Turkeys

"The A-Team" at the Thanksgiving tailgate in 2009

It's Thanksgiving Eve and I've finished up the game prep for tomorrow when Greenwich hosts Staples.

I've thought about a lot of things going into tomorrow.

Stuff that I wanted to talk about on "Doubleheader" today.

Oh, wait, you didn't know "Doubleheader" was on today? Good. It wasn't. At least, it was supposed to be. But then I -- the sports director of WGCH -- was alerted that a UConn basketball game was going to air starting around 2:30 p.m.

Despite the fact that I really didn't expect to get on the air, I sat ready to do an abbreviated show. Then UConn went to overtime around 4:45 and that was that.

No show.

Just as well because I had an annihilation planned for today. Mets owner Steve Cohen decided to air dirty laundry (and, basically, whine) on Twitter this morning. Now, if ol' George Steinbrenner had done the same, wow. Just wow.

So, being consistent, I called Cohen out. I never wanted to air dirty laundry publicly (something I still struggle with). I was horrified each time Steinbrenner did that as it embarrassed the team.

The Mets should be embarrassed today and, of course, you can probably guess the twisted little subset of Metsland (population: insanity) that defended Cohen. Sad people. Just sad.

But enough about them.

Tomorrow will be the 20th Thanksgiving football broadcast for me, having called a game every year from 2001-2019 before COVID put everyone on their couches last year. It was so weird. It was just bizarre.

Tomorrow, for better or worse (and both apply) we're back to a form of normal. It will be my 18th Greenwich football call on Thanksgiving, having spent the other two years (2014-2015) with Darien and New Canaan in Stamford. Both were remarkable games.

Greenwich and Staples have given us some thrills also and tomorrow should be a good one as well.

Still, I think back to the first Thanksgiving call -- the 21st one. Except it was on Thanksgiving Eve.

Prior to Greenwich playing the Wreckers from Westport (Staples) they played the Danbury Hatters and my first call was -- in 2000 -- in Hat City.

The stadium was entirely different than it is now. It was a wooden press box with a small side room that I recall was unlit or maybe dimly lit. I was told to go in there because that's where WLAD (Danbury's AM radio station) had done games from in the past.

One problem I'll never forget for both Sean Kilkelly and me was that the room had a sealed glass window that created two issues: 1) it held the chill of the night in that room and 2) I couldn't run a crowd mic out the window.

We did our best, got through the Greenwich victory, which put them into the state tournament, and got back to our cars to warm up.

There was really no Thanksgiving pomp and circumstance of tailgates or anything. It was show up, freeze, call the game, and go home. My toes defrosted somewhere between Danbury and Mahopac.

Tomorrow, of course, we won't have that issue, between the comfort of the new booth and the fact that the temperature will be in the 50s.

So many other memories come to mind for Thanksgiving. How can I forget that 2001 game at Cardinal Stadium -- the first FCIAC Championship game to also be a regular-season contest -- as Steve Longo and the Cards ran all over Danbury?

Or the epic battles of the early 2010s as Staples broke the hearts of Greenwich, with field goals and other nail biters?

The streak of shutouts that each team ran up in the last 2000s?

And, of course, the Darien/New Canaan games. What an intense honor that was to call. While the 2015 game was on video and was expertly produced by our HAN Network crew, I might feel something a little more special for the 2014 game.

Not only was it an overtime thriller, with the Trifone brothers helping to seal the title for the Blue Wave, but pre-video, HAN Radio was maybe -- I don't know -- more innocent. Though we missed John Kovach's sideline reporting, we had the duo of Eric Gendron and Chris Kaelin. Plus Chris Erway and I were on our game in the booth.

That 2015 game was a high wire act, as we went to video and, at one point early that morning, found a piece of equipment had failed and the backup was in our Shelton office. Kate Czaplinski roared to Shelton, got the saving part, flew down the Merritt Parkway, and we were up and running just in time.

I kept saying to be calm but I was holding my breath. It all worked out.

I have other memories of that broadcast but what stands out the most is our call of Hudson Hamill's leaping touchdown grab in the fourth quarter.

I know that was a game that -- because of the pressure -- I was too amped at first but it all turned out ok.

I'm hoping there's a great tailgate tomorrow more -- a Greenwich tradition*.

Except for 2013 when I showed up at Staples High School three hours before kickoff to find...nobody. I texted everyone I could think of to prepare them (and find food). Chris Kaelin arrived with a bag of Egg McMuffin's that saved the morning.

Otherwise, Greenwich won 27-7.

So we turn to tomorrow and see what awaits. Hopefully a lot of fun, food, and football, with a possible playoff appearance in play for the winning team.

Chris and I will go live sometime around 9:50 tomorrow morning. The game will not air for the first time ever on WGCH but will be on Robcasting and Local Live.

Plus Sean Adams will be in the house!

New memories will be created.