History of the Curse of Billy Penn

The Curse of William Penn is an alleged curse, sometimes used to explain the failure of professional sports teams based in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania to win championships since the March 1987 construction of the One Liberty Place skyscraper, which exceeded the height of William Penn's statue atop Philadelphia City Hall. Since then, no Philadelphia major sports team (baseball, football, basketball, or hockey) has won a league championship. The last professional team to win a championship in the four major sports was the Philadelphia 76ers in the 1983 NBA Finals, when they swept the Los Angeles Lakers in four games. This curse has gained such prominence in Philadelphia that a film by the same name, The Curse of William Penn, is in production and is scheduled for release in May of 2008.

Origins of the curse

Atop Philadelphia City Hall stands a statue of William Penn, the city founder and original proprietor of the then-British colony of Pennsylvania (meaning "Penn's Woods"). Under a gentlemen's agreement no building in the city rose above this statue, up to March 1987, when a modern steel-and-glass skyscraper called One Liberty Place opened three blocks away. One Liberty Place dwarfed City Hall by 397 feet (121m), soaring 945 feet (288m) in height compared to City Hall's actual height of 547' 11-3/4" (167m) to the top of Penn's hat, usually rounded off to 548', which coincidentally matches the career number of home runs hit by Phillies Hall of Fame third baseman Mike Schmidt. Its sister skyscraper, Two Liberty Place, at 848 ft (258m), would soon follow.

Philadelphia sports teams had just before then enjoyed an enviable run of success: Major League Baseball's Philadelphia Phillies had won the 1980 World Series and the 1983 National League pennant; the National Hockey League's Philadelphia Flyers had won back-to-back Stanley Cups in 1974 and 1975, and were a regular presence in the finals (to wit, 1976, 1980, 1985, and 1987); the National Football League's Philadelphia Eagles had appeared in Super Bowl XV, losing to the Oakland Raiders; and the National Basketball Association's Philadelphia 76ers had won the championship in 1983, as well as making the finals in 1977, 1980, and 1982.[2] In fact, before 1980, the Phillies had appeared in only two other World Series, in 1915 and 1950, and the Eagles had won no NFC conference championships since the 1966 agreement that had created the Super Bowl, while the 76ers won NBA titles in both Philadelphia and in their prior incarnation, the Syracuse Nationals. Construction on One Liberty Place began in 1985, two years after the last championship season in Philadelphia. In a matter of sad coincidence, the ground was broken on the same day as the MOVE tragedy that left numerous members of a radical "Back to Africa" group dead, and burned down several blocks of West Philadelphia neighborhood.

Unlike other "curses" that seem to strike particular teams (the Boston Red Sox's Curse of the Bambino, the Chicago White Sox's Curse of the Black Sox — both of which seem to have been lifted, the Detroit Lions Curse of Bobby Layne, and the Chicago Cubs' Curse of the Billy Goat), this evil is said to have struck four professional teams in the same city.

Major-league sports

After One Liberty Place opened, Philadelphia's franchises began a pattern of narrow, but spectacular, failures to win a conference or national championship: the Flyers lost the Stanley Cup Finals twice (1987—in seven games to the Edmonton Oilers, a mere two months after One Liberty Place opened, and again in 1997 in a four-game sweep by the Detroit Red Wings); the Phillies lost the 1993 World Series in six games to the Toronto Blue Jays, with the Series ending on Joe Carter's famous walk-off home run; the 76ers lost the 2001 NBA Finals to the Los Angeles Lakers in five games; and the Eagles lost three straight NFC Championship games from the 2001 through 2003 seasons, before finally breaking through after the 2004 season and reaching Super Bowl XXXIX, only to lose to the New England Patriots by three points.

In addition, losses in conference finals have occurred seven times since the opening of One Liberty Place, including four by the Flyers, in 1989, 1995, 2000, and 2004. The 2000 team was one win away from a Stanley Cup Finals appearance, after leading the New Jersey Devils 3-1 before losing three straight, and the 2004 team lost Game 7 of the Eastern Conference Finals to the Tampa Bay Lightning. The Eagles accounted for the other three conference-final losses; they lost the NFC Championship Game (the winner of which meets the winner of the AFC's corresponding game in the Super Bowl) three years in a row from 2001 to 2003, thus becoming the first NFL team to do this in either conference since the Dallas Cowboys of 1980-1982, losing the last two at home after posting the best record in the NFC. No other team in NFL history has lost back-to-back conference title games at home since the NFL began its practice in 1975 of awarding home-field advantage in postseason play based on regular-season record.

Some believe the curse manifested again on December 19, 2004. The Eagles clinched home-field advantage for the NFC playoffs, but wide receiver Terrell Owens suffered a fractured fibula and severe ankle sprain, which was expected to end his season. Even so, the Eagles won the NFC Championship Game 27-10 over the Atlanta Falcons, breaking their triple NFC Championship losing streak. However, the Eagles lost 24-21 to the New England Patriots in Super Bowl XXXIX on February 6, 2005, despite Owens's return against medical advice. Donovan McNabb threw three interceptions after having had only eight in the entire regular season, and was speculated to be sick with the flu, even to the point that McNabb vomited during the Eagles' final offensive run.

Other sports

The curse is sometimes also extended to include Bensalem-Township-based thoroughbred racehorse Smarty Jones, who saw his bid for horse racing's Triple Crown evaporate when he finished second (by one length) in the 2004 Belmont Stakes after decisive victories in the Kentucky Derby and Preakness Stakes, including trouncing Belmont winner Birdstone by 15¼ lengths in the Derby.

Although the curse is not generally thought of as extending to college sports, two Philadelphia-based college basketball teams, the St. Joseph's Hawks and the Villanova Wildcats, which had very successful seasons in 2004 and 2006 respectively, failed to reach the Final Four of the NCAA Basketball Tournament. Both were eliminated in the fourth-round Elite Eight matches, with St. Joe's, first seed in the East Regional, losing a heartbreaker to Oklahoma State, and Villanova, first seed in the Minneapolis Regional, falling to eventual NCAA-champion Florida. A third Philadelphia team, the Temple Owls, also failed to reach the Final Four five times due to losses in the fourth round (1988, 1991, 1993, 1999, 2001).

The curse, however, does not seem to affect professional teams outside of the "big four" sports; in fact, professional Lacrosse teams have had tremendous success. The Philadelphia Wings of the National Lacrosse League (indoor winter league) have won six titles since 1989, and the Philadelphia Barrage of the Major League Lacrosse (outdoor summer league) have won three championships (2004, 2006, and 2007). Additionally, the Philadelphia KiXX of the Major Indoor Soccer League won their league's championship in 2002 and 2007.

The curse also does not seem to affect Philadelphia's minor-league hockey franchise, the AHL's Philadelphia Phantoms, who won the Calder Cup championship trophy twice since the curse's inception, in both 1998 and 2005 (the latter championship occurring during the NHL Lockout effectively making them the top North American professional hockey team).

The curse has not yet applied to the Arena Football League's Philadelphia Soul, despite lackluster seasons after signing top AFL quarterback Tony Graziani in 2003.

Miscellaneous

In spite of the Curse, when Philadelphia sports teams have reached their league's finals, Penn's statue has often been decorated to support that team's success. For example, after the Phillies won the 1993 National League pennant, Penn was fitted with an oversize red Phillies baseball cap; when the Flyers went to the Stanley Cup finals in 1997, the city adorned Penn with an orange-torso-with-white-shoulders Flyers jersey (at the time, the combination was the Flyers' road jersey).

When the Sixers faced the Lakers in the 2001 NBA Finals Billy Penn was not touched. Pat Croce said he would have "decked out" the statue had the Sixers won but not before. Billy Penn was also untouched when the Eagles went to the Super Bowl in 2005.

While several other skyscrapers have been erected since Liberty Place, it should be noted that they stand west of City Hall, and that Penn's statue faces northeast. As local sentiment goes, Penn may not be pleased, but at least his view of the Delaware River remains unobstructed. As of early 2007, construction is underway two blocks west of City Hall for what would become Philadelphia's tallest edifice, the Comcast Center, to be completed in late 2007. Coincidentally, the building's main tenant, Comcast-Spectacor, owns two of the city's sports franchises, the Flyers and 76ers.

On June 18, 2007, ironworkers from Local Union 401 helped raise the final beam in the construction of the Comcast Center at 17th and JFK in downtown Philadelphia, which will be the tallest building in the city at 57 stories. In an attempt to end the curse, workers John Joyce and Dan Ginion attached a small figurine of Billy Penn to the beam, along with an American flag and a small tree.