The case for a Roman/Frankford Thanksgiving Game

As we listed on the Rumor page of this blog on Monday, August 30th, and as reported by Ted Silary in the Daily News on Friday, September 3rd, Roman and Frankford are in “informal” discussions to play each other on Thanksgiving. With the closing of North Catholic, the grand daddy of Thanksgiving games ended with the 2009 game. If negotiations are successful, Roman would step in for North and play Frankford every Thanksgiving morning.

The Case for playing this game.
The Roman/Roxborough game, which I’m sure, at one time, was a decent game, has lost its luster. Prior to the 1990’s, most kids in Philly went to neighborhood schools. You either went to the public school in your neighborhood, or you went to the catholic school that your parish fed. That all changed over the past 20 years. With open enrollment in the catholic schools, and the explosion of public schools and charter schools, that neighborhood type school has become a thing of the past. But, if you look at the rosters of the top public league schools (Washington, Northeast, Frankford, etc), you’ll most likely find that only Frankford can boast of a team of mostly neighborhood players. These kids, for the most part, come up playing for the Frankford Chargers, Frankford Boys Club or Oxford Circle. Frankford still is, in many ways, still a neighborhood school. Now, if you looked at Roman’s roster prior to the late 1980’s, you’d mostly find players from North and Northwest Philly (Roxborough, Manayunk, etc). But, since they went open enrollment in the late 1980’s, and especially in the last 10 years or so, you’d find a large segment of Roman’s team hails from neighborhoods North and East of their school. Now, with North Catholic and Cardinal Dougherty closing, Roman will pretty much own the neighborhoods from Northern Liberties up to Frankford. And, a good number of their players even come from “traditional” Judge and Ryan neighborhoods. So, a Roman/Frankford Thanksgiving Day game makes a lot of sense.

Specific Reasons why this game works:
• History: Roman and Frankford are charter members of their respective leagues.
• Tradition: These two schools have won a combined 35 league championships over the years.
• It’s a Neighborhood Thing: As stated above, many of the players on both teams come from the same neighborhoods.
• Great Games: Moving from Roxborough to Frankford is a good move, considering that both schools are AAAA, while Roxborough is now a AAA school.
• Frankford needs the money: I was told by someone in a prominent position with Frankford, that the North/Frankford game pretty much paid for the program each year. It would be nice to give a good game for the Frankford folks (even if their fan base has shrunk over the years).

In closing, and in my humble opinion, a Roman/Frankford would be the best Thanksgiving Day game to see in Philadelphia, bar none. It should be done in 2010. Let Roxborough play IMHOTEP, and Roman play Frankford. Everybody wins in this scenario.