On a cold, windy Tuesday night, Dunbar High School starting quarterback Tyree White ran through a series of in routes, hand-offs and even a nifty hook-and-ladder with the Crimson Tide offense. As twilight turned to dusk and the chill in the air turned brisker, the Crimson Tide made final preparations for their showdown with the H.D. Woodson Warriors at 11 a.m. today in the 39th installment of the Turkey Bowl.
“It’s the biggest day at this point in time,” said Dunbar head coach Craig Jeffries of the D.C. high school championship game. “It’s the only game on Thanksgiving Day in this area that’s played — a lot of people are at home, you know, waiting for their turkeys to get done, and they’re out on the field or in the stands watching the game.”
D.C. Public Schools Athletic Director Troy Mathieu said he expects 7,000 strong to attend the game at Eastern High School in Northeast Washington.
Dunbar beat Woodson 20-9 last year, setting a league record with nine Turkey Bowl titles. Woodson is tied for second with Anacostia and Eastern, with eight apiece.
“I hope we can be better than [we were] last year,” said Woodson head coach Greg Fuller. “Overall, we hope it will be a good football game — a mistake-free football game. We can’t afford to make mistakes.”
Fuller’s Warriors would do well to dethrone the defending champs, who are gunning for a record 10th D.C. Interscholastic Athletic Association Championship title. But regardless of the outcome, players, coaches and alumni all agree that the annual contest has morphed into a homecoming of sorts, as well as a rallying cry for the District.
The game attracts not only students, family members and faculty, but hordes of alumni as well — on a holiday, no less.
“It really is like a homecoming,” said D.C. Council Chairman Vincent Gray, a Dunbar alumnus. “The stadium is filled probably by the end of the first quarter. People see each other there, and they may not see each other any other time during the year.”
Fuller agreed.
“I think it means a lot,” he said. “The Turkey Bowl is like a homecoming for a lot of athletes — coming together, having a good time.”
But at a luncheon Wednesday to honor the two teams at the Verizon Center, city officials couldn’t resist getting in a few digs to show their respective allegiances.
“The world is looking at you — the city is looking at you,” Councilwoman Yvette Alexander, D-Ward 7, told both teams.
“We’re all champions. But the real champions tomorrow will be H.D. Woodson,” said Alexander, who represents the school in her ward.
Fuller said the game’s significance goes beyond the proverbial bragging rights.
“There’s a lot of hometown talent — we have a lot of good players in D.C.,” he said. “[It’s about] the area — the D.C. kids. You have to give them opportunities to play — that’s the bottom line. Give the kids exposure.”
For the two schools, it was an improbable journey to what is billed as the Super Bowl of high school football — at least in D.C.
Woodson went through a tough 0-3 stretch in September, in which the Warriors were outscored by a combined 108-29. They responded, though, by reeling off six straight wins (not counting an Eastern forfeit on Oct. 24) to advance to the Turkey Bowl, surrendering just 36 points during the win streak. The team beat Coolidge on Nov. 15 to advance to the city championship.Defending champion Dunbar started the year dismally, dropping five straight.
“We knew we had a good team all along, we knew we had a lot of seniors. … Having expectations to win, guys didn’t rise to the occasion,” Jeffries said.
Though his Crimson Tide will make their 11th straight appearance in the D.C. Interscholastic Athletic Association Championship today, the luster of the game has not worn off for him.
“Each one is special,” he said. “This one is just as special or more special than the other ones for the simple fact that we did start off 0-5. We did have a lot of obstacles to overcome.”
The offense exploded in the past six games, scoring 283 points to propel the Tide to their 11th straight city championship game.
D.C. high school football faced a tough year. The two teams were faced with concerns far greater than winning football games, as other programs fell on hard times.
Dunbar was forced to deal with an ugly incident playing against Fort Hill in Cumberland, Md., on Sept. 29, in which the team walked off the field while leading because of alleged use of racial slurs. Jeffries said he wanted to avoid a fight, and so the team simply left.
“Actually, it brought us together closer as a team,” he said. “I saw some change in the character of the team. I saw some of the guys knew they were better than one of the teams that were making the state playoffs.
“That was a wake-up call,” he added. “The guys realized [we were a good team].”
Eastern High School had to forfeit its season because it didn’t have enough eligible players. And because of the District’s overhaul of the public school system, Woodson’s old building was torn down, impeding the Warriors’ practice schedule and precluding them from playing true home games. Fuller said the team, at times, was “in between two baseball fields practicing.”
After last year’s Dunbar win, each team will have different goals for today’s game.
While Fuller hopes his team plays better than last year and makes no mistakes, Jeffries wants his team to maintain the same intensity it has throughout the second half of the season.
“Each game we play is like a playoff game — each team we play is another championship game,” Jeffries said. “Ten thousand, 15,000, 20,000 people — that type of atmosphere is like a playoff game.”
The Eastern High Stadium holds just several thousand, but a similar mood today is all but assured.
