The Thanksgiving Tradition

Massachusetts has never been known for high school football. It's a smaller state with tough weather and is not an area where college football is majorly popular (Boston College is the only major team, as opposed to somewhere like Florida that has the Gators, FSU, Miami, and Central Florida among others). However, for well over a century, Massachusetts has had one thing that as far as I know, no other state has. On Thanksgiving morning, teams pile onto a bus and migrate with their supporters to face their biggest rival, often just one town line away. As someone who played in three Thanksgiving classics, let me tell you: there is nothing like playing the last game of the season and going home to the biggest meal of the year.

Although Massachusetts may not be nationally known for football talent, to assume this means the state lacks tradition would be inaccurate. Boston Latin vs. Boston English is the oldest continuous rivalry in the country, having played each other every Thanksgiving since 1887. Needham and Wellesley have the oldest public school rivalry in the nation, starting their annual meeting in 1882. You could conceivably have five or six generations playing in the same rivalry. Imagine being from the town of Pembroke, where they've only played Silver Lake Regional four times because they were one school until they were split four years ago. Most of those kids grew up playing together.

There is always a lot on the line, as this year, 12 playoff berths were up for grabs on Turkey Day. And rivalries such as Everett vs. Cambridge, Mansfield vs. Foxboro, and Xaverian vs. St. John's Prep showcase Division I college prospects every season.

This year, I made the trek from Boston 45 minutes west to my hometown of 14,000 people, Holliston, to see Holliston play Westwood for the 36th straight Thanksgiving. It was my first T-Day game since 2002, and I was one of between four and five thousand people to crowd Kamitian Field and watch 10-0 Holliston try to earn their first playoff birth in 17 years over 8-1 Westwood. I went with four guys who I played football with back in the day, and although we probably looked like the type of guys I would normally make fun of for trying to "relive their glory days," we didn't look out of place. We saw groups of guys from years and years ahead of our class doing the same thing. Up on the hill above the school, groups of men well into their 40s stood smiling and laughing about their memories from the rivalry (which started in the '70s because at the time the league championship came down to those two teams every year, so they decided they might as well play at the end of the year). Being there with generations of people, electric with excitement at what was going on on the field and mingling with old friends, it became clear to me: it's not a football thing, it's a town thing, one of the few events that unifies small towns across the state every year.

Frankly, it's a beautiful thing.

Oh, and I'm proud to report that Holliston won 17-14 to earn their first trip to the playoffs and undefeated regular season since 1992. Booyah!