Thanksgiving Football

This scene will play out again tomorrow morning as I start the drive to Westport.

I began calling high school football in 1999.

That year, I called games in New York on WVIP radio. If you don't know New York football, generally speaking, there are no Thanksgiving football games.

The next year, I took over Greenwich football on WGCH, but the Thanksgiving game that year was played at Danbury on Wednesday before we cut the turkey.

That year, Sean Kilkelly and I worked in a glass-enclosed room (meaning no crowd noise) that also held in the bitter cold.

In 2001, the Cardinals met Danbury again on Thanksgiving, but this time the teams met for the FCIAC Championship, as well as the regular-season matchup. Steve Longo ran wild on the Hatters, being named MVP by Sean and I (who were given the responsibility of giving the award out).

The Danbury matchup would continue through 2004, including a 7-0 Greenwich win on a snowy field in the final game.

The next year, the Staples Wreckers became the Thanksgiving foe, and it has been that way ever since.

In the last 21 matchups between the two, Greenwich holds an 11-10 lead. Since the Thanksgiving rivalry began, the ledger sits at 8-6 in favor of the Wreckers.

The teams split the first four before Staples went on a four-game winning streak. The Cardinals won 27-7 in 2013 at Staples Stadium in what was the last GHS/SHS game I would call for a few years.

The Cardinals lost both of those games.

Coincidentally, when Chris Erway and I returned to WGCH in 2016, the Cardinals won, and they're now on a three-win streak.

The coaches have changed and so have the players. Each team has won FCIAC titles over the other. There's been crazy drama as well as blowouts.

Tomorrow it will be different, in that Staples is 2-7 this year while the Cardinals are 8-1, but there are reasons why games always get played.

You never know.

In the years we were away from Greenwich/Staples, Chris and I called two Darien/New Canaan matchups. Frankly, they were two of the best games I've ever been a part of.

The 2014 version brought Boyle Stadium to its knees with a dramatic overtime victory for the Blue Wave.

In 2015, HAN put the big game on video for the first time.

As always, I shot to the stadium extra early and tightened up the audio setup. But we quickly discovered we had a problem. A connection to the video setup had failed and the only backup we had was in our Shelton office.

No worries, I said. The broadcast would happen. It always does.

We got the part and made it on the air in time for kickoff.

I'm saddened that I don't have access to those games -- if only for the audio. The videos were eventually put behind a paywall from which they've never returned.

In any event, the Blue Wave once again snagged the victory in the final FCIAC championship game.

And so tomorrow, the alarm will go off at 5:00 a.m.

I'll get on the road a little after 6, making sure to have a small bite to eat, as we look to avoid the tailgate fiasco of '13. That was the year that there was no tailgate, thus sending Chris Kaelin to McDonald's for a sack of Egg McMuffins.

I'll be in Westport a little after 7:00 a.m., which may seem crazy to you, but I enjoy the peace of the quiet field as I go about finding a place to set up.

Staples has a small booth. While I've been in it a few times, it looks like Chris and I will be out in the elements again.

The equipment is ready. My notes are ready. I'm prepared. As always.

Various and sundry things may happen tomorrow. They always do.

At 9:50, we'll go on the air, and thus will begin my 19th consecutive Thanksgiving Day broadcast.

It's what the day has come to mean to me.

Join us tomorrow on 1490am, wgch.com or even on Robcasting.

After that? Bring on the playoffs.