Outtakes from LIFE: Thanksgiving football edition

MASHPEE: After interviewing 15 local athletic directors, football coaches, and team supporters for an article on Thanksgiving Day rivalries among Cape Cod teams—as well as the Island Cup game between Martha’s Vineyard and Nantucket—there were lots of fun and funny stories to share, but only a finite amount of magazine pages in which to do so.

In print, we covered Barnstable vs. Falmouth, Bourne vs. Wareham, and Dennis-Yarmouth vs. Nauset. Online at capecodlife.com, we added stories on Sandwich vs. Mashpee and the Island Cup matchup, which is generally held on the Saturday before Thanksgiving. (Check out that article here.) But, my notebook has more pages, and I have a few more fun football anecdotes and factoids I’d like to share.

Football action during the 2006 game between Bourne and Wareham.

Without any further ado, here’s my first blog post for Cape Cod LIFE, which I’m calling “Outtakes from LIFE—the Thanksgiving Football edition.” Hope you enjoy!

Barnstable and Falmouth have played more than 100 games on Thanksgiving.

1. Ed Winslow, who coached the Falmouth High football team from 1986 to 1998, is married to Janet Winslow, who just happens to be the sister of former Barnstable High football coach Don Dorr. On the night before the 1987 Thanksgiving game, Dorr and his kids headed out at 4 a.m. to decorate the familiar Falmouth coach’s house and front yard—in Red Raider red and white. For his part, Winslow says his family has often given the Dorrs wonderful Christmas gifts of maroon (Falmouth’s colors) clothing.

2. Dorr, who coached Barnstable from 1977 to 1980, played college football at Syracuse University, and his Orangemen teammates included Larry Csonka and current New York Giants head coach, Tom Coughlin. Asked to describe Csonka, a star running back at Syracuse and an NFL Hall of Famer who helped the Miami Dolphins to an undefeated season (17-0) and a Super Bowl title in 1972, Dorr used the phrase “twisted blue steel.”