MORGANTOWN — Thanksgiving is many things to many people.
It is family to some, turkey to others. It is an afternoon of NFL football to others, still.
It is a warm day, a happy day, a time in a troubled world where man cannot get along with his brother when we can celebrate a coming together of humanity, of Pilgrims and native Americans.
What it isn’t, though, is what it should be … a day for college and high school rivalries.
There is nothing like an 11 a.m. kickoff in a cold, crowded high school stadium, the turkey roasting back home in the oven, its aroma filling the house for the return of the family from something that always was far more than just a football game.
It was a rivalry game.
I know back in at least one misspent youth, Thanksgiving Day was given over to the rivalry between Englewood High School and St. Cecilia’s in northern New Jersey. As a child you would attend the game with family and neighbors, play a game of touch football out back behind the stadium at halftime, then come back, caked in mud, to watch two high school teams lay it on the lie for city pride.
St. Cecilia’s High at one time was a powerhouse, the first coaching stop on the long career of a coach named Lombardi, but if winning was the only thing to them by the time this mediocre tackle arrived on the scene to play for a state championship team, they were slipping and we rolled over them, another step toward that school eventually dropping football.
Still, of all the memories you have out of high school athletics, the strongest came out of that game in that year, a game that well might have been just another step along the way were it not played out on Thanksgiving Day.
Bill Stewart, the West Virginia football coach, remembers Thanksgiving.
“My brother and I were very blessed,” Stewart recalled the other day. “It goes back to my Fellowsville and Benjamin, W.Va., roots. That was always family time. We were fortunate to come from a great family and to believe whole heartedly in Thanksgiving and what it is all about. The giving back and sharing is something that will stay with you forever.”
In the Stewart household, though there were memories that extended beyond the living room table, memories as tasty as the stuffing itself.
“My hometown used to do that for years,” Stewart said. “It was always the ‘Turkey Bowl’ and it was always Magnolia High School vs. Sisterville High School. It was always a big game.”
A big game, and an emotional game, and legend has it that in one of the meetings Orville Kiger was coach and his brother, Clem, was one of his players. Now this was before Stewart’s time, but he heard about it. Everyone in the area had.
It seems Clem had scored a touchdown and some of the opposing fans were welcoming him to town, something he did not take too kindly toward.
Well, as sometimes happens, one thing led to another and let’s just say that the holiday punch that year was a punch in the mouth.
“And the donnybrook was on,” Stewart said.
The Kigars were big men who could take care of themselves and the word is that they stood there in the end zone, taking on all comers until the local gendarmes came upon the scene and brought law, if not order, to the situation.
“Cub Scout and Boy Scout honor,” Stewart said as he told the story. “The Kigar family, they were great people, but they took them to jail that night … for their own protection.”
That, of course, was a Thanksgiving for the ages.
So was the last time West Virginia and Pitt met on Thanksgiving Day.
That was in 2005, a game memorable not only because Pat White singlehandedly beat Pitt, rushing for 220 yards, but because the wind chill that day was 7 degrees.
Despite the weather, White made a statement when this kid, born and raised in Southern Alabama, came out in a short sleeved shirt as if to say to Pitt, “this weather ain’t nothing and you ain’t either.”
“I was coaching Patrick at the time,” said Stewart, then a quarterback coach under Rich Rodriguez. “It was only seven degrees and everyone’s lips were quivering, but I will always remember how we played that night.”
That’s the way Thanksgiving is supposed to be, but now it has been bought off by the NFL and it is nothing but a practice day and then an evening of brotherhood at the Puskar Center for the Mountaineers, who honor their seniors in a touching ceremony tonight.
E-mail Bob Hertzel at bhertzel@hotmail.com.
Bob Herzel
HERTZEL COLUMN: Today should be about rivalries
- Bob Herzel
-
-
Jones nears milestone as Notre Dame visits WVU
That it is a crucial game in a season that seems to have nothing but, today’s 9 p.m. visit to the Coliseum by a streaking Notre Dame team comes with a historical footnote in the history of West Virginia University basketball.
Kevin Jones enters the game having scored 20 or more points in nine consecutive games. -
WVU source: Battle to join Big 12 nearing conclusion
Indications were growing that West Virginia University’s battle to leave the Big East and join the Big 12 in time for the 2012 season was about to be won, possibly as early as today.
A source within the Mountaineer athletic department said on Tuesday that the matter was nearing a conclusion and also told the Times West Virginian that West Virginia would be reinstating a golf team to compete in the Big 12. -
HERTZEL COLUMN: WVU, Irish strikingly similar
Consider, if you will, that it is Nov. 25 past, that the West Virginia University basketball team is running a routine drill four games into its season, getting ready for the Akron game when Kevin Jones goes down in a heap on the floor, his ACL torn, his season over.
-
WVU source: Battle to join Big 12 nearing conclusion
Indications were growing that West Virginia University’s battle to leave the Big East and join the Big 12 in time for the 2012 season was about to be won, possibly as early as today.
-
HERTZEL COLUMN - Truck drives Mountaineers to needed win
Perhaps it is what has kept him going through a West Virginia basketball career with as many turns as a trip to Pineville down in Wyoming County, but Truck Bryant enjoys being Truck Bryant.
-
WVU finds a way, wins in overtime
Truck Bryant made the headline plays, including a 3-point shot with 3.3 seconds left to play, as West Virginia saved its season with an 87-84 overtime victory at Providence, but the subheads had to be reserved for Deniz Kilicli and a pair of freshman guards.
-
Mountaineers face critical test today at Providence
The schedule tells you it’s another game in the marathon run that is the Big East season, a trip to Providence to play a team with only two conference victories, but somehow everyone connected with the West Virginia University program knows today’s noon meeting with the Friars is much more than that.
-
HERTZEL COLUMN: Jones on the brink of WVU history
On the one hand there is yesterday’s Warren Baker, who entered the WVU Athletic Hall of Fame in the latest class for the work he did from 1973 to 1976, and on the other hand there is today’s star Kevin Jones, who has emerged from the shadows of the likes of Joe Alexander and Da’Sean Butler this year to carve his own niche in Mountaineer basketball history.
-
WVU backs out of Florida State game
West Virginia University has canceled its Sept. 8 football game at Florida State.
Once again, as they have done with virtually everything since announcing they planned to move from the Big East to the Big 12, they did it behind closed doors, without any announcement or statement. -
WVU women upset Louisville
It is foolhardy to put it up there with the Baylors and Notre Dames of the women’s world just yet, but really if you look closely and see potential, much of which came out Saturday afternoon when the Mountaineers upset No. 12/14 Louisville, 66-50, you realize that this team is closer to greatness than it is to mediocrity.
- More Bob Herzel Headlines
-
Jones nears milestone as Notre Dame visits WVU
