[ARETE] Sport and Society - Thanksgiving Tradition

[Gary Morgenstein]

Terrific article Richard! Very informative and entertaining. Thank you. 
Gary Morgenstein

> On Nov 26, 2024, at 6:18 PM, richard crepeau via Sport_literature_association <sport_literature_association at lists.ku.edu> wrote:
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> SPORT AND SOCIETY FOR ARETE   
> NOVEMBER 27 2024
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> As with all American traditions, if it happened once or twice, it is one. Therefore, I present my traditional Thanksgiving Football Turkey
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> The History of Thanksgiving and of Football both can be traced back to the Middle Ages, and so it may not be so strange that the two would become intertwined in modern America.
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> The first American Thanksgiving is generally believed to have been in Plymouth Colony in mid-October of 1621, when William Bradford and the Pilgrims gathered with local Indians to give thanks for survival and the first harvest. The first Thanksgiving proclaimed by a President, was November 26, 1789, when President Washington called for a national day of Thanksgiving for the gift of the new form of government.
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> By the end of that century the practice of days of thanksgiving had faded into disuse, but throughout the first half of the nineteenth century Sara Hale, editor of Godey's Lady's Book kept the idea alive by writing editorials and letters to presidents and governors urging their adoption of such a day.  
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> Finally, during the Civil War Abraham Lincoln took her advice and proclaimed the last Thursday of November, 1863, as Thanksgiving Day. The practice stuck, almost. (During the Great Depression FDR was beseeched by the retail community to move Thanksgiving to the fourth Thursday of November, when the shopping/selling season was cut short as Thanksgiving fell on the fifth Thursday of November.)
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> In 1874, the first intercollegiate football game was played. Two years later the Intercollegiate Football Association was formed and they instituted a championship game for Thanksgiving Day. Within a decade, it was the premier athletic event in the nation.
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> All but twice in the first two decades of the league Princeton and Yale were the participants, and by the 1890s, when the game was played at the Polo Grounds, it was drawing 40,000 fans. Players, students, and fans wore their school colors while banners flew from carriages, hotels, and the business establishments of the city. It was by then one of the most important social events of the season for New York's social elite of the Gilded Age.
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> In 1893 the New York Herald noted the significance of the event, declaring: "Thanksgiving Day is no longer a solemn festival to God for mercies given...It is a holiday granted by the State and the Nation to see a game of football."
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> Indeed, it was, and so it would remain.
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> By the mid-1890's it was estimated that some 120,000 athletes from colleges, clubs, and high schools took part in 5,000 Thanksgiving Day football games across the nation. The Thanksgiving Day game was established as both a tradition and a moneymaker.
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> From its inception some National Football League teams followed the example of the colleges. In 1934 George Richards purchased the Portsmouth, Ohio, Spartans, moved them to Detroit, and renamed them the Lions. Richards decided to play the Lions game against the Bears on Thanksgiving Day at the University of Detroit Stadium. 
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> With no other professional competition and owning a radio station in Detroit, Richards was able to put together a 94-station coast-to-coast radio network. This allowed a national radio audience, and 25,000 fans, to witness the 19-16 Bear victory. The Detroit Lions “traditional” Thanksgiving Day game was born.
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> When professional football began to attract a national following in the 1950s as the television sport, it was the Lion's Thanksgiving Day game that became a mid-20th century tradition, and from 1951 through 1963 the Lions always played the Green Bay Packers on Thanksgiving.
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> I can remember watching terrible Packer teams chasing the legendary Lions’ quarterback Bobby Layne around Briggs Stadium. I was in awe of Layne, the tough hard-drinking Texan, who was out of shape, aging, and never wore a facemask. But I loved the Packers and longed for an upset of the Lions.
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> After Vince Lombardi transformed the Packers into champions, with Starr, Taylor, and Hornung, it was the Lions who pulled the big upsets on Turkey Day in front of growing television audiences. The most memorable came in 1962 when Lombardi’s Packers were undefeated going into Detroit, and where they suffered their only loss of the season.  
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> At our house turkey could not be served until the game was over, and the smell of turkey, gravy, dressing, pumpkin pie and football filled the air. Some games were played in rain, others in snow, and almost always it was cold outside our Minnesota home.
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> Much has changed since then as, almost always now, it is warm outside our Florida home. The Lions are playing in a dome. They play a variety of teams on Thanksgiving although this year it will be the Green Bay Packers that the Lions will try to stuff. After the merger of the AFL and NFL in 1966 and with a different TV network covering each league, it became necessary to have two Thanksgiving Day games, the second one in Dallas. At our house the Turkey is still served at the end of the Lions game, and after the meal we watch the fourth quarter of the game from Dallas over pie and coffee, hoping for a Cowboy loss.
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> The National Football League, in the spirit of excess, introduced a third Thanksgiving Game to accommodate the programming needs of the NFL Network. That broadcast slot has now passed to NBC leaving the NFL Network on the sidelines for the Turkey Day festivities. The NBC game follows the Dallas game and this year features San Francisco at Seattle.  
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> Now with Amazon Prime joining the NFL television family, yet another game is being added. Because Thanksgiving has run out of air space, the new game with be on Friday, and the marketing geniuses have labeled it the “Black Friday Game.” It will feature Miami at the Jets and maybe should have been called the ”Leftovers Game” or the “Gluttony Game.” On a national holiday when Americans stuff themselves with food, it seems inevitable that the NFL would seek to stuff one more football game into them as well, they just needed one more day. 
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> As it was in the 1890s, so it is in the 21st century, The NFL Century, that Thanksgiving remains "a holiday granted by the State and the Nation to see a game of football."
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> On Sport and Society this is Dick Crepeau wishing you a Happy Thanksgiving and reminding you that you don't have to be a good sport to be a bad loser.
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> Copyright 2024 by Richard C. Crepeau
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