This holiday is a football day too, and one of the best things about it is traditional high school games between town rivals. These games rank right behind turkey n’ trimmin’s. They usually draw large numbers of fans and many times people see friends they haven’t run into for months or years.
While I haven’t attended a Thanksgiving game in a number of years, they used to be a ritual with me. Nothing was more fun on a brisk day than standing along the restraining rope at Fuessenich Park and saying hello to friends who came to the games as much for that purpose as for football-watching. A good number of spectators would bring along, well hidden in a deep coat pocket, a pint of what we referred to as “wondrous healing waters’’, known by various more official names. I remember a favorite among rope-standers called R-and-R and it didn’t refer to rest and relaxation. Said refreshment was passed around to people who needed a gulp or two to warm their innards even if they didn’t need healing. Ah, old friends.
The men and women who work these games, including school officials, security personal, coaches, referees, custodians, bus drivers, sports writers, broadcasters and everyone else connected to the Thanksgiving games have to give up a portion of their holiday to work. It’s part of the package.
Torrington High plays Watertown High tomorrow in Watertown. It is just one of the Turkey Day games in the area. In Winsted, at Van Why Field, Housatonic/Wamogo will play Gilbert/Northwestern in the Berkshire Bowl. The weather forecast isn’t favorable.
I asked Mike McKenna, Torrington’s 58-year-old athletic director, how much the game, which begins at 10 a.m. would cut in to his holiday. He said, “Not as much as it would if it was a home game, because if it was here, I’d have to be around long after the game ended.
He is used to spending part of every Thanksgiving Day on or near the high school gridiron. His late dad was Dr. James (Doc) McKenna, the Torrington High team doctor for over five decades, who died in 2012 at age 88.
“It’s been like that for me since I can remember,’’ Mike said. “Before Torrington and Watertown began their Thanksgiving Day football tradition, our family used go down the valley to watch the Shelton-Derby game. My mother (Jean) was from Shelton.’’
So the Thanksgiving routine won’t change a lot for Mike McKenna, his wife Teresa and their three children. He will do his duties at the game and then return for family dinner.
“After that, we’ll do what we always do,’’ McKenna said. “We will go then to the home of my sister, Kate Valigursky and join the rest of the family there. I have four brothers and three sisters, and so, as always, there will be a big crowd, what with all the spouses and children. It’s always a good time.’’
You’ll be hearing more in this space, very soon, about THS’s AD, who is relatively new to the job but certainly not new to the athletic fields and gyms where THS plays.
Down Route 8, Ansonia and Naugatuck will be going at each other again. This one always draws special interest because Ansonia is usually a state powerhouse and Naugatuck is invariably a stubborn and all-out foe. I’ve seen a few of their Thanksgiving clashes and come home afterward happy that I was not in the game but only watching. These kids hit.
