CHSFL predictions, Turkey Bowl

By DYLAN BUTLER and JOSEPH STASZEWSKI

Xavier @ # 4 Fordham Prep.  Thursday, November 25th 2010  10:00 a.m.

Butler: Fordham Prep has the better of this rivalry that dates back to 1905 with a 47-36-5 record, but Xavier has won three of the last four meetings. Led by quarterback Max Kinder, receiver Devin Rice and do-it-all captain Anthony Bronzo, the Rams enjoyed one of their greatest seasons, going 9-1 and reaching the Class AAA semifinals for the first time in program history.  It took longer for Xavier, which suffered a crushing season-ending injury to Chris Mattina in Week 1, to get out of the box. But the Knights, led by junior Brent Scardapane, picked up steam and won five of its final six regular season games before being bounced from the Class AA playoffs by Chaminade, 38-14.  Xavier coach Chris Stevens said he’s going to bring some slingshots to The Bronx to knock off mighty Goliath. The Knights are certainly underdog, but this time Goliath wins. Pick: Fordham Prep

Staszewski: Fordham Prep has had its most memorable year with a 9-0 start and it’s first ever berth in the CHSFL Class AAA semifinals. They come into the game hungry and with a sour taste in their mouth suffering a loss to St. Anthony’s. Oh. There is also that loss to Xavier in last season’s Turkey Bowl.  For the Knights to pull the upset again they will need to avoid giving up the big play on defense and get a few when they have the ball. The Xavier secondary has been opportunistic and Rams quarterback Max Kinder has been interception prone. If he and Devin Rice start hooking up, Xavier will be drowning their sadness in the gravy boat later because they won’t score enough against Allan Bronzo and the Rams defense. The Knights will mix it up just enough on offense with Brent Scardapane, Nick Conte and Luis Carpio to get a win. Pick: Xavier

Xavier left feeling blue after Turkey Bowl loss

By DYLAN BUTLER
Last Updated: 6:57 PM, November 25, 2010
Posted: 6:39 PM, November 25, 2010

Chris Stevens hates to lose, especially against Fordham Prep on Thanksgiving morning. But even a few minutes after a 17-7 loss in the 87th annual Turkey Bowl at Coffey Field, the Xavier coach was introspective about the season.

“I’m real proud of the kids,” he said. “Honestly, look at the whole season. By halftime of the first game of the year, we were down 2,000 yards of all-purpose talent on offense. For us to put together a winning season in the midst of that…”

Stevens changed directions, going from talking about the season-ending injury to Chris Mattina, Jonny Clark’s transfer and the graduation of John Gearity, last year’s Turkey Bowl MVP, to thinking about the undefeated freshman team and the junior varsity squad that moved up to Class AAA.

While the future is bright, Stevens knew the challenge in the present of competing against Fordham Prep was difficult, especially with a host of injuries.

“[Brent Scardapane] is my third two-back, [William Solomon] is my fourth two-back and he’s a freshman,” Stevens said. “We’ve had 11 different guys play the interior five positions this year. And in the second quarter, I lost my power back [Mike Cronin] who runs the offense.”

When Stevens’ single-wing is working at its optimum efficiency, as was in last year’s 35-27 overtime win against the Rams, there’s little need to pass the ball. But the coach, out of necessity, strayed from that Thursday and had mixed results.

Scardapane threw a 16-yard touchdown pass to Joe Corrado late in the first quarter to give Xavier (6-5) a 10-3 lead, but Nick Conte was also picked off twice, including a game-sealing interception by game MVP Anthony Bronzo.

“Offensively we couldn’t keep them off us,” he said. “We come out last year and put together at least four good drives and we pound the crap out of them. But they’re one of the top two or three defenses in the league this year so give them credit.”

The Rams defense pushed Xavier back to its own 22 and, on 3rd-and-22, Stevens went with a squib kick. But Anthony Bronzo dropped deep, caught the ball and ran it back for a key 50-yard touchdown to give the Rams a 10-7 lead. Fordham QB Max Kinder added a 10-yard TD run on a keeper two plays after Matt Casella picked off Conte.

“It’s third-and-a-billion and I’m down deep in my zone and, you know what, I’m getting rid of it. [Fordham Prep coach Pete Gorysnki] is smart enough to drop a guy back and we’re stupid enough to kick right to him and honestly we didn’t cover well.

The Xavier defense, though, was stout, limiting Fordham Prep’s offense to 10 points. On the Rams only sustained drive of the game – its opening drive – they were held to a 31-yard field goal by Steven Broccoli.

“I’m real proud of the defense. This is a legitimate offense, they’re a nine-win team in the ‘AAA,’ their only loss is to the best team of the last decade,” Stevens said, referring to Fordham’s Class AAA semifinal loss to St. Anthony’s. “[Xavier defensive coordinator] Kevin Kelly did a hell of a job, his game plan was great, the kids played with a lot of spirit. To be honest we gave up one drive and it resulted in three points.”

Stevens also praised senior Patrick O’Grady, who had four catches, all in the first half, for 56 yards.

“I would have liked to have won just for him,” Stevens said. “He was the best athlete on the field today. He should have won the MVP trophy if we would have won because he was head and shoulders better than anyone else we had on the field.”

Stevens was hoping to roll the dice with his team’s nifty blue uniforms, the same ones they used in wins against St. John the Baptist, Christ the King and Mount St. Michael. But on Thursday, luck was wearing Fordham maroon.

“[We thought] they had magic in them,” Stevens said. “Well they had defensive magic in them, just not enough offensive magic in them.”

Fordham bowls over Xavier

By DYLAN BUTLER
Last Updated: 6:57 PM, November 25, 2010
Posted: 6:39 PM, November 25, 2010

Fordham Prep celebrates its victory with the Turkey Bowl trophy.

With an undefeated regular season and a first-ever appearance in the CHSFL Class AAA semifinals, Fordham Prep had already cemented its spot among the best teams in program history. On Thanksgiving morning, the Rams put the icing on the cake, defeating Xavier, 17-7, in the 87th annual Turkey Bowl at Coffey Field.

By winning the latest chapter of the longest running high school rivalry game in New York City, Fordham Prep picked up its 10th win of the season, something no other Rams team ever did.

“We had an amazing season coming into this and the win gives a statement about how we played this year,” Fordham Prep quarterback Max Kinder said. “I’ve been to the Turkey Bowl every year, but as senior you feel the emotion with these guys, it’s all four years of hard work coming together.”

Fordham Prep, ranked No. 4 in the city by The Post, came into the game as a heavy favorite, but struggled offensively. The Rams marched down to the 14-yard line on its opening drive, but was forced to settle for a 31-yard field goal by Steven Broccoli.

“We have not had an easy win all season and it just stayed in character,” said Fordham Prep coach Pete Gorynski, who was doused with Gatorade after the game. “It was the same deal today. We had to fight for everything. I was really hoping I didn’t have to work today, but I had to work.”

Kinder was 7-of-17 for 102 yards and ran for a 10-yard score, but he threw two interceptions, both by Xavier senior cornerback Joe Wolfer. Sophomore running back Logan Williamson’s fumble in the first quarter led to Brent Scardapane’s 16-yard touchdown pass to Joe Corrado on fourth down to put Xavier (6-5) in front, 7-3, with 1:46 left in the first quarter.

“A sloppy game by me, I know that,” Kinder said. “In practice everything was clicking on all cylinders and it seemed like we were going to light up the scoreboard. On the first drive it seemed like we were, but then they started dropping back which made passing harder and harder. I started making bad decisions and it started giving them momentum they really didn’t deserve.”

The Fordham offense stalled on its next drive and it seemed momentum was squarely with the Knights, but facing a 3rd-and-22 from his own 22, Xavier coach Chris Stevens opted for a squib kick. However, the unorthodox play call failed as Anthony Bronzo returned the punt 50 yards for a touchdown, putting Fordham (10-1) in front, 10-7, with 10:27 left in the second quarter.

“That was clearly the turning point in the game,” Gorynski said. “Without that, who knows what the heck would have happened.”

Bronzo, who also had an interception and five punts for an average of 41 yards, was named the game’s MVP.

“We needed a spark,” Bronzo said. “It got the crowd up, got our team up and the rest is history.”

After being burned on the Xavier touchdown, Fordham Prep corner Matt Casella came up big, picking off Nick Conte at the 30-yard line and running the ball back to the 10. Two plays later, Kinder scored on a keeper to put Fordham Prep in front, 17-7, with 7:46 left in the first half.

“I felt like I had to make up for my mistake on the first touchdown,” Casella said.

A banged up Xavier squad didn’t get inside the red zone again the rest of the way. And when Bronzo intercepted Conte late in the fourth quarter, the senior captain sealed the Rams second Turkey Bowl win in three years, increasing Fordham Prep’s all-time lead to 48-36-3 in a series that dates back to 1905.

“It’s a nice way to finish out,” Gorynski said. “You always want to win the last one.”

A Turkey Day of Prep Pigskin

By Joshua Robinson
NY Sports  November 24, 2010

An extra-point kick during the 1950 Turkey Bowl between Xavier High School and Fordham Prep.

Nearly a century after Xavier High School and Fordham Prep began their Turkey Bowl football tradition, no one is quite sure why they chose to play on Thanksgiving in the first place. Perhaps the two Jesuit schools were simply hoping to draw a bigger crowd.

What is certain is that after establishing the oldest high-school-football rivalry in New York, neither side has any plans to change a thing about it.

The schools first faced off in a holiday game in 1905 and met two more times in the next three years. Yet they didn't become annual fixtures on each other's schedules until 1927. Since then, Xavier and Fordham Prep have played their grudge match every year on Thanksgiving, with only a handful of exceptions early on when they squared off on Election Day.

Fordham Prep leads the series 47-36, with three ties, though Xavier has won three of the past four. They will resume hostilities on Thursday at 10 a.m. at Jack Coffey Field on the Fordham University campus. And, as with any rivalry worth its bragging rights, the pregame chatter is always about throwing out regular-season records and playoff performances—this is a one-game campaign.

"I coach 11 games a year, and the season is important," Xavier head coach Chris Stevens said last week. "But if you talk to alumni, they could care less about going 0-10, as long as we win on Thanksgiving."

Few people are as intimately acquainted with the game as Pete Gorynski. For the past 41 years, his plans for Thanksgiving morning have been as reliable as turkey for dinner. He was a freshman at Xavier in 1969 and last wore the maroon and blue of the Xavier Cadets in the 1972 Turkey Bowl. Since then, he has served as an assistant coach and a head coach at both schools, including the past 14 years at the helm of the Fordham Prep Rams.

"I start my day with football and it ends with turkey," Mr. Gorynski said. "You can't go wrong with that."

The 1896 Xavier High School football team.

Fordham and Xavier never meet during the regular season because they play at different levels of the Catholic High School Football League. The Rams, who are favored this year after putting together a 9-1 record, play in the AAA division, while Xavier is in AA. But the game's importance is hammered home to students from the moment they arrive at Fordham Prep, in the Bronx, or at Xavier, on West 16th Street in Chelsea.

"It's bred into them from freshman year," said Mr. Stevens, who began his coaching career under Mr. Gorynski. "I remember when I came in, all I heard was 'Beat Prep.' The whole game is another level of intensity."

The annual contest has been around so long that it has even outlived some of its own traditions. When Xavier was still a military school and its players were known as the Cadets—they have been the Knights since 1986—the whole 1,000-man regiment would be in the stands on Thanksgiving. Today, Xavier's military heritage is embodied by its marching band, which performs at halftime.

In years past, and only when the game was in the Bronx, winning came with the privilege of ringing Fordham's Victory Bell, an artifact recovered from a Japanese aircraft carrier during World War II and gifted to the university by Adm. Chester Nimitz. But after the 1980 Turkey Bowl, it became the center of an infamous dust-up.

Xavier, having just won the game for the first time in four years, demanded to exercise its right to ring the bell, only to find a ring of Fordham players protecting it. An all-out brawl ensued and, as Xavier alums tell it, someone managed to sound the Cadets' victory in the end. The tradition has since been dropped.

At times, though, the singular emphasis on the Turkey Bowl has been the source of some frustration for Mr. Stevens.

During his senior year at Xavier in 1982, he said the team was 8-1 before a defeat on Thanksgiving overshadowed its record. It wasn't until several years later that he found out that the season was in fact the first time Xavier had ever posted eight victories.

Similarly, Mr. Stevens said he felt huge pressure to win the Turkey Bowl as a coach in 2007, even though his team had finished the regular season 9-1 and won its division and a playoff championship.

"You have to go win that game to make yourself credible," he said. "You can't go lose that one because winning a championship and a division title is somewhat tarnished."

Team mascots meet on the field at the 1959 Turkey Bowl.

Xavier alumnus Tom O'Hara, who grew up in the heart of Ohio football country before moving to New York, didn't initially understand what all the fuss was about. Looking around at crowds of barely 200 people during the regular season, he was even a little disappointed with New York City football.

"I felt like I was in the Witness Protection Program," he said. That quickly changed when he saw several thousand come out for the Turkey Bowl in 1967.

Both schools treat the game as their homecoming days, and it routinely draws more than 5,000 spectators. Mr. O'Hara has attended as a player, a coach, a parent and a sentimental graduate. But he finds that he sometimes doesn't see much of the game because he runs into so many old friends.

"The reason I love Thanksgiving—and I'm not the corny type—is that I go see my Xavier family in the morning and then, in the afternoon, I see my real family," he said.

On both sides, football family and real family often overlap. Mr. O'Hara's father played in the Turkey Bowl in the early 1940s, and his son later played, too, in 2004. Mr. O'Hara, who is also the Xavier football team's amateur historian, has identified dozens of other players linked by blood and the Turkey Bowl.

And win or lose, the outcome of the game stays with you. Alums all remember the scores from their day in the Turkey Bowl, and they rattle them off as if they had played them last week. Though for Mr. Gorynski, the 41 contests he has witnessed tend to run together.

Still, he has fond memories from both sides, such as coaching Xavier to a victory from 17-0 down in 1988 and winning the televised 2008 edition at Fordham Prep as an underdog.

Bruce Bott's memory goes back even further. Fifty-four years removed, the former Fordham Prep quarterback vividly recalls the closing moments of the 1956 game.

With the score locked at 13-13, the Rams only needed a conversion to secure the victory. These were the days when all conversions were only worth a point and not every team had a player who knew how to kick. So Mr. Bott, the quarterback, lined up his side and called a sweep play. He had been so nervous the night before that he didn't eat a bite of dinner. And now, in front of more than 8,000 people, he was on the brink of victory.

The snap smacked into Mr. Bott's palms, he handed off the ball, and he can still see his running back bundling over the line into a blur of Xavier bodies.

"We won that game by six inches," he said.

So when he returned as Fordham Prep's coach more than two decades later, he could speak from experience in a locker room full of anxious teenagers.

"They're going to remember this game for the rest of their lives," he said. "And I challenged them to come back in 20 years and tell me it wasn't true."