tkihshbt wrote:

This is pretty huge to anyone who follows high school football in St. Louis.

Do you know how many times Kirkwood and WG have played each other in the playoffs?

How many divisions are there in Missouri HS football?

tkihshbt wrote:

Six.

LOL. Massachusetts has 10 state "champions."

I could write a dissertation on what's wrong with the filthy, greedy souls who administer high school sports in this state. But I'll spare you and just say the MIAA has the same problem as the BCS with the bowls - how to conduct a playoff system without ruining the relevance of the Thanksgiving Day games. It's failed at every level. The schools obviously don't want to lose the revenue from the Thanksgiving gate, but the MIAA has put the kids in a situation where some of them have to play three football games in the span of 10 days. That almost rises to the level of criminal child abuse.

forsberg_us wrote:

This won't mean much to anyone else on the board, but the Turkey Day game will be played by the JV teams this year.

Kirkwood plays Webster in the state semi-finals this weekend.

No animosity in that game.   (happy) (happy) (happy)

I'm going to retype a response & hope I remember what I said!  I wish this site had an "undo" button for when fingers accidentally hit "enter" at the wrong moment (errr)

I've been watching the WG Statesmen with the help of several of my hold high school classmates who post scores etc. on Facebook!  They're doing an outstanding job this year!  I saw something about them, WG, getting national ranking (grin)

This year reminds me of our Senior year.  That fall of 1968 the team was also outstanding!  The difference of course is that they played the Turkey Day game with the full varsity squad.  It rained so hard that year that the field was practically a lake.  Players got so muddy it was hard to tell who was who but WG managed to slaughter Kirkwood 27 - 0   (grin) I believe they played 9 games that year & only lost one.  4 of them were won by huge margins (happy)


I don't understand why this years play-off game between WG & Kirkwood can't be played on Thanksgiving instead of forcing them to use JV teams

Our graduating class had some fantastic sports teams that year!  They also took 2nd in the state basketball championships - only losing to a team with a couple of 7 foot tall players!


YEP - The Turkey Day game with all the festivities surrounding it is REALLY HUGE (grin)

forsberg_us wrote:

Webstergrovesalum wrote:

I don't understand why this years play-off game between WG & Kirkwood can't be played on Thanksgiving instead of forcing them to use JV teams

If I remember correctly, the state championship games are played on the Friday after Thanksgiving at the Edward Jones Dome.  Be a bit tough to play games back to back, and there's no way MSHSAA is going to lose that revenue.

Here's a quote from one of my buddies who played for WG back in the day:

"This is actually the very first time, ever, we have met Kirkwood in a State competition. Kirkwood has always been considered a class 6 size school, so even the years when WG and Kirkwood were in the running they were in different classes in terms of size, Webster being class 5 and Kirkwood class 6. Apparently Kirkwood's enrollment has substantially dropped and now are classified as size 5 now, like Webster and now going to meet head to head in the quarter-finals. The winner plays one more opponent for the Championship! Amazing yes?"

He went on to say in a later message:

...."The sad fact is; the Missouri High school Athletic Association is only concerned with scheduling the playoff schedules for the 32 teams that qualify for it each year and don't take into account any traditions outside of its little circle. So Kirkwood and our beloved WG are on our own to safeguard and continue what we hold near and dear to our hearts. Whoever does go on to the final game (the winner of this next contest) will simply play their JV squad so not to risk injury of our starters for the big State game the very next day(the 26th)."

Glad I had an 'expert' to go to on this (wink)

tkihshbt wrote:

It would be really unfair to schedule the playoffs around the possibility of Kirkwood and WG in the playoffs, though. Basketball season doesn't even start for most teams until after Thanksgiving now because so many schools are getting a late jump with their two-sport athletes still playing football. That's killed a really great Thanksgiving tournament in my area that's been around for over 50 years.

If these football playoffs lasted any longer, basketball wouldn't start until the second week of December, then it would immediately go into a winter break.

tk, I think this tradition has been going on for over 100 years.  It would be a tragedy for it to end &  I don't see that happening. It sounds like everything will happen within a week of Thanksgiving itself so I doubt that any schedule will ever have to be set based on the WG/Kirkwood Turkey Day Game.  If a "playoff" between the two teams is set for Friday after Thanksgiving, which is one day later, then why can't they just have that game playoff 'result' based on the traditional Turkey Day game?  In other words, make the Turkey Day game & the play off game one & the same. Why force two games? They're already playing!

WG has been able to have an excellent basketball team all those years without a problem also.

Final Score: Webster Groves High School 28 Kirkwood 0. Next stop - State Championship game in the Edward Jones Dome.

In case anyone's interested besides me (grin)

Humanity lost. Webster Groves got smacked up by Lee's Summit West.

And I believe Webb City could've beat any Class 5 or Class 6 team in the state. What a machine.