Only a handful of people know what it’s like to be on the sidelines calling the shots for the Greenfield-Turners Falls Thanksgiving Day football game.
The rivalry, which dates back to 1927 on Turkey Day, has seen its share of memorable moments. The coaches for the respective programs had a birds-eye view, providing a unique perspective in waxing poetic about the game that won’t be a game this year.
For Greenfield’s current head coach Mike Kuchieski, a 1984 graduate, not having a game this year leaves him with a void in his normal holiday calendar. The 53-year-old said he’s spent 48 Thanksgiving holidays at a high school football game of some sort. In 16 seasons as the program’s head coach, he has amassed an 8-7 record against Turners in the Big Game.
“I’ve got no idea what I’m going to do,” he said last week. “Do I go out east? Go watch a game down south? Do I even watch a game? I don’t know. When I lived in Florida for a couple years, my father and I played golf on Thanksgiving. Probably won’t be doing that.”
Kuchieski remembers going to Thanksgiving football games with his father and grandfather, sitting in the bleachers at Vets Field.
When he began playing for the Green Wave in the ’80s, he enjoyed plenty of success. The team’s starting quarterback his senior year, Kuchieski completed 10 of 15 passes for 105 yards, and also ran for a 5-yard touchdown in the fourth quarter to lift Greenfield to a 43-0 thumping in 1983.
“It was the thing to do, place to go, because everybody would see each other once a year at the Turkey Day game,” Kuchieski said. “It seemed like that as a kid growing up. Crowds four to five deep, step stools, ladders, all that.”
Winning and losing often dictated the tone of the holiday in households throughout Franklin County.
“My family was bulls*** if we lost and happy as hell if we won,” said Kuchieski.
No one enjoyed coaching success on Thanksgiving as much as Mike Duprey. The former GHS head coach was a ridiculous 18-2-1 against Turners Falls during his tenure from 1983-2003, suffering just two holiday losses in 1984 and 1996.
“We always talked about how this is a game we can’t lose,” recalled Duprey last week. “Twenty or 30 years from now, when you’re sitting on a barstool somewhere next to a former Turners player, they’re gonna let you know if they beat you. Throw the records out, it’s a whole new season. Whether we were heading to the Super Bowl or just a .500 team, you throw the records out. It’s a one-game season and it’s one you’ve got to win.”
Duprey, who graduated from GHS in 1976, grew up down the street from the school and attended Thanksgiving games as a kid. He worked his way into a starting role as a sophomore in 1973, and saw his team fall to Turners during his senior game in 1975. The win was the first of back-to-back victories for the Powertown, something that wouldn’t happen again for 35 years.
“I can just remember playing and then coming back five years later to coach, looking out at the sidelines and seeing five, six, seven deep all the way around the ropes,” Duprey said.
Count Duprey, who ironically is now an administrator at Turners Falls High School, among the disappointed masses that there won’t be a game in 2019.
“It’s pretty devastating. I don’t know how to put it into words, really,” he said. “I’ve been telling former players and people I work with, I don’t know what I’m going to do on Thanksgiving.”
On the other side of the Connecticut River, Powertowners will not have a chance this year to get back into the win column after losing two straight Turkey Day tilts. When the school decided to suspend its program in August due to low numbers and join Mohawk Trail as a cooperative program, they knew there would be no Thanksgiving game on the schedule. Still, with the holiday now in sight, things are only getting tougher with that void soon to be realized.
“It’s the world of the unknown. It doesn’t seem real that it’s not gonna take place,” former head coach Chris Lapointe said.
Lapointe has had more success on Thanksgiving than any other coach in Turners history. His 6-3 mark on the holiday is tops. That’s more than Earl Lorden’s five wins, and he guided the program to an unprecedented six straight victories from 2011-2016. Prior to that, Turners had never won more than two games in a row in the series.
“There’s nothing better, no matter the score, just that pride of winning on Turkey Day,” he said. “It was always a great feeling. Now, when you lose, it’s the total opposite effect. What could we have done differently?”
Lapointe threw for a touchdown and ran for another during his senior Thanksgiving game against Greenfield in 1998, but the host Green Wave came from behind for a 34-20 victory.
“Growing up in the town, when you were young in elementary school, you couldn’t wait for the day to play in the Greenfield-Turners game,” he said. “To have the opportunity to play in front of that crowd in a game of that magnitude… that’s what it’s all about.”
What’s on his docket this year? Lapointe, who coached the quarterbacks at Deerfield Academy this fall with no team to lead in Turners, said he’ll relive some of the memories from Thanksgiving Days past.
“I’ll probably watch some old Thanksgiving Day games,” he began. “I really don’t know. This is weird. No pep rally, can’t even listen on the radio. It’s definitely gonna be odd.”
Some of the most memorable Turners Falls victories on Thanksgiving came under the guidance of John Zywna. The former head coach compiled a 34-21 mark in six seasons with the program from 1970-1975, but won twice on the holiday — in 1971 and 1975.
“It was always a great rivalry,” said Zywna. “Even though it extended the season a couple additional weeks, it was a nice reward for the seniors. But it was a little sad in that the season was over afterward. I was going to lose some senior ball players every year who worked very, very hard for me. We had some talented kids but we had some individuals who worked so hard. I tend to be very proud of those numbers and those people, even today.”
While Zywna has been away from the program for some time now, he has followed along and was understandably disappointed with there not being a game this Thanksgiving.
“It’s gonna be an awful void, not having that Thanksgiving game locally,” he said. “It’s really a shame. It’s a game of numbers, I guess. When I think of numbers, in 1971, I had 53 kids on the football team and that did not include freshmen. Of the 53, I maintain that 35-38 of them could have started. Things have certainly changed. I can appreciate folding the tent because with a lack of numbers, someone is going to get seriously hurt. When you get that thin, it’s not a good situation.”
Former Turners assistant coach Jim Koldis was on the staff with head coach John O’Riley during some big victories as well. The staff took over in 1976 and won their very first Thanksgiving tilt, a 36-6 thumping that capped a perfect 10-0 season for the Powertown. Many think that was the best Turners Falls football team in history, with Kevin May and his four touchdowns against Greenfield setting the tone.
“There were several real good football players on that ’76 team,” said Koldis, a Turners Falls native who said he started going to Thanksgiving games in 1949 and played in the Big Game in 1961.
In 1992, Koldis and O’Riley’s last season before giving way to Fran Togneri, the Powertown went into Thanksgiving undefeated with a 9-0 mark and was prepping for a Super Bowl matchup with Hoosac Valley. Things went south in a hurry on Turkey Day however, as starting quarterback Mark Brown broke his collarbone in the second quarter and Greenfield snatched a 12-0 victory. Turners would fall to Hoosac, 31-0, in the Super Bowl without the services of Brown.
O’Riley was 4-11-1 on Turkey Day in 16 years as head coach.
The 2006 holiday was a special one in former Turners head coach John Putala’s household. The Powertown broke a nine-year skid with a 14-8 victory, as Adam Bastarache returned a punt for the eventual game-winning touchdown and recovered a fumble on defense to seal the game.
“The thing that best sticks out from that game was Adam Bastarache taking over and willing that team to win,” said Putala, who was the head coach from 2002-2009. “That broke one of those (losing) streaks. I think we were favored the year before and didn’t get it done so to come back and win, that was a great thing for the community.”
Putala grew up in Turners and graduated from the school in 1988. His senior year was the ’87 tilt where Greenfield’s Kenny Suhl & Co. rolled to victory. His son, Jack Putala also played in the rivalry before graduating last year.
“It was different in recent years, the crowds obviously weren’t as huge as they were when I was a kid but it’s still sad there isn’t a game because of what it means to the community,” Putala said. “I’ve got the whole nine yards — I got to play in the game, coach in it, watch my son play in it.”