As High School Football America rolls into its 16th year of producing original content for high school football fans across the country, I’ve been looking back at some of our favorite stories we’ve covered. On today’s Flashback Friday, I take you back to 2009 for what I believe is one of the coolest flashbacks EVER in the sport of high school football.
It all started sometime in 2008 when advertising agency TWBA\Chiat\Day created REPLAY, a high school football documentary sponsored by Gatorade, that had a goal of breaking a 1993 tie between Thanksgiving Day rivals Easton (Pennsylvania) and Phillipsburg (New Jersey). Under the direction of Group Director Jimmy Smith, the idea was to bring together players from the ’93 game to “replay” it in 2009 to break the 16-year old tie.
The reason the game finished in a 7-7 tie back then was there was no such thing as overtime in New Jersey or Pennsylvania. I attended that 1993 game, which was always part of my Thanksgiving Day tradition, which continues to this day when I’m home for the holiday.
Folks, and with all respect to other rivalry games, this IS America’s best high school football rivalry.
I wrote the first story about this wildly-creative idea on January 17, 2009 when High School Football America was known by its original name — The High School Football Huddle.
Being an Easton native, it didn’t surprise me that the idea caught fire and the project was able to find 60 out-of-shape players willing to snap-on a chin strap one more time. I followed the build-up to the April 26, 2009 game closely on our blog as REPLAY released videos that aired on Gatorade’s Mission G website.
Below is the trailer:
The game was scheduled to be played at Lafayette College, which is where the two meet every year on Thanksgiving morning before 15,000 fans. Adding to the energy surrounding the game was Gatorade’s idea to have quarterbacks Peyton and Eli Manning serving as honorary coaches.
How excited were the communities for the rematch? It took only 90-minutes for all of the tickets to be gobbled-up. Yes, these two communities that are separated only by the Delaware River, love the rivalry that dates back to 1905, even if a bunch of 30-somethings are wearing the school colors.
My favorite part of the game was Episode 2 called Second Chances, which to this day makes me cry.
If tension wasn’t high enough, on gameday, Mother Nature pulled a mean trick on these “old guys.” On April 26, 2009, temperatures reached an unheard of 90 degrees with temperatures on the field reaching 120 degrees.
When the dust cleared, P’burg headed to the locker room with a 27-12 victory, thus ending the debate over the 1993 tie.
A postscript to this story — several years after the REPLAY game, Trish and I met Jimmy Smith, the creative genius behind Gatorade’s G Series and remain a close friend to this day. The funny thing is, he didn’t know that I was an Easton native, so you can imagine his surprise when I knew everything about this once-in-a-lifetime do-over.
