In Football, Losing a Holiday Is Reason to Celebrate

When Oakton football coach Joe Thompson told his players Saturday after their Virginia AAA Division 6 Northern Region championship win that they would be practicing on Thanksgiving, a hearty whoop filled the chilly air.

Every year when there is a good chance it will happen, Stone Bridge assistant Matt Griffis delivers a speech about how special it is to practice Thanksgiving morning.

Former West Potomac and Chantilly coach Dan Meier had a saying: "You want to be good on Labor Day. You want to be better on Columbus Day. But ultimately, what you want is to still be playing on Thanksgiving day."

It's true. Ask any high school football player or coach what the best practice of the year is, and chances are, if he has been fortunate enough to have the opportunity, he will say the Thanksgiving practice. No matter that he has to roll out of bed early on a holiday morning so late in the fall that spitting snow might have replaced kamikaze leaves.

If you're practicing today, you've had a great season and are deep into the playoffs, while most, if not all, other teams in your area have turned in their gear. You're the only fall sports team at your school still practicing, and the winter sports teams are still in preseason mode.

"Anybody you ask, or any kid you ask, would gladly give up Thanksgiving to have a chance to play to get to the state championship," said Woodbridge Coach Keith King, whose team had that experience last year but fell one game short of a Thanksgiving practice this season. It's, "Hey, guys, be thankful that you're playing, because there's a hundred other high schools that wish they were."

"I'd rather be [on the field] than home taking guts out of the turkey and chopping celery and all that crap," said Arundel Coach Chuck Markiewicz, whose team travels tomorrow to No. 5 Linganore. "That's a nice thing, but I'd rather be with my kids coaching football. Kids always play football on Thanksgiving. We're just dressed in our full gear and doing it."

There's just something about showing up at the field, on a school holiday, on a crisp morning, after months of more routine afternoon workouts, that fortifies an already deep bond among teammates and makes for a particularly spirited session.

The magnitude of the games is heightening, but amid the buildup of the week is this pocket of welcome isolation when the players have the school, and their shared aspirations, to themselves, like a band huddling backstage before walking on to greet 20,000 people.

Maybe it's like when a storm knocks out the power at home. You're hanging out with the same people, but there's something about familiar faces in flickering candlelight, or rummaging for flashlights to illuminate the mini-adventure, that makes the aura all the warmer and fuzzier.

"You have to mentally get up for a football practice, but this one is definitely an exception," said Stone Bridge senior linebacker Mike Olson, whose team will congregate today in preparation for its Virginia AAA Division 5 semifinal at Phoebus on Saturday. "Everyone comes in screaming and yelling the whole practice. The whole practice is all smiles. It's definitely a serious atmosphere, it's intense, but you get that feeling when you step out on that field with your gear. It's cold, but you forget about that because of the special occasion.

"Just being there on that day, you really don't care about getting up for practice, because it's with your boys."