By BRIAN DONOHUE
It almost feels like a Thanksgiving without the turkey. Or, perhaps more accurately, without the guests around the table.
As Red Bankers prepare for Thanksgiving Thursday, there is one tradition that won’t be on the menu for the first time in generations: a Red Bank vs Long Branch high school football game.
Played annually on Thanksgiving morning for decades, the 101-year-old rivalry was moved to a date earlier in the schedule this year, with Red Bank Regional beating Long Branch High School 27-20 on October 19 instead of the Turkey Day matchup.
An account of the first Red Bank vs. Long Branch high school football game in the Nov. 7, 1923 Red Bank Register.
One of the longest-running rivalries in the state, it started as an early November, 1923 contest between then Red Bank High School and Long Branch’s Chattle High School. (Red Bank High School played Leonardo on Thanksgiving that year.)
But a glance at the archives of the Red Bank Register show the matchup was moved to Thanksgiving in subsequent years with the paper referring to it as the “Turkey Day classic” by 1945. With the exception of a pandemic cancellation in 2020, the game took place on Thanksgiving every year until last year, when both schools decided the date no longer made sense.
Red Bank Regional High School superintendent Louis Moore said the decision was made to move the game from Thanksgiving partly because a football season that once stretched well into November now ends before Election Day. Red Bank Regional played its last scheduled game this year on November 1.
Playing another game more than three weeks later could wreak havoc both with playoff schedules – if one or both teams qualified – or training regimens if they don’t.
“Both sides decided it wasn’t appropriate to continue,’’ Moore said. “The concern on both sides was that if the kids aren’t training, if the kids aren’t out on the field, the possibility of an injury increases. And so the schools felt, unfortunately with the new calendar that the state athletic association has put in place, it wasn’t appropriate. We could potentially be putting kids in a harmful position.”
The October matchup keeps the rivalry going on the field. But the tradition of playing, or, perhaps more so, fans reuniting with old friends in the stands on Thanksgiving itself, is what many will miss the most.
“I am kind of sad that it ended to be honest with you,’’ said Louis “Del” Dal Pra (pictured below) former athletic director at Red Bank Regional High School. “I think socially, they forgot about the alumni becasue it’s like a mini reunion. A lot of people in the stands don’t pay attention to the game. We kind of tend to forget that.”
Dan George, who coached Long Branch High School football for years before retiring in 2021 said of the Thanksgiving game: “I’m going to truly miss it.”
“Our absolute biggest crowd every year was usually on Thanksgiving,” he said. “I’m all for it as a coach, I’m all for it as an alumni and I think it’s going to be missed much more than people in the education world think it is going to be.”
Red Bank Regional and Long Branch High School are far from alone in ditching their long held tradition of a Thanksgiving faceoff.
The decision is part of a larger trend in New Jersey high school sports in which longtime rivalries usually settled on Thanksgiving morning are ending or being moved to other days of the schedule.
That’s partly the result of seasons beginning earlier to accommodate newer state playoff schedules implemented by the New Jersey State Interscholastic Athletic Association.
People might still be able to watch the matchup on the field, sure. But the cherished reunions on the stands, Dal Pra said, are more likely to happen on Thanksgiving morning, when many alumni who have moved away are back in their hometowns.
“We really wanted to keep it going, because we could see how important it was for the community not just for football, but the social end of it and that’s really what it’s all about,” he said.
When he returned as a retired ex-coach to the RBR-Long Branch Thanksgiving game in recent years, George, who now serves as athletic director at Bayonne High School said, “I saw so many people. So many people.”
George said keeping kids interested and in shape for the extra few weeks was not a huge concern when he was coaching. Both he and the players seemed to enjoy having a few weeks to prepare for one last game, especially given the tradition and meaning behind it.
“Whether you were having a good year or a bad year it was an opportunity to be with your kids three more weeks,” he said. “My analogy was, it’s like going to a bowl game. “
The extinction of the Turkey Day matchups are perhaps, just a window into a larger philosophical debate whether youth sports are about community and camaraderie, or championships and scholarships.
Inevitably, forces seem to pushing towards an emphasis on the latter, a reality Moore conceded was unfortunate but that administrators had to grapple with nonetheless.
“This decision that the NJSIAA made is kind of endemic of that because the goal is not to have a great sports season, the goal becomes, everyone wants to have a shot at playing at Rutgers stadium,” Moore said. “There is this intense desire to sort of maximize the competition and one of the outcomes of that is this shift in the football season.”
redbankgreen editor Brian Donohue may be reached via email at [email protected] or by calling or texting 848-331-8331 or yelling his name loudly as he walks by. Do you value the news coverage provided by redbankgreen? Please become a financial supporter if you haven’t already. Click here to set your own level of monthly or annual contribution.
