Thanksgiving doesn't have to be sedentary. On Thanksgiving morning, the athletic high school fields were home to a soccer game and several football games, each with its own history.
As they have for seven years, the men of Falls Reach squared off in a neighborhood football game at Churchill.
"The great thing about this group of guys is that everybody is from somewhere else," said Eddie Gross, one of the game's organizers. "We've had our own traditions, and now we've replaced it with our new tradition."
Another football game was led by Larry Chloupek, a Potomac resident and Churchill '79 graduate. Competitors have been meeting at Churchill for 12 years. "Some are friends from high school, some are coaches with me, some are players I've coached," Chloupek said.
On Churchill’s lower field by Tuckerman Lane, Bulldog boys soccer alumni returned to their old school for the 27th annual “Turkey Bowl,” a students-against-alumni match.
The usual order prevailed, as the alumni won 4-1, improving their record to 25-1-1 since the tradition started.
Seth Hall (Churchill ‘92) maintains an e-mail list of Bulldog graduates, but he says it’s hardly even necessary to remind the alumni. “Everybody knows that on Thanksgiving morning, show up at Churchill; everybody’s going to be there,” said Hall, who now lives near Philadelphia.
Hall’s ‘92 classmate Brian Hutt now lives in Chicago, where he works in sales, but he made the annual trip back.