3-year-old Eagles fan celebrates birthday with Saquon Barkley

Alex Coffey, The Philadelphia Inquirer on Feb 14, 2025

Published in Football

By clicking submit, I authorize Arcamax and its affiliates to: (1) use, sell, and share my information for marketing purposes, including cross-context behavioral advertising, as described in our Privacy Policy , (2) add to information that I provide with other information like interests inferred from web page views, or data lawfully obtained from data brokers, such as past purchase or location data, or publicly available data, (3) contact me or enable others to contact me by email or other means with offers for different types of goods and services, and (4) retain my information while I am engaging with marketing messages that I receive and for a reasonable amount of time thereafter. I understand I can opt out at any time through an email that I receive, or by clicking here

PHILADELPHIA — Lucy Bannon was planning to celebrate her third birthday on Friday with some cake, but ended up receiving something much better.

The Bannon family was standing in between Tasker and Morris on Broad Street for the Eagles Super Bowl parade when they saw Saquon Barkley walking their way. Lucy was with her grandmother, Tracy, when Barkley saw her sign, which read: “Today is my third birthday! Go Birds!”

Barkley walked over, and asked Tracy if he could pick Lucy up.

“She was like, ‘Oh my god, of course,’ ” said Charlie Bannon, Lucy’s father.

Barkley held her for about 20 seconds as the family took photos of the young fan and the Eagles running back. Charlie said that Lucy might not understand the significance of the moment now, but when she’s older, she will.

“I don’t think she realized what was going on,” Charlie said. “She was just excited that everyone was cheering. She’s been smiling ever since.”

The Bannons, who live in East Falls, Pa., plan to celebrate Lucy’s birthday more after the parade. But she has already gotten a memory to last a lifetime.

“If he had just come over and said hello, and happy birthday, that would have been enough,” Charlie said. “But he picked her up and took photos without us even asking him. He couldn’t have been nicer.”