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This is one of the greatest sports weeks all year long for me, ranking just below March Madness. IU basketball is padding their record with a series of home games once known as the Hoosier Classic. The Maui Classic is in full swing, although played in Las Vegas this year. IU women’s basketball has ventured  to the Bahamas to cross paths with perennial powerhouse Stanford and a second game with Miami. IU soccer meets #2 seed Washington in the third round of the NCAA Championship. With regard to football, the Bears play the Lions in the Turkey bowl and the Hoosiers battle the Boilermakers for the Bucket. For IU, it’s the Toilet Bowl and the last chance to win a BIG Conference game this year. 

According to a Wikipedia reference, “The first Thanksgiving Day football game took place in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania on Thanksgiving Day of 1869, less than two weeks after Rutgers defeated Princeton in New Brunswick, New Jersey in what is widely recognized as the first intercollegiate football game in the United States, and only six years after Abraham Lincoln declared the first fixed national Thanksgiving holiday in 1863.” One of my fondest memories of Thanksgiving was playing tackle football on a field dusted with snow with high school friends that had returned home from college to be with their families. Someone always got hurt! (See Post #746).

I like to call Turkey Day “Gamesgiving” because I’m often glued to the TV or actually at a basketball or football game. This year we’ll be at the beach but I will undoubtedly be monitoring scores. I’m not expecting much in the way of victories for my teams this year but every time I lose someone else wins, so I live to make them happy…thank you very much! Happy Gamesgiving!