Turkey Bowl.

One of the most cherished Thanksgiving traditions every year is the annual ward "Turkey Bowl".  A yearly church classic, Thanksgiving morning would not be complete without this early morning grudge match between the out of shape old men in the ward vs. the inexperienced awkwardness of the young men.  Sprinkle in a few missionaries and some of those girls that always seem to be better than most of the men on the field (though they still rarely get thrown to) and you have the recipe for a perfectly seasoned festive treat!  Of course another part of this great Thanksgiving tradition is for there to be cold and nasty weather for the game, regardless of how nice the weather is leading up to game day.  For instance, this year it was beautiful weather all week leading up to our annual Thursday morning clash with sunny weather in the mid 70's.  It was even very nice when I went to bed on Wednesday night before the game.  However while I was asleep the alleged "blizzard" that hit my friends and family up in Utah on Tuesday afternoon must have made its way to the park where we were holding our football game, because it was COLD.  Of course this only helped add to the experience and was one of the many observations I had throughout the game.  Here are a few others:

Getting the game started takes WAY longer than it needs to - This is ALWAYS the case at most any church sporting event, but is particularly true for the Turkey Bowl.  By the time you can get enough people to stop throwing the football, tying up their cleats, doing pregame warm-up stretches, etc. to listen and figure out how to divide the teams, you then have to choose field dimensions, put on your flags, decide how the game will be played (2 completions for a first down, 4 downs to score, etc.), it is generally at least a solid 30 - 45 minutes after when you planned on starting the game before you actually begin playing.  

You need to be friends with the Quarterback - If your goal in coming to play football on Thanksgiving morning is simply to get some light exercise in for the day before you stuff your face, then it doesn't really matter if you even know anyone else out on the field.  Both teams will be happy to let you run up and down the field to your hearts content, as long as you have NO expectation of ever really taking part in the offense or having a chance to see the ball.  However, if you have ANY aspirations whatsoever in actually getting to touch the ball for the few hours you will be out there in the cold playing football, you need to make friends with the quarterback as fast as possible.  This isn't the type of game where the QB will have time to look for multiple different receivers and see the inevitable 3 or 4 people that are wide open throughout the game.  Instead, this is the type of the game where the quarterback throws to his buddies all game long.  Even if they can't catch the ball and you can, don't expect to see the ball thrown your way unless you happen to run a route near one of the QB's friends on the team and it is a bad pass.  (Also, if by some miracle the quarterback DOES decide to throw you the ball, you had better make sure that you catch it no matter how terrible the pass is.  If you miss one they intended to throw to you, they now feel justified in never looking your way again.)  

No matter what you start off playing, the game almost always devolves into tackle - While most wards will start off with good intentions by playing flag or two hand touch, with the low quality of athlete that generally attends these games body control is not something that is very abundant.  So you have large out of shape men running at full speed (albeit still very slowly) into each other to try to pull a flag or two hand touch someone?  Essentially what you have is the perfect storm for someone to eventually get knocked down pretty roughly, which then escalates into more and more rough play by each side.  Eventually everyone decides to ditch the flags or two hand rule because they are not working anyway and a game of tackle football ensues.  To go along with this tackle football phenomenon is the fact that most Turkey Bowl games I have attended are generally about 13 on 13 with only 1 quarterback and 12 receivers running crossing routes which in and of itself leads to collisions all over the field.  What I am waiting to hear about is the first Turkey Bowl related death.  It will not surprise me when it happens, and while it will be tragic at least we can take solace in knowing they were killed in some sort of church related activity.  That should count for some blessings up in heaven right?  

While there are many more interesting observations that can be taken from this classic Thanksgiving tradition, I feel as if the above does it plenty of justice.  Besides, one of the critiques I have gotten on some of my posts to this point is that I tend to ramble on and the posts can become long.  I promised that I would work on that and will thus cut my thoughts off here.  Happy Thanksgiving!!!  11-25-10