In Easton, Pennsylvania, the phrase “Beat P’burg!” can have more than one meaning.
P’burg is short for Phillipsburg (New Jersey), home of the Stateliners, longtime rivals of the Easton Red Rovers. The two teams face off on the campus of Lafayette College in an annual holiday bloodsport, the nation’s oldest high school interstate Thanksgiving football game.
How intense is the rivalry? During the NFL strike of 1988, the game was selected for national broadcast, the first high school Thanksgiving contest ever to receive that honor. At a point, I could swear, one of the announcers forgot himself and was caught muttering, “This is some good sh*t.”
The broadcast has been posted on YouTube (follow the link below). Take a gander at the traditional Easton bonfire (around the 2-minute mark), which is set each year on the eve of the game. This fire can be seen for miles. Unfortunately, the way it is shot, it is difficult to deduce the scale. At the time of its lighting, the wood is piled as high as a house, frequently with a car or an outhouse balanced on top. Don’t ask me where they’re still able to find outhouses. This is Easton.
Do not confuse the bonfire with the garden variety campfire glimpsed at the 1-minute mark, which is only there to warm Easton students who sleep out the night before, in order to guard the wood from attempts by P’Burg to light it off early. One year, there was an actual assault with flaming arrows. In the weeks leading up to the game, mice and even pigs have been released in the halls of Easton Area High School with little maroon P’s painted on their backs.
I won’t tell you who won the 1988 contest, a classic Easton-P’Burg nail-biter, in case you want to watch it.
The coach was my high school history teacher, Bob Shriver. It’s sobering to think that all these kids are now around 50 years-old. Shriver is still around. I met him by chance at an Iron Pigs game this summer. You can hear the voice on the loudspeaker at the end of this video begging fans to keep off the field.
The game was televised a second time, for its 100th anniversary, on ESPN2 in 2006. On that occasion, Easton trounced its longstanding opponent, 21-7. Season championships are a big deal, of course, but the Thanksgiving game is a matter of pride, and both teams play with an impressive amount of heart. In all, Easton has taken the laurels 61 times, and Phillipsburg has been triumphant 42. There have been five ties. Unusually, one of these, from 1993, became the subject of a 2009 rematch, with players returning to take part in the Gatorade “REPLAY” series. On that occasion, Phillipsburg was victorious.
The rivalry dates back to 1905. Tickets are a hot commodity, and every year the stadium sells out in advance to 20,000 hyper-passionate fans, many of whom begin tailgating in the early daylight hours. In the good old days, it was possible take a stroll over to Lafayette Tavern to partake of some half-time refreshment. In recent years, once you leave the premises, you’re not allowed back in. Savvy fans know not to enter until they are fully fortified. Though bags are searched at the gates, it’s not exactly Checkpoint Charlie. I can’t imagine that there has ever been a year that liquor has not been smuggled in. Following the game, traffic, vandalism and vomit clog the trail down College Hill and back across the bridge to New Jersey. At some point, Lafayette College started boxing up its monuments.
The Easton-Phillipsburg Turkey Day game is first on this list of greatest high school football rivalries published in yesterday’s USA Today.
For the vanquished, Thanksgiving dinner loses all its savor. Needless to say, passions run high, and yesterday’s contest ended in a good old-fashioned donnybrook.
Still, I have to say, it is pretty thin brew next to the games of my youth, when fans would swarm Fisher Field to topple the goalposts. This, of course, would devolve into mini skirmishes that sent blood-spattered fans home to Thanksgiving dinner with loose-toothed smiles on their faces. As a native Eastonian, I know this, perhaps, better than I should.
BEAT P’BURG!
Also, the bands have gotten a lot better!
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