HOME FRONT: THE STUFFING OF LEGENDS
Some dreams never die. And many are well embellished.
By BRAD HERZOG
THE MOST significant football
competition of the Thanksgiving holiday this year won't involve the
Detroit Lions or the Dallas Cowboys. It won't be USC vs. Notre Dame
or Texas vs. Texas A&M. It won't include cheerleaders or marching
bands or sideline reporters. No, this game, on a quiet high-school
field in suburban Illinois, will feature a dozen aging and
undersized enthusiasts competing in front of empty bleachers and a
stray dog or two. It is Turkey Bowl XX.
To call it just another football game is to accept Woody Allen's
speed-reading critique of War and Peace: "It involves Russia." To
those of us who play in the Turkey Bowl, it is tradition. It is a
reaffirmation of friendship—growing up without growing distant. It
is also an athletic endeavor involving men of doubtful athletic
prowess, which translates to a subsequent weekend of severe muscle
pulls and body bruises—badges of honor and courage.
Our group is not alone, of course. Thanksgiving football is not only
a television phenomenon; it is played out in every town on every
stretch of land that lends itself to a makeshift field. In fact,
we're not even alone on our stretch of land. There is always another
game—similar on the surface but deeply different at its
heart—unfolding at the other end of the field. But in a fit of
egocentric fervor, we believe that ours is The Game, the Granddaddy
of Them All, the Because-We-Said-So Championship of the World.
The competition began, unofficially, when we were in the ninth
grade. A group of buddies simply wandered to a football field on
Thanksgiving Day. The fact that we chose our high school home field
may have had something to do with adolescent dreams of football
glory. After all, none of us originals were on the varsity team. For
the most part, we were then—and we are today—a group of
place-kicker-sized men with less speed than a lumbering lineman and
less strength than a frail wide receiver.
But the magnificent thing about athleticism is its relativity. At
any time, any one of us could be the best player on this field. Back
in 1983, when it all began, we could be a 5-foot-6 Joe Montana or a
140-pound Lawrence Taylor. Wolters Field, home of the Highland Park
Giants, became home to a dozen Walter Mittys. This was fantasy
football at its finest. The second Turkey Bowl legitimized the first
as the official beginning, much like World War II added a Roman
numeral to the War to End All Wars. I don't mean to equate our
little game to war, of course, although perhaps it began as a battle
to belong. In its own way, our annual morning of mud and aches and
pains permitted entrance into a clique of sorts. The game became a
macho version of a tree house: Not everyone was invited to play.
A few years ago, the Wall Street Journal took note of the widespread
Turkey Bowl phenomenon and ascribed a different source of
motivation, quoting a college professor who suggested that perhaps
we pigskin pilgrims were acting out a primeval need to earn the meal
we eat but no longer hunt. Thanksgiving "may be the year's biggest,
most-awaited day of recreational football," declared the Journal
piece, adding that the games were played largely by "smart aleck
younger brothers, halcyon high school greats, and other stalwarts."
We seem to fall under the "other stalwarts" category. Unlike the
participants of the 25-year-old game I know of in Ohio, featuring
alumni of the Centerville High School football team, we were high
school greats only if by that one means soccer benchwarmers and
armchair quarterbacks. Ours isn't an event like the Jarrell family's
affair in Georgia, which comes with food, banners, referees, down
markers, and even a trophy. We don't have team jerseys, like they do
in Aldan, Pennsylvania, where the Irish in green annually take on
the Italians in red.
We wear whatever clothes still fit us, a ragtag assortment of
shredded shirts and grass-stained sweatpants. An extra layer or two
is our only answer to the typically frigid late-November weather (as
well as the only self-respecting way to provide secretive padding).
Besides the occasional stray dogs, our fan base is sometimes
composed of toddling two-year-olds more interested in the goose
droppings that dot the field like land mines. And we play for
nothing but bragging rights.
Only a few short years after the tradition was inaugurated, college
took us our different ways, but the game always brought us back.
Having not seen one another for months at a time, we would all
arrive at the field at 9 a.m. sharp, decked out in various
collegiate duds. Homecoming meant making it to the Turkey Bowl, by
whatever means necessary.
One player drove six hours from Iowa on the day of the game,
choosing to head straight for the field instead of stopping first to
see his parents. Another time, two mainstays were in London over
Thanksgiving. Thousands of miles from the traditional holiday game,
they decided to create a version of their own, a sort of Tea and
Crumpets Bowl, and merely pretended they were with us—live via
satellite.
We're now more than a decade past caps and gowns, and a few of us
have left town, meaning the Turkey Bowl nucleus is struggling to
stay intact. The numbers game has meant that, on occasion, outsiders
have been invited to even the sides. Usually, they are quickly
forgotten after the event. But not always-like one original player's
ex-girlfriend's cousin, who came to be known as Cousin Greg. It
started when he was introduced to one of the participants.
"Alex, this is Lisa's cousin, Greg."
"Oh, hi, Cousin Greg."
And it caught on. For a few years in the late '80s, much of the
chatter at the line of scrimmage sounded like this:
"Okay, who's covering Cousin Greg?"
"Watch Cousin Greg."
"Somebody get Cousin Greg!"
Thus, solely because of his lineage, he became a Turkey Bowl legend,
while the rest of us have merely achieved that level of status in
our own minds. Indeed, a great performance at the game lingers like
the smell of Thanksgiving stuffing; the particular performer sees to
that. A defining episodeis endlessly redefined and exaggerated. A
routine play becomes a Turkey Bowl Moment.
The most famous of these is the Ben-and-Bob incident. Bob tackled
Ben, who fell awkwardly and dislocated his elbow. It was that
simple, but that was 15 years ago. Today, the play is remembered as
a vicious hit resulting in an arm fractured in several places. Who's
going to argue? Certainly not Bob. Did Babe Ruth tell the world,
following his famous shot in the 1932 World Series, that he was
really pointing to the pitcher?
Alas, the episode will never be repeated. As we approached our
thirties, we decided it was time to put our days of tackle football
behind us. We were clearly tired of not being able to walk for three
days after the game, but initial reaction to the prospect of
abandoning tackle was chilly, as if to do so was at once
capitulating (to age) and emasculating. It drew the kind of
hesitation I often offer when my wife asks me to briefiy hold her
purse.
But flag football has proven to be just as amenable to us pretenders
as the game's previous incarnation, provided we remember the flags.
We still revel in the moments that grow into folklore—the catches
and fumbles and rants and whines that dominate the post game
chatter, which is almost as important as the game itself. Who was
the MVP? Who made the play of the game? Who was the first to leave?
Talk is cheap, but as a lifeline to nostalgia, it's priceless.
So here we are 20 years later. The faces are much the same (perhaps
fuller), but our lives are vastly different. Once just a group of
high-school buddies with the future and 50 yards of open field ahead
of us, we are now rushing toward middle age. We're Bob, the sales
manager; Ben, the economist; Alex, the magazine editor; Brian, the
business owner; Jimmy, the senior vice-president. We have kids and
mortgages and male-pattern baldness, and we're doing our best to
react to life's audibles.
But once a year, on Thanksgiving, we find ourselves back on the old
field with old friends, wearing old clothes. And on that day life is
a perfect spiral.
Published in ATTACHE.
Used by permission.
