On Thursday morning, as they’ve done for over nine decades, Hackensack and Teaneck high schools will meet for the annual Thanksgiving Day football game.
Many high school football teams have done away with the tradition of playing on Thanksgiving over the years, because of difficulties with the schedule and concerns that it would interfere with teams’ preparations for playing in championship games.
But community members in both municipalities say the rivalry match between the schools is such an institution that they can’t imagine ending the holiday tradition.
“It’s a rivalry with a ton of respect behind it. It draws people back home,” said Gordon Whiting, Hackensack’s athletic director, who played in the game as a student. “I think a lot of teams are focused on the playoffs and make concessions for the playoffs. We haven’t given up on the game, because it is ingrained in the Comet blue-and-gold soul. My father played in it, my brother played, my son played — it’s tradition.”
When Teaneck’s athletic director first came to the township as an assistant coach in 1991, Ed Klimek said, he “didn’t even realize what the rivalry was about.”
But he quickly learned what the game meant to the community. The week of Thanksgiving, Klimek said. he started getting calls from alumni scattered across the country saying: “We’ve got to beat the Comets this year.”
“The towns being so close to each other, all the kids know each other. It’s bragging rights,” he said. “People come in for Thanksgiving weekend. It’s something these kids and most of the people in town have ever known. It hasn’t lost any of its luster over these years.”
The first time the two teams met on Thanksgiving was in 1932, a game Hackensack won 7-6. They have played nearly every year since on the holiday, missing 2020 due to COVID.
Hackensack has traditionally gotten the best of the contest and leads the all-time series, including three playoff meetings, 64-26 with four ties. Teaneck’s Highwaymen have not beaten the Comets since 2012.
This year, neither team made the playoffs. Teaneck has a 5-4 record and Hackensack went 4-5.
The Hackensack-Teaneck game is one of only a few still played on Thanksgiving in North Jersey.
Dumont and Tenafly have played a Thanksgiving rivalry game since the 1930s, and Paterson Kennedy and Paterson Eastside will play their 100th Thanksgiving game at Hinchliffe Stadium on Thursday at 11 a.m.
But many other rivalry games have dropped from the schedule in recent years. Clifton and Passaic played their last Thanksgiving Day football game in 2019. Paramus and Ridgewood ended their annual holiday game in 2013.
As the playoffs have expanded, the end of the regular season has been pushed earlier, to late October. Teams that don’t make the playoffs, or lose in the first round, have several weeks off between the end of their season and Thanksgiving.
For teams that make it to the state championships, a Thanksgiving game would fall between their semifinal and their final, and players and coaches are reluctant to risk an injury that could affect the state final.
With Thanksgiving falling so late on the calendar, the break between games was especially difficult to manage this year, said Brett Ressler, the Hackensack head coach.
“Our last scheduled game was the weekend of Oct. 25. So if you don’t make the playoffs, that’s going to be five weeks after the end of the regular season,” he said. “That’s a long break. It takes a lot to make sure these kids are engaged and understand they have to stay in shape for a game like this.”
The traditions surrounding the rivalry game extend beyond the four quarters of play. The day before, the Rotary Clubs for Hackensack and Teaneck sponsor a lunch for the players, coaches and cheerleaders to bring the teams together.
Before the game, there’s a parade to the field, with both teams’ school bands, cheerleaders and flag twirlers marching. The winning team is awarded a trophy to take back to their school with the game’s score etched on the side to display until next year’s contest.
“It is something special, watching the tradition continue,” said Kenny Martin, the Hackensack Rotary Club president. Martin, a former Hackensack detective who serves on the city Board of Education, played in the game in the late 1970s.
“You didn’t come home unless you won,” he said with a laugh. “That’s how it was. And that’s on both sides. Each side felt we had to win Thanksgiving Day regardless what your record was. The stands were always packed, and people you didn’t usually get to see came from far and away for this game.”
Over the years, students who have played in the game have gone on to play on Division 1 college teams and in the NFL, including Chris Brantley, Tamba Hali and Lance Ball. Others have become successful coaches.
Even after he left Hackensack to coach professional basketball, and later became an announcer, Mike Fratello, who graduated in 1965, would come back to the city for the game whenever his schedule allowed.
Fratello now lives in Ohio but keeps up with the Comets through friends in his hometown.
“When I can make it back, I always try because of what that game meant to us growing up,” he said.
Mike Miello, who graduated from Hackensack in 1962 and was the head coach from 1970 to 1975, said every year the game is “like a mini-reunion,” bringing people back home.
“You see so many former players, so many people come back for it,” he said. “It’s really special.”
Lee Larkins, who played for Hackensack in the early 1970s and went on to play at Purdue University, said the Thanksgiving game was always the one circled on the calendar.
“It was just one of those big-time rivalry games. That was one of those games on the schedule that you just knew you had to win,” he said. “After the game you go home and have your turkey and sweet potato pies, so you better win, or otherwise it would just be awful.”
No matter what your season was like leading up to Thanksgiving, if your team won the game against Teaneck, the season was a success, said Tony Karcich, a 1964 Hackensack graduate who went on to become the all-time winningest coach in Bergen County with Bergen Catholic and St. Joseph’s in Montvale.
“It’s one of the most special rivalries in the state,” he said. “I remember both towns would be revved up. It was always standing room only. There was so much importance placed on that game by the community and the coaches. It was a different mindset than for any other game.”
Dennis Heck, a former longtime coach at Teaneck and a former Teaneck High School principal, will serve as the town’s honorary captain this year.
He remembered the excitement surrounding the game, the parades, bonfires, pep rallies and the way each class would decorate the high school halls the day before.
Heck’s favorite Thanksgiving Day game was in 1989, he said, when snow covered the field and the Teaneck custodian decided to plow as low as he could and paint black lines to mark the field using soot from the high school furnace.
Another year, in Hackensack, it rained so heavily that the officials couldn’t run up and down the field through the mud.
“Those are some of the best memories I have. That time of year was always so exciting because of how enthusiastic the kids were,” Heck said. “It was a culmination of what you had accomplished during the season.”
Harold Clark has seen both sides of the game, as a player for Hackensack in the late ’70s and early ’80s and later as Teaneck’s head coach. He stepped down from coaching after last season, and Cekuan James took over the role this year.
“It was a funny feeling every time I stepped out there to coach against Hackensack,” said Clark, a retired Teaneck police detective. “What a great rivalry. It’s really for bragging rights. I think this year the teams are evenly matched. It’s going to come down to who wants it the most.”
The games have nearly always been close, despite the Comets’ winning record against Teaneck, said Ressler, the Hackensack coach.
“You know no matter what, you’re going to get the other team’s best shot,” he said. “I’ve heard people compare the rivalry to Michigan/Ohio State or Alabama/Auburn. It’s always competitive. At the end of the day, it’s high school kids playing their last game of the year, some the last game of their lives. No matter what, you want to come out on top. The turkey tastes that much better when you win.”
