The Big Game

By Writer Keith, Salem High Witches Class of 1995

At 10 o’clock Thanksgiving morning, thousands of people on the North Shore will be at Hurd Stadium in Beverly, Massachusetts for a tradition that dates back to the 19th century. For the 110th time, the Witches of Salem High School (my alma mater) will do battle with the Panthers of Beverly High School. As it stands right now, the Panthers hold a slight edge overall in the rivalry at 53-47 (that includes a current string of five wins by Beverly), with seven games ending in a tie.

Yeah our mascot celebrates one of the worst episodes in our country's history…what of it!

I cannot stress to you how big this game is every year. Even if both teams came into Thanksgiving without a win all season, whichever team wins this game gets bragging rights for the next 364 days. For the people in the towns, the winner of the game also determined how we’d name an old bridge (the Salem-Beverly Bridge or the Beverly-Salem Bridge). My dad, my uncles, and my cousins have all played in, or coached, in many of these games. I was a captain on the cross-country team in high school, but cheered my guts out. It’s tradition like this – spanning generations – that has had people sitting on cold, metal benches on a holiday morning every year for the past century. At this year’s game, meteorologist Bob Van Dillen says it’ll be low 40’s and muddy from storms earlier in the week.

For me, the most memorable game was the showdown in 1994. It was my senior year and Salem had just ended a teachers’ strike that shut down the school for weeks. Our football team made headlines all across the state… not just for their great season, but because the coaching staff defied a rule that kept teachers from coaching while they were on strike. I can still see the coaches running across the field locked arm-in-arm for a big game against the Swampscott Big Blue that year. Somehow, through the controversy, the team kept winning. At the end of the season, it came down to Salem versus Beverly. If Salem beat Beverly, they were headed to the state championship. My classmates and I met in the parking lot to tailgate before the game (which for us meant cereal and juice…as far as you know anyway) rocking the red, white, and black. It was an epic contest. Beverly had a 13-10 lead late in the game, but Salem marched down the field and punched it in for a touchdown with less than a minute left. Final score: 17-13. Super Bowl bound (that’s what they called it back then). A week later, the magic ran out. We lost to Whitman-Hanson in the state championship. I have no idea what the score of that game was, but I will always remember that we beat Beverly.

To this day, anytime I cross over the bridge from Salem into Beverly, I get an icky feeling like I am in enemy territory. I have no idea why…it’s a fine city, I have many friends who grew up in Beverly. I graduated high school in 1995, and I haven’t lived in Salem for nine years. I guess it’s just something that’s in your soul. I never took a snap in football, but when I sprinted past two Beverly runners in the last 200 yards in our final cross-country race my sophomore year, I high-stepped like I was Deion Sanders because it was the first time we beat them in like 15 years. Every Thanksgiving I’ve spent in Atlanta, one of the first questions I ask my parents is “Who won?”

I guess what I truly love about the rivalry is: I am a fan of traditions. The game is pure. About 99.99% of the kids playing are never going to be in the NFL. They are just young men who love the game. The games are always a place where you can see friends you may have lost touch with, spend time with your family, and take pride in your community. No matter what goes wrong in your life, no matter how bleak things may look, it is always good to have something you can count on…and that can never be a bad thing.

Go Witches!