by Debbie Z. Harwell
The nation’s biggest high school rivalry football game took place on Thanksgiving Day in the heart of Houston, Texas, from 1942 to 1966 at Public School Stadium (later Jeppesen, then Robertson Stadium). Although Jack Yates and Phillis Wheatley High Schools had played each other since 1927, it became the regular Thanksgiving Day game due to its popularity, with as many as twenty to forty thousand fans turning out for the Black community’s social event of the year. A historical marker now stands at that location in the shadow of the University of Houston’s (UH) modern stadium, but one can still imagine the wonder of those glory days. Students at the UH Center for Public History had the pleasure of interviewing graduates from Yates and Wheatley High Schools to hear their memories of the Turkey Day Classic. Excerpts from those conversations follow.
What is the Turkey Day Classic?
Thurman Robins, Yates ’58 (TR): The Thanksgiving Classic in Houston [was] the largest attended high school game in America, period. They had one rival game in Chicago which began in 1935, but it was an … all-star game between the public schools and the Catholic schools.
Willie Jordan, Wheatley ’56 (WJ): The Thanksgiving game was homecoming and people from all over the country came back for homecoming. … So people had Thanksgiving parties the night before for the out-of-town guests … [T]he students had a pep rally. It was wild. … Everybody just stood up and cheered, they introduced the football team, the cheerleaders, the major, we had a band, the majorettes … It was a party.
Betty Taylor-Thompson, Wheatley ’59 (BTT): But it was an organized party. Don’t say it was wild, because everything at Wheatley, and I’m sure at Yates, was disciplined. We didn’t have disciplinary problems.
Ralph Oaks, Wheatley ’59 (RO): It wasn’t a game between two teams … it was a game with the neighborhood. You had people who never went to Wheatley High School, probably never graduated. But they were for Wheatley. … If they knew a kid in the neighborhood was going to Wheatley and could not afford it, they would help him out. It was a community … you don’t have neighborhood schools anymore. … The Thanksgiving game, it made people aware of what Wheatley was about, and it made them respect education.
Deloris Johnson, Yates ’58 (DJ): We were involved with the Turkey Day Classic way beyond our high school years because that was the main event of the year for Blacks in Third Ward, Fifth Ward, Fourth Ward and all over Houston.
Thelma Robins Gould, Yates ’58 (TRG): There was always so much enthusiasm and excitement about the game … when they were still in grade school. It was something you looked forward to once you got to Jack Yates … from seventh to twelfth grade.
TR: [Thelma and I] lived in Cuney Homes for the first eight years of our lives. I can remember just as vivid as it was yesterday, I was about five years old, and I was playing outside in the yard and all of a sudden you hear this noise, this big roar “Woo!!” … And then it would die down. And a few minutes later you’d hear it again. … I asked my mom, “What is all that noise?!” She said, “Oh, they’re playing that game over at the stadium [about three blocks away] that’s the Yates-Wheatley Game.”
Donald Dickson, Yates ’58 (DD): [Going to coach’s house at 9:00 a.m. I passed Thelma and Thurman’s aunt’s house] and she would be dressed and ready to go to the game. She’d be standing outside in her red and yellow; I mean she’s got on red shoes, she’s got on red stockings, yellow purse, yellow hat; and, listen, her words to me were, “If y’all don’t beat Wheatley today, don’t you come back home!”
What other ways did the spirit of competition shine through?
DJ: As a little girl I would stand in the window and watch the people walk down Alabama Street going to the game … They were dressed in their finest suits, hats, furs. … You had to look good for the Thanksgiving game. Men too.
Loretta Thompson-Williams, Wheatley ’59 (LTW): It was probably the most dressed up football game. We were dressed to a T.
RO: It started at 5 o’clock.
WJ: They would have eggs and have bacon, and a buffet in the school cafeteria. … Wheatley started it. Then Yates followed. Yates had some connections with communication, they got on the radio, and then Wheatley pulled some folk to get on the radio. … We were talking bad about the other [school] … The momentum of getting ready to have a sure enough fight. I mean figuratively speaking.
Samuel Taylor, Yates ’58 (ST): Each ward, Fifth Ward, Third Ward, they would have their parades. Wheatley would have their parades up and down Lyons Avenue. Yates would have their parade up and down Dowling [now Emancipation… before the game and …Jeppesen Stadium parking lot would be full of people.
TRG: Everybody was excited! … Those of us who were in the squadron, the Ryan Kadets, we practiced every day except on weekends because … you had to get out there at halftime and … perform your best.
DJ: You had to beat Wheatley’s performance too!
WJ: Halftime was just like the game because you’re going to compete … We would always compete with how Miss Wheatley would come out, how Miss Yates would come out, and one time they would … come out in a Cadillac, another [year] some antique car, horse and buggy … But I will have to confess when Carolyn Wilkins from Yates came out in a helicopter … we threw in the white flag. … It was a spectacle!
Debbie Z. Harwell, Ph.D., is an instructional assistant professor in History and Honors at the University of Houston and editor of Houston History.
To read the full story, click on Buy Magazines above to purchase a print copy or subscribe.
Click here to read “The Turkey Day Classic: Houston’s Biggest Football Rivalry.”
Click here to purchase Thurman W. Robin’s book Requiem For A Classic: Thanksgiving Turkey Day Classic on Amazon.
Follow