Andy's Take: New England, don't ever give up Thanksgiving week high school football

There’s been a longstanding tradition when it comes to high school football out of the New England region of the country and that’s playing on Thanksgiving morning, starting with the rivalry between Needham and Wellesley that began back on November 30, 1882.

Though this has started in recent years to get some pushback, make no mistake about it, the kids enjoy playing on the week of Thanksgiving, no matter what state you’re in. Whether it’s a playoff game or exhibition, all games are meaningful when you play at this time of the year.

Something about getting up on Thanksgiving morning, knowing you’re going to put on the cleats, grab your wide receiver or linemen gloves, and play football with your friends or even some random people, just feels right.

I got to experience just a little bit of that on Wednesday evening at the historic Fenway Park in the fairly new Massachusetts high school football rivalry between Plymouth South and Plymouth North, with the former winning the game in dramatic fashion, 27-21 in overtime.

To those kids who got to partake in that game, yeah, no playoff berth was on the line. No state championship game next weekend. You know what, who cares? The very fact that there’s high school football being played at the ball park that serves home to the 9-time World Series’ champion Boston Red Sox, is a neat deal all within itself.

No matter the year for New England high school football teams, head coaches prepare their clubs for rivalry games as if they were playing for a state championship.

“We’re going to prepare as if it’s the Super Bowl,” North Kingstown Senior head coach Dave Giorgi said about a Thanksgiving Day matchup with North Kingstown in 2023. “It’s important, it builds momentum for the kids going into next season. It’ll close out the seniors. Tradition is everything to me and we will not take South Kingstown lightly. They’re a very good team as well.”

The reason I come and say New England, never change, is because this kind of tradition when it comes to high school sports in general gets lost in the proverbial sauce of everything else that surrounds the game. Though the region up north doesn’t quite face the hurdles and issues that many other states are tackling, the New England area has many battling with whether Thanksgiving Day games should be moved altogether due to colliding with playoff and state championship games.

Take for instance today’s St. John’s Preparatory School–Xaverian Brothers matchup pits two teams that will square off for the MIAA’s Division I Super Bowl, Massachusetts’ version of a state championship, next week at Gillette Stadium in Foxboro.

In speaking to many folks, this game between the Eagles and Hawks will be played just as hard today as if it was the state championship game that’s taking place next week.

Not every game can have the significance that of St. John’s and Xaverian Brothers, but for many towns throughout the New England area, Thanksgiving high school football is a culmination of the hard work that has been put in all season long. With the fall days turning into the harsher winter ones ahead, high school football turns the page in the sports calendar every year, giving way to basketball and other athletics.

“For the longest time, I think [the Thanksgiving game] meant the culmination of a year’s worth of hard work,” longtime Barnstable High supporter Sean Walsh said of Thanksgiving football’s meaning to the Cape Cod area. “I think if you take a look at the culture of Cape Cod—say the 1950s, 1940s—people would work twice as hard all summer long and would basically live on credit in the winter. So, the Thanksgiving Day game was like the end of the season.” 

As someone who’s grown up in Florida, the Sunshine State where high school football teams yearn for the chance to just practice on Thanksgiving week as it means you’re playing deep into the playoffs, the unique tradition of playing on Turkey Day means something much more than the postseason.

It’s a Thanksgiving week tradition I feel like is none other and whether the contest is played on a Tuesday, Wednesday or Thursday, New England should never look to change what has been taking place since the late 1800’s.

Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire and Rhode Island, don’t change your high school football tradition as its one I’m sure plenty of other states would trade for.

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