Tom O’Hara never wonders where he’ll be on Thanksgiving morning. That’s because for almost his entire adult life, and a few years before that, O’Hara has attended the annual Turkey Bowl football game between Xavier and Fordham Prep.
This year’s annual clash, played at Aviator Sports Complex in Brooklyn Thursday at 10 a.m., is the 86th annual meeting of the oldest football rivalry in New York City.
For O’Hara, who has been associated with Xavier for more than 40 years, the game is a labor of love. He is the unofficial historian of all things Xavier football and rugby and, by proxy, the keeper of the records of this special and storied rivalry.
The game, you could say, is in his blood. His father, also named Tom O’Hara, played in the 1941 and 1942 games. And O’Hara, the son, played in the 1967 and 1968 games as an undersized offensive lineman.
One of his favorite memories of the Turkey Bowl was the 1968 game. Xavier, he said, endured a miserable season and took a 1-5-1 record into the clash. Fordham Prep, meanwhile, was installed as a 14-point favorite in a game that was being broadcast live on WPIX with the immortal Marty Glickman handling play-by-play duties.
The Kaydets, as they were known then, crushed Fordham Prep, 32-0, at Coffey Field in The Bronx.
“It literally changed my life,” O’Hara said.
That’s because O’Hara, all 5-foot-8, 167-pounds of him, was recruited to play at the U.S. Merchant Marine Academy. That’s where he first played rugby and a few years later, in 1976, he founded the rugby program at Xavier, which has become a perennial national powerhouse.
O’Hara, who became the first freshman football coach at Xavier in 1977, returned to his alma mater to coach in 1973.
One year later, quarterback Bobby Haskins placed his stamp on the history of the rivalry.
“Everyone knew that Bobby was a nice kid, but a goofball who is liable to say anything,” O’Hara said. “He just says whatever enters his mind.”
That’s just what Haskins did at the annual pep rally at the Chelsea school on the day before the big game.
“I don’t even remember what the speech was, but the climax was when he said tomorrow I guarantee you we will score 40 points,” O’Hara said.
Once again Xavier was a prohibitive underdog and hadn’t come close to scoring 40 points in a game all season, but Haskins proved prophetic. In one of the greatest varsity debuts in New York history, Haskins picked apart Fordham Prep and Xavier stunned the Rams, 54-6.
O’Hara’s two sons both attended Xavier and his youngest, Ciaran, played in the 2004 game.
Current Xavier coach Chris Stevens played in his final Turkey Bowl in 1982, an 8-3 win by Fordham Prep. Seventeen years later, Stevens coached in his first Turkey Bowl game, guiding his alma mater to a 37-16 victory.
In 2006, Xavier ended a seven-year drought by beating the Rams, 28-14. The Turkey Bowl MVP was Xavier fullback and middle linebacker Ryan McTiernan, son of 1968 Turkey Bowl MVP Roger McTiernan.
Last year, in front of 5,000 fans at Coffey Field, Bruce Grant outdueled Seamus Kelly in a battle of dynamic running backs, but it was Fordham sophomore Matt Casella who came up with a clutch interception to seal the 41-28 win at Coffey Field. His father, Mike Casella, and uncle, Joe Casella, helped lead Xavier to four consecutive Turkey Bowl victories from 1979-1982.
Fordham Prep coach Pete Gorynski is also intimately connected to the game. In fact, this will be his 41st consecutive game. Gorynski first attended the game as a Xavier student – then it was mandatory for the entire student body to go the game – and for the next three years he played in it. He’s also coached both teams, the only person in history to do so. Stevens was once an assistant for Gorynski, when he coached at Xavier.
The first meeting between the two rivals took place on Dec. 2, 1883, in a game that ended in a 6-6 draw. From 1905-1907, Fordham Prep pounded Xavier, winning 32-0, 61-0 and 61-0.
There is no record of the two teams playing over the course of the next 19 years, in part because Xavier discontinued football around the time of World War I. The series continued in 1927, with Fordham Prep winning, 12-6, and the two teams have played every year since.
However, not every game was on Thanksgiving. On Election Day 1929, some 80,000 fans watched seven high-school football games across the city, including a reported 3,000 at Fordham University who witnessed a 19-13 Xavier victory, thanks to a 70-yard, fourth-quarter punt return by Bernard Moynahan, who went on to become a captain in the U.S. Army.
He was killed in action in Italy during World War II and the Moynahan Trophy, awarded annually to Xavier’s best athlete, is in his name.
Most of the annual clashes have been played on the Rose Hill campus of Fordham University, but the storied rivalry has been played out at numerous other locations throughout the city.
There have been at least seven meetings at Randall’s Island and games have also been played at McGovern Field in The Bronx, Recreation Park in Long Island City’s Queens Plaza, the U.S. Merchant Marine Academy in Kings Point, L.I., Brooklyn’s Midwood and Erasmus Hall High Schools and Aviator Field in Brooklyn, where Xavier defeated Fordham Prep, 20-14, two years ago.
Fordham Prep leads the all-time series, 47-35-3, and has dominated in recent years, winning seven of the last nine Turkey Bowls.
Fordham Prep, which plays in the ‘AAA’ division of the CHSFL, is again considered the favorite this year. Will Xavier pull off the upset? Will the Rams continue their recent dominance? Whatever happens, O’Hara will be there to chronicle it all.