2017 saw return and end of football traditions
POTTSTOWN » Two major events that revolved around Pottstown High School’s Grigg Memorial Stadium occurred in 2017.
On the positive side, a $250,000 grant secured in May by state Sen. Bob Mensch, R-24th Dist., closed the final gap and ensured that Friday night lights would once again shine on Pottstown Trojan football games.
It had been three years since Pottstown had been able to host a Friday night game.
The lights were removed in 2014 after it was determined that the wooden poles holding t hem up were no longer structurally sound.
The school board at the time determined that $300,000 cost should not be born by local taxpayers when the district struggles financially, and instead a community f und-raising campaign — Save the Lights — was born and headed by former board member Polly Weand.
Lawn signs and T-shirts were sold, contributions received from the teachers federation, the Pottstown School Music Association, anonymous donors, the Foundation for Pottstown Education and all the students who paid $1 for “casual Fridays” so they could forego the required school uniform rules.
In September, for the first time in three years, a Pottstown crowd once again packed Grigg stadium for the first home game of the season against Bishop Shanahan.
But while the season began with the return of a tradition to Grigg Memorial Stadium, it ended with the termination of another.
For nearly 60 years, Pottstown played Owen J. Roberts High School on Thanksgiving Day, the oldest turkey day rivalry in the Pioneer Athletic Conference.
But in the beginning of November, The Mercury sports department broke the news that the 2017 game — the 59th — would be the last.
“After the evaluating the effect of new PIAA rules regulating the length of the football season and number of competitions allowed, along with the present structure of our Pioneer Athletic Conference playoff system, the Pottstown School District football program will participate in a Thanksgiving Day game for the last time this year,” said Stephen Rodriguez, Pottstown’s Superintendent of Schools. “After 59 years of rivalry with the Owen J. Roberts School District, this tradition has been a wonderful part of both communities. However, after changes were made to playoff rules in the PIAA, and the new impact to students, the time has come for change.”
“It’s sad to see this go,” current OJR head coach Rich Kolka said for a Nov. 21 preview of the game. “There weren’t too many left. Our players liked to play in them, everyone who has gone to OJR has played in that game.
“Other people can relate to it. The league has changed, divisions have changed, but through all of that, all of our players hold one thing in common: They all played on Thanksgiving.”
For William Day, the annual rivalry game had officially come full circle.
Day, a 1959 Pottstown graduate, played in the programs’ first Thanksgiving Day match up and was able to watch from the stands during the final showdown.
Of all the moments, all the memories he’s made playing in and watching the games, Day noted that the most important part has been watching two communities come together each year.
“Everybody comes together as one,” he said prior to the game. “We work together, we socialize together and everybody can relate to each other and their families. It’s always been such a great day for both communities.”