Salem visits Beverly on Thanksgiving Day in 2012. Photo by Kat Hasenauer Cornetta
Witches and Panthers are two things you don’t quite equate with Thanksgiving, but since becoming a high school sports writer for the Boston Herald four years ago, they have become as much a part of the holiday as cranberry sauce and pumpkin pie.
I’ve experienced three years of the legendary Thanksgiving Day football rivalry that is Beverly High School versus Salem High School. I’ve covered meetings 113, 114 and 115, and depending on what my editor decides in the coming weeks, I may be back for 116 on Thanksgiving morning.
Watching the Panthers take on the Witches has become my favorite part of Thanksgiving, a holiday that I’ve struggled with in these ten years of living seven hours away from my family. Since diving into sports writing as a side career, I’ve found a group of friends like none other I’ve ever had – a second family. Therefore, spending Thanksgiving writing about football and taking box scores in the office just feels right.
But my experience is a reason why I don’t expect the Thanksgiving Day high school football games to last much longer in Massachusetts.
These games have become a huge discussion point given the MIAA’s two year old football playoff system. Most games held on Thanksgiving Eve or morning now have no bearing on standings or titles. And if they do, one or both of the teams could be juggling how many players to put on the line, given that they have a championship game the very next weekend at Gillette Stadium. Given all of that, many are asking why they exist.
But when I look at the games’ future, I’m not looking at the playoff system and its impact. I’m looking at the more spread-out nature of the American family. In the past 25 years, more and more families have become geographically spread out. My own family is the perfect example. I made the move away from my family in Western New York a decade ago. I was the first of my 23 cousins to leave the state, but have since been joined by my next youngest cousin, who is moving South for her husband’s job this month. I have another seriously considering a similar move. My sister and brother are on career paths that may also end up taking them away from our hometown of Rochester.
The Hasenauers are behind the times when it comes to this. Families are now spread all over the country and globe. If you’re playing, coaching or administrating high school football in the Commonwealth, Thanksgiving Day games cement you in place, making your family either come to you for the holiday or not allowing you to get together at all. How much longer can schools honestly ask players and coaches to make that sacrifice?
Look at it this way: say I eventually have a child, and they decide to play high school football for Salem, Beverly, or wherever I end up (and given my tiny height, their playing football will probably be limited to being a Steve Tasker-esque kick returner, but that’s more than okay with special teams-adoring me.) My parents – their grandparents – will have a difficult choice. Do they come up to Massachusetts for the holiday, or do they go to wherever my siblings are? My hands would be tied because of football, and I know there are plenty of families around Massachusetts in a similar situation.
This is far from the sole reason to get rid of Thanksgiving Day games. All families – regardless of miles between them – have to make decisions about how and where to spend the holidays. (Heck, my parents struggled with it, and my grandparents used to live across the street from each other.) But it is a factor that I never hear raised in the discussion. For all the talk of “games with nothing to play for” or “resting players for Super Bowls,” I never hear my fellow high school sports reporters say, “this scheduling is difficult for families.”
Deep down, I hope there are always Beverly-Salem, Woburn-Winchester, Weymouth-Walpole and Sharon-Oliver Ames games as a Thanksgiving day appetizer. But I know the current climate may have those games’ days numbered.