Annual turkey bowl becomes bonding experience

Ivan Palacios | THE RIDER

Since its creation, football has been a staple of most Thanksgiving celebrations. From high school to college to professional, the game can be seen throughout the week. 

For some though, the game takes place right in their own backyard. These annual Thanksgiving Day football games, or turkey bowl as they have been famously dubbed, have become tradition for families across America. 

Many believe that these amateur turkey bowls came to be as a way to get the men out of the house while the Thanksgiving feast was being prepared. For Assistant Athletic Director for Development Rogelio Chanes, the tradition began as a way for him and his friends to keep in touch. 

“I didn’t really get involved in turkey bowl until joining friends’ Thanksgiving,” Chanes said. “I was usually that one guy that was the extra person  at a family’s Thanksgiving because I was playing tag football or flag football. When we got older, all of a sudden we made it a legitimate thing to do every year. We purchase flags and we get together and play out in one of the fields or one of the parks in Brownsville. It just became a good bonding experience with friends and their families.”

Although the game is a way for him and his friends to bond every year, he admits the competitiveness of the game is still high. No trophy is handed out at the end of these games. Instead, Chanes and his friends play for something bigger; bragging rights. 

“We’re super competitive,” he said. “We’re keeping score. We have some of our friends’ girlfriends or wives take photos and actions shots. It’s a whole production.

“That’s what it really comes down to, is just the bragging rights. I don’t think we’ve ever done trophies. I created a trophy once, but we never used it.”

Over the years, Chanes has made countless memories on the field during the annual turkey bowl, but one in particular sticks out to him. 

“Before I got LASIK, I used to wear glasses or contacts,” he said. “It was pretty bad. I had pretty bad eyesight. So, there was this one year that I didn’t have my contacts and I wasn’t going to play with glasses on ’cause I was afraid I was going to break them. I was like the worst to catch ’cause I would literally see the ball within two seconds coming at me. It was just the worst. I am like the worst to be out, just waiting to catch the ball.

“I swear there was just silly luck, to put it in nice terms. I’m out and the only one available to catch. So, I see the ball coming but it’s coming on my backside. So, I just kind of flipped around and dropped a knee and caught it one-handedly. Everybody looked at me like ‘How did you catch that being as blind as you are?’ I just got lucky, you know?”

To some, turkey bowls may seem like a group of adults gathering to play a child’s game and reliving their glory days. But to those like Chanes, it is much more than that. 

“What I tell jokingly is I never do a high school reunion, like the 10 year or the 15 or, in my case, I’m getting old and coming up on my 20, because we get together every year for Thanksgiving and Charro Days,” he said. “That’s a whole other conversation to talk about.

“It’s our way of reconnecting if we’re not that close from each other or living in different cities or different parts of the country. Same thing if we don’t keep in touch through social media. We come together on Thanksgiving to kick the ball around or toss the ball around.”

Since he started this tradition with his friends as a child, Chanes has only missed the annual game in 2005 when he chose to stay home with a friend in Washington so he would not be alone. 

Now older and a father, he hopes to continue the tradition with his son and his friends. 

“Now I have a kid, so now my son comes with me and he sees me playing so he’s engaged in that kind of activity,” Chanes said. “In a way, it’s sort of starting that tradition so when he has friends I will try to push him towards doing that, playing football or playing soccer during Thanksgiving.”