My Favorite Part of Thanksgiving
By wchung | 22 Feb, 2025

I'm not exactly built for football but it's become my favorite part of the Thanksgiving holiday.

I grew up in a primarily White neighborhood so I got the full Thanksgiving experience as a kid. You imagine it, I probably did it. The outlining of your hand to draw the likeness of a turkey, the stories about the good relations between the Native Americans and the settlers, the grandiose feasts full of turkey, mashed potatoes, cranberry sauce, stuffing and everything else that helped me put on the holiday weight that got me through the harsh winters of the Northeast. I recollect most of these memories with ease and my stomach churns with hunger but my Thanksgivings in recent years have been dominated with one glorious event: Turkey Bowl football.

I prefer Turkey Bowl over turkey in bowls. I’ve always been sporty but I never picked up football when I was a kid. I only frustratingly played it during PE in Jr. High but I never got a hang of it. What the heck is up with this oblong leather ball? How are you supposed to throw it? My small hands found the ball to be very awkward. I was used to baseballs, not this huge, decidedly American and violent sport. And violent it is. My parents, as most Asian parents do, shun the sport of football. Any sport that could cause injury, rattle that precious Asian brain, is a sport that their piano and violin-playing son shouldn’t be able to play. So I was ignorant to the fun of football for most of my life.

That all changed when I went to college. Going to a football college like USC helped pique the initial interest. Having friends that are willing to help me learn has only deepened it. Now that I’ve learned the nuances of the game, I can see that football, through rough and tumble on the outside, is quite a game of the mind. On a professional level, it’s like a chess game between grandmasters. There is so much strategy involved in running complicated offenses and defenses that I didn’t know before. I just saw the dog-pile of players and figured this was a game I would never be able to excel in and didn’t understand, but now it’s one of my favorite sports to watch and most of all, play.

There’s little in this world that feels better than catching a perfectly thrown touchdown. Or running back a kickoff. Or intercepting a football. All I know is I can’t wait till next Thanksgiving, but you can hold the turkey, mashed potatoes and cranberry sauce. I’m perfectly happy with my pigskin and a rowdy group of friends looking to relieve stress.

University of Southern California quarterback Matt Barkley, right, is tackled by UCLA linebacker Reggie Carter during the first half of their NCAA college football game, Saturday, Nov. 28, 2009, in Los Angeles. (AP Photo/Mark J. Terrill)