles are all in,' and that's how we look at it," the team's former president, Joe Banner, boasted after the Eagles corralled the likes of Nnamdi Asomugha, Jason Babin, Cullen Jenkins, Ronnie Brown and Vince Young.

Inquirer staff writers Jeff McLane and Mike Jensen received national honors in the Associated Press Sports Editors contest for 2012. Each received a Top 10 award. McLane won in the breaking news category for his article about former Eagles president Joe Banner's resignation. Jensen won in the explanatory category for his Page One article on sneaking into sporting events and concerts.

Temple tailback Montel Harris is scheduled to participate Feb. 23 to 26 in the NFL scouting combine in Indianapolis. The graduate student, who played several games with injuries, had 196 carries for 1,054 yards and 12 touchdowns this season. Harris, who transferred from Boston College in July, finished his career with 4,789 yards and 39 TDs. The NCAA granted Penn State tight end-turned-offensive lineman Garry Gilliam a sixth year of eligibility on Monday because of a left-knee injury.

Howie Roseman could have puffed out his chest or pointed fingers or reveled in an afternoon of vindication. Because as Eagles general manager, Roseman will eventually receive blame and criticism again. It's an occupational hazard. Yet on a day when Roseman was billed as influential in helping the Eagles land Chip Kelly as head coach, he refused to admit he felt vindicated when offered the forum. "I don't want to make this about me," Roseman said. "I think it's about our organization, our team, and giving our fans back the team they're used to. That would be vindication to me. " Roseman had been the target of criticism during the Eagles' coaching search, especially when they appeared to be exhausting their list of candidates.

Howie Roseman got what he wanted. In Chip Kelly, the Eagles general manager will have a copilot who will stay on his side of the cockpit. There had been reports long before the Eagles hired the Oregon coach that Kelly wanted full authority on football matters. Not so. When he showed up for his interviews with the Eagles, Cleveland Browns, and Buffalo Bills earlier this month, Kelly made it clear from the get-go that he didn't want final say on personnel matters, a source familiar with his thinking said.