PHOENIX — When Michael Gregoire and Nick Vakula first started playing football on Thanksgiving, they couldn’t imagine playing in the ‘Turkey Bowl’ with friends and family – even grandchildren – fifty years later.
But on Nov. 23, that’s just what they did.
“We have this little saying, ‘staying sore since ‘74,’ because none of us are going to make it to work tomorrow,” Vakula said.
The families first met in high school, at Trevor G. Browne High School – right across the street from where they played football on Thursday morning. Both families were big on wrestling, Gregoire said, and they decided to take their tackling from the mats to the fields.
The families and friends come from five different states to play in the Turkey Bowl each year, even playing during the COVID-19 pandemic. Vakula has not missed one game and Gregoire has been playing since the second annual matchup.
After fifty years, the families don’t know exactly who has won the most games, and they don’t play tackle football anymore, just “gentle flag football” now, but the heart of the game is still the same: to come together during the holiday.
“Everybody comes together, it’s just been a good family of friends and we do it every year,” Vakula said. “It’s a heck of a lot of fun.”
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