FanStory.com - Thanksgiving Footballby jmdg1954

Canton, Ohio, 1920 the National Football League was founded. With the lack of any real interest in professional football during the first decade, the league started scheduling games on Thanksgiving day. The premise here was to draw on pre-existing traditions from the college level who have been playing football since 1863 at Harvard, Princeton, Yale and Columbia.

Through the next hundred years, the NFL has evolved from a start up to a, 2023, twenty-BILLION dollar business, with games held in England, Germany and Mexico.

The success of the NFL created a few other start ups, but could not grasp a solid fan base and soon were dissolved. The USFL, 1983-1986 was the most prominent of the failures. More recent is the XFL, 2020 & 2023.

In 1997 a small pseudo football league formed in Tinton Falls, N.J. called the CDFL. There were no television contracts, no multi-mega million dollar deals for the players, coaches or teams. No newspaper coverage, radio spots or sold out venues.

CDFL stood for Columbia Drive Football League, playing a one hour time slot every Thanksgiving morning from 1997 to 2003…

Thanksgiving morning 1997, our two boys, Mark and Robbie were tossing the pigskin (a slang term for the actual football) on our front lawn. Though today both my sons are chefs, neither one had any real interest in helping create our Thanksgiving meal. Before one could say, “gobble gobble”, Kelley and Steph (she disliked her name, Stephanie) joined in on their toss around. These sisters lived about eight houses away. Kelley was Mark’s age (who he dated for a while) and Steph was my daughter, Cindy’s age.

Note: as a point of reference, in 1997 Mark was 15, Cindy 12 and Robbie held up the rear at age 10.

A few minutes later, Allie and Christy appeared. Allie was my daughter's best friend and Christy was her older sister. Christy is Mark’s age and my daughter forbid him from dating her stating it was too embarrassing to both her and Allie (go sister, go sister). Next joining the turkey day toss-around were our neighbors kids, Jamie and Bobby. Jamie was Robbie’s age, Bobby a year younger.

By now our daughter joined in on the fun as well. Our lawn was full of chatter, laughs, runny noses, red hands and cheeks as the kids were just “hanging out” as the term applied.

Debbie, my wife and I noticed Stan and Judie standing outside (Allie and Christy’s parents) holding a large thermos which contained hot chocolate. After saying our respective, “good mornings and happy thanksgivings” with each other we brought out Debbie’s homemade pumpkin pie.

Over the next few years, this innocent gobble gobble pigskin toss-around grew to a Thanksgiving morning tradition. Each year we played a fun game of “touch” football hosted by a different parent on their front lawn. Each family participant brought a snack of some sort; coffee for the adults, hot chocolate for the younger ones, apple cider, breakfast sandwiches, pumpkin scones, and probably more that has since slipped my mind.

This was a great time of camaraderie and playfulness with neighbors and friends before we went our separate ways to be with our families on Thanksgiving.

Unfortunate as the years went by, kids got older, some of the girls lost interest, Kelly, Steph and family moved away and sadly Allie and Christy’s dad passed away with a heart attack as we were playing in a forty year-old and over basketball league.

For the six seasons, the kids had a blast and we parents had fun in planning and participating in the CDFL, while it lasted.

HAPPY THANKSGIVING FELLOW FANSTORY WRITERS!