By Bob Hertzel
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.
