The United States has been celebrating Thanksgiving as a national holiday since 1863 when President Abraham Lincoln first set aside the last Thursday in November as a day of remembrance and thanks. For nearly as long, football fans have been celebrating Turkey Day with an afternoon of pigskin against old rivals.
The first high school Thanksgiving Day game is believed to have been held between
Wellesley (Mass.) and
Needham (Mass.) in 1882. The two teams have the longest football rivalry between public schools in the country, lasting over 140 years, though the two teams have not necessarily played every year.
While Wellesley and Needham have the oldest public school rivalry, they are not the oldest high school football rivalry.
Norwich Free Academy (Norwich, Conn.) began play against
New London (Conn.) in 1875, just six years after Rutgers defeated Princeton in the first ever college football game.
Wellesley/Needham and Norwich Free Academy/New London are two traditional Thanksgiving Day games played in New England. In years past, the Boston Globe and Boston Herald celebrated the football holiday with features of all the big rivalries along with complete starting lineups, season records and series histories for all games being played on Thanksgiving.
So which are the winningest teams on Thanksgiving Day? That's a difficult number to pin down because the oldest rivalries didn't always play on Thanksgiving Day. Some years, the rivals might have played two games.
With those factors in place, we'll have to be content with identifying the traditional Thanksgiving Day rivals who have the most rivalry wins. We'll start with the nation's oldest high school,
Boston Latin (Boston, Mass.).
Norwich Free Academy and New London have been playing a Thanksgiving Day rivalry game since 1875. Norwich Free Academy has 80 wins in the turkey-day games, the second most behind only Boston Latin in their rivalry with Boston English. (Photo: Ken Rutt)
Opponent: Boston English (Boston)Number of wins: 82
Rivalry since: 1887
2. Norwich Free Academy (Norwich, Conn.)
Opponent: New London (Conn.)Number of wins: 80
Rivalry since: 1875
3. Stonington (Conn.)
Opponent: Westerly (R.I.)Number of wins: 74
Rivalry since: 1911
4. Ansonia (Conn.)
Opponent: Naugatuck (Conn.)Number of wins: 73
Rivalry since: 1895
5. New Bedford (Mass.)
Opponent: Durfee (Fall River, Mass.)Number of wins: 72
Rivalry since: 1893
6. Westerly (R.I.)
Opponent: Stonington (Conn.)
Number of wins: 70
Rivalry since: 1911
7. Leominster (Mass.)
Opponent: Fitchburg (Mass.)Number of wins: 70
Rivalry since: 1894
8. Malden (Mass.)
Opponent: Medford (Mass.)Number of wins: 68
Rivalry since: 1887
9. New London (Conn.)
Opponent: Norwich Free Academy (Norwich, Conn.)
Number of wins: 68
Rivalry since: 1875
10. Wellesley (Mass.)
Opponent: Needham (Mass.)Number of wins: 64
Rivalry since: 1882
