The Football Turkey Conspiracy

The Football/Turkey Conspiracy

November 25, 2003

For many Americans (your host not included) Thanksgiving is not only a day of families drawing near and overindulgence in heavy foods. No, many of this nation's inhabitants add football to that list of Thanksgiving Day traditions. Whether it be the active family's flag football game in the frozen back lawn or the more commonly seen sedentary family's La-Z-Boy spectatorship of a college or professional game, football has carved a niche for itself amongst the green bean casseroles and Squanto tales.

With the exception of a brief hiatus during World War II, Motown's Lions have taken to the gridiron every Thanksgiving since 1934. The Detroit Lions officially licensed NFL fan site offers a wealth of historical information on the annual game. The site contains background information on the history of the Thanksgiving event, "interesting" facts and figures, all-time Thanksgiving records, and reflections on the annual game by players and coaches. There's also enough vintage photography to make any regular viewer of ESPN Classic gleeful.

Today's second football-on-Thanksgiving tale is one of a different sort. This one comes from Dion Clisso, a correspondent with the Blue Springs Examiner. Clisso, who has a sort of "down home" flavor in his writing, provides a heart-warming tale of one of his family's Thanksgiving traditions: the backyard flag football game. The article boils down to a play-by-play account of the failure of Dion's team in this year's game. "It's never as easy as it looks," Clisso concludes in the piece. No, Dion, it never is.

Thanksgiving is a day filled with numerous traditions. People can become violent if they don't have their stuffing or their pumpkin pie. Surprisingly enough, the same may be true of football. It has become an American tradition.

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