Thanksgiving as different as could be for Haverford’s Gallagher
In his 29 years as head coach at Haverford High, Joe Gallagher has never wondered where he will be on Thanksgiving morning. Well, until this year. Gallagher has coached the Fords in their annual Turkey Bowl showdown with Upper Darby since the early 1990s. Five years ago, “Gal” coached his most memorable game to date on a sun-splashed morning at A.G. Cornog Stadium, where an estimated 5,000 fans watched senior quarterback Jack Donaghy, the 2015 Daily Times Player of the Year, score the winning touchdown in the final seconds of the fourth quarter to lift Haverford to its first Central League championship in 20 years.
With Interboro’s Steven Lennox and Upper Darby’s Rich Gentile stepping back and moving on prior to this season, Gallagher is one of the last remaining threads of longstanding head coaches among Delco’s “big three” Thanksgiving games.
What would have been the 99th Thanksgiving installment of this oldest holiday rivalry will not take place this year. It simply wasn’t feasible due to the Central League’s pandemic shortened schedule that had set aside the final weekend of November for its “playoff week.” Instead of coaching against his former player and first-year Upper Darby coach Dave Barr, Gallagher will be at home watching NFL games and enjoying a standard Thanksgiving. No crack-of-dawn trips to Perkins Restaurant & Bakery on Lansdowne Ave. this year, either. The traditional morningof meal with Upper Darby and Haverford coaches is a huge part of the rivalry’s charm.
“Obviously, it’s my favorite football day of the year and probably my favorite holiday of the year,” Gallagher said. “That part is very disappointing. But as things progressed and they decided how they were going forth with the season, it just wasn’t going to be the same for a couple reasons. Number one, we already played (40-0 Haverford win Oct. 23), and that kind of took a lot of juice out of the Thanksgiving game. Also, it would not appear as a normal Thanksgiving game with all the festivities and the big crowd, the alumni, all of my players from years past back on the sideline for one day. All that stuff that makes it so great.”
Even if the Thanksgiving game got the green light, Gallagher likely would’ve missed it this year. Earlier this month he was exposed to someone with coronavirus and has been quarantining at home for the last 10 days.
“I haven’t had any symptoms at all and I feel great,” said Gallagher,who plans to have surgery for an ailing knee and hip in the new year and plans to return for the 2021 season. “Well, as great as I’m going to feel.”
Gallagher was not present for Haverford’s game with Garnet Valley last Friday night, but he’ll be back on the sideline one last time in 2020 when the Fords host Strath Haven for third place in the Central League Saturday morning.
“I tried to communicate with the coaches from home, but man, that was a disaster,” he said. “So, it will be nice to be back on the field again, you know? It was hard being away. It’s just one of those years, but we’re glad we get to play on Saturday.”
Come next November, the Thanksgiving tradition will continue if the world gets back to whatever normal looks like. And Gallagher is excited to start new memories with Barr, with whom he is close after all these years.
“When Dave first got the job, I thought, how great is this going to be?” Gallagher said. “Obviously, we miss Richie and all those guys, no doubt, but there’s another phase to this rivalry with one of my ex-players who is now the coach at Upper Darby. How great is that?”
Barr is equally thankful to have Gallagher in his life.
“Coach Gal is a special person to me,” Barr said recently. “Every time I see him in person or talk to him on the phone — which is about once a week — I tell him I love him and I am so grateful for everything he taught me.”