It’s been two months since Jason Kelce announced that he was retiring from the Philadelphia Eagles after an impressive thirteen years with the team. To mark this occasion, a local Philadelphia business presented Kelce with a truly touching gift on Monday.
Kelce’s Gift
Daily Mail reported that Kelce was given a $7,000 saxophone from the local saxophone brand P. Mauriat by Vincera Institute, a Philly orthopedic clinic. The gift was a particularly touching one, given that Kelce played the saxophone in high school.
“This is nice!” Kelce exclaimed as he was given the instrument.
“I wanna get back into playing saxophone, I had not played in a while seriously,” he continued. “So maybe I’ll be able to walk down Broad Street with this thing this year.”
After Kelce was gifted the saxophone, another musician played “Fly Eagles Fly” on his own soprano saxophone for the crowd. Check out the full touching moment in the video below.
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Kelce’s Saxophone History
Kelce was so good in his youth that made jazz band as a freshman in high school. He then spent the next three years of high school in the top wind ensemble.
Last year, Kelce opened up about how much playing the saxophone helped him in many aspects of his life.
“I consider a lot of my growth as a player and as a person happened learning the saxophone: being coached by conductors and teachers, reading sheet music and understanding how to practice by repeating the same thing over and over again and you see how much easier the song becomes,” he explained.
Kelce went on to say that playing the saxophone taught him the importance of practicing, something that obviously helped him greatly in his future NFL career.
“The value of practice and the value in putting in extra time, all of that was taught from music,” he said.
Watch Kelce play the saxophone a few years ago in the video below.
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Kelce Retires
Kelce announced his retirement from the Eagles back in March after a 13-year career with the team that included six All-Pro selections and one Super Bowl win in 2018.
“It has been humbling to be in this position and to have had this opportunity, something I never take for granted,” Kelce said during what turned out to be his final season. “Obviously, you cherish every minute of it. I have incredible passion for this game and this organization, the City. It is so special to me.”
It has since been reported that Kelce will be joining “Monday Night Countdown,” the pregame show for ESPN’s “Monday Night Football,” according to TODAY.
Now that Kelce’s professional football career is behind him, he’ll have more free time to pursue hobbies like playing the saxophone. Only time will tell if Kelce will end up putting his new saxophone to use!