GRIDIRON HOLIDAY TRADITION
Rich East graduates of 1970 gather at school field to play 50th Turkey Bowl
Rain, shine, snow or sleet, a football game has been played every Thanksgiving since 1967 on a side field at Rich East High School in Park Forest.
The players? They’re a group of 1970 graduates of the high school, now in their 60s, and their children and grandchildren.
Thursday’s game, played at 8: 30 a. m. in 40 degrees and sunshine, marked the 50th annual Turkey Bowl.
“Every year, it’s a given that the game is happening,” said 66- yearold Tom Bartnik, one of the founders of the game.
He and Bob Look, 65, were the only two of the original group who played Thursday. They don’t see each other much from one Thanksgiving to the next, but that doesn’t mean the games aren’t just like old times.
Bartnik, Look and Terry Reed, 65, played together on the Rich East football team then went on to play at Prairie State College in Chicago Heights. Their second year in high school, they decided to start playing football on Thanksgiving.
This year, Look’s daughter, Jenny Montgomery, sent a message to the Sun- Times through Facebook about the group as it looked to commemorate the occasion. Players wore matching shirts as they laced up for the game, which included many faces that weren’t around when the tradition started.
John Horneij, 46, was in his senior year at Rich East when Bartnik, his brother- inlaw, persuaded him to join the game. Since then, he hasn’t missed a year and has been key in keeping the event alive.
In that time, the game has grown to include more than 20 players from three generations, ranging from 6 to 66 years old.
The younger players have replaced some of the older guys, such as Reed, who doesn’t play anymore to avoid injury. But he still showed up and watched from the sidelines along with Bob Look’s older brother, Art Look.
Art Look, two years older than his brother, came back to play after serving four years in the Navy. He remembered the days when the group of four to six guys would play tackle football without pads.
“You know, at the end, it would be a close game and they’d say, ‘ You have to give us another chance to tie it!’ It was really competitive,” said Art, also sitting out to avoid getting hurt.
The group began playing two- hand touch after a number of broken bones, bloody noses and sprained ankles. This year, everyone made it out healthy.
“No injuries!” Bartnik said as the players took off their cleats before heading to Smokey Jo’s in Crete for a few drinks, another yearly tradition.
At the bar, they toasted Jack Ribbons, one of the original players in the game who died in his late 30s after a struggle with ALS, the same disease that took his father’s life. The group decided to dedicate future games to Ribbons by donating money to organizations that research a cure for ALS.
After a couple drinks, they went their separate ways to celebrate Thanksgiving with their families. They plan to come back together next November and do it all again.
“EVERY YEAR, IT’S A GIVEN THAT THE GAME IS HAPPENING.” TOM BARTNIK, 66, one of the founders of the Rich East friends’ Thanksgiving football game