Thanksgiving and Football, an American Tradition

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  • The Dallas Cowboys began a Thanksgiving Day game tradition in 1966. True to the tradition, above, the Cowboys played the Philadelphia Eagles on Thanksgiving Day in 2007. Courtesy photo
    The Dallas Cowboys began a Thanksgiving Day game tradition in 1966. True to the tradition, above, the Cowboys played the Philadelphia Eagles on Thanksgiving Day in 2007. Courtesy photo
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Thanksgiving is perhaps the earliest of truly American holidays. This day of family gathering began with the first Thanksgiving in 1621 when the Pilgrims and local Indians celebrated a successful harvest with a meal together at Plymouth. Families still gather more or less successfully, and typically gorge themselves on turkey, a bird native to the Americas, among other things.

One prominent feature of the holiday is football, the most American of sports. Whether we drowse in front of a television watching 14 hours of our favorite sport, or in more active families, enjoy a nice “Turkey Bowl” game out on the lawn where you can pancake that cousin who you’ve been mad at since you were six, Thanksgiving is a football-centric event for many Americans.

Given that the Pilgrims and Indians likely did not engage in a rousing Turkey Bowl, and probably missed out on the annual shellacking of the Detroit Lions in the early game (hard to get good TV reception in 17th century New England), it begs the question: how did this sport become so involved with a holiday involving thankfulness?

It turns out that the association of Thanksgiving and football goes back to the roots of the sport, in the late 19th century. In those days, Thanksgiving was generally observed on the final Thursday of November, and as one of the few weekdays that many people were off work, high schools in the Northeast began playing on the holiday as early as the late 1860s.

By 1876, Princeton and Yale began an annual Thanksgiving rivalry as the sport grew. As the sport spread west and south, colleges began to schedule their season-ending matches on Thanksgiving Day against bitter rivals. The tradition has continued to this day, with games such as the Iron Bowl (Auburn vs. Alabama) and The Game (Michigan vs. Ohio State) drawing the faithful to stadium seats and televisions around the country.

As professional leagues began to form towards the end of the 19th century, they began to take advantage of this day of leisure to draw larger-than-normal crowds as well. The National Football League, founded in an auto dealership in Canton, Ohio in 1920, caught onto this trend early, playing six Thanksgiving games in its inaugural season.

Other than a hiatus during the Second World War, the NFL has scheduled games on Thanksgiving every season. Beginning in 1945, the Detroit Lions, whose ownership had important ties to broadcast networks, would host a game every year, a tradition that continues today.

Six years after their entry into the league, the Dallas Cowboys began hosting a Thanksgiving Day game in 1966. After a brief experiment with a home-and-home series against the (then) St. Louis Cardinals from 1975-77, the Cowboys agreed to continue hosting games when NFL Commissioner Pete Rozelle guaranteed the club that Dallas would always have a game on Thanksgiving. Today, the Lions play the early game, while the Cowboys play in the afternoon, and then a third game (with no guaranteed slots) is played that night, giving the NFL exposure all day.

As it turns out, we watch football on Thanksgiving because, well, that’s how things worked out. Like so many other of our traditions, football and Thanksgiving have simply evolved together to a point where one would feel odd without the other. So, while the Pilgrims would probably not understand our fascination with the game (as they would undoubtedly be puzzled by a whole host of Thanksgiving traditions), as you fill your belly this Thanksgiving and settle in to watch your favorite team disappoint you (thanks Cowboys!), remember to be thankful for this blessing among all the others that are so easy to forget in this chaotic year of 2020.