News Item
PREP AND LA SALLE ANNOUNCE CHANGE IN FOOTBALL RIVALRY
St. Joseph’s Prep and La Salle College High School have decided to make a change to their football schedules, limiting their meetings to once during the regular season in addition to any playoff match-ups. This coming season, the teams will kick-off their Catholic League Red Division schedules when they meet on Saturday, September 22, 2007 at Plymouth-Whitemarsh High School.
The decision means that, after twenty-nine meetings, the teams will not square off on Thanksgiving in 2007. Two of the past four holiday games have been canceled or changed due to playoff issues that arose when both teams were placed in the Red Division.
Both schools feel that the change should have happened in 1999 when the football divisions were changed in the Catholic League. The Thanksgiving Day game continued for the sake of the rivalry; however, the uncertainty surrounding the game the past few years has brought the situation to the forefront and resulted in the decision to end the Thanksgiving Day match-up.
While La Salle is undecided in regard to a Thanksgiving game, St. Joseph ’s Prep will play Malvern Prep at Villanova Stadium, renewing a holiday rivalry from the early 1970s. Since then, Malvern has played Monsignor Bonner (1980 and 2004-06), Archbishop Carroll (1984-2000) and Cardinal O’Hara (1978). They are 18-3-1 on Thanksgiving against those three opponents.
The Prep and La Salle first met on Thanksgiving in 1976, with La Salle winning 19 of the 29 meetings. Before its series with La Salle, The Prep had played Roman Catholic for 51 straight years until both schools were placed in the Southern Division in 1972. Before beginning the Thanksgiving rivalry with The Prep, La Salle had only played five Thanksgiving Day games since 1950.
A message board has been created for people to discuss their memories of Prep Thanksgiving Day games, against Roman, Malvern or La Salle. Click here to share your thoughts. Anyone who needs help logging in should contact Brendan Murphy ’01, Director of Web Services, at bmurphy@sjprep.org.
Read more at The Philadelphia Inquirer >>
Contact:
Bill Avington
Director of Marketing and Communications
215-978-1962
bavington@sjprep.org