The Catasauqua football team went just 3-8 last season.

But several Rough Riders on next year’s squad have already gotten their first win of 2025.

That’s because the Catasauqua School Board voted by a 6-2 margin on Tuesday night to continue the Thanksgiving morning game against Northampton, and many of the players celebrated the decision.

The vote means the 100th anniversary of the first game played in 1925 will be held at 10 a.m. on November 27 at Catty’s Alumni Field.

“I’m relieved … it’s a good win and I am just glad it’s staying,” said Chris Wellington, who will be a senior member of the Roughies football team in the fall. “I am ready to play Turkey Day football again.”

Aiden Reilly, who will be a junior on the 2025 Catty football team, said he has been going to the game or playing in it his entire life.

“I’m been going to this game or have been on the sidelines for it my entire life,” Reilly said. “My father played in this game. It’s a big thing, and not just for me, but for my family and the community. It helps to bring the community together. We’re just very glad this happened and we have to say ‘thank you’ to a lot of people.”

Wellington and his friends had accumulated more than 1,300 signatures on a petition to keep the game prior to the April board meeting. He said that total continued to grow after the board decided to table the issue to the May meeting, which was held inside the cafeteria at Shecker Elementary School to accommodate a larger crowd.

While 22 people spoke at the April board meeting, only a handful spoke in support of the game Tuesday night. But several of them were quite passionate in their quest to continue the only other Lehigh Valley Thanksgiving Day game besides the popular Easton-Phillipsburg rivalry played at Lafayette’s Fisher Stadium.

Zachary Panto, a 2012 Catty graduate who went on to West Point and the 82nd Airborne Division, said playing football for the Rough Riders changed his life.

“What we have here in Catasauqua is really special, and I’m really happy that these guys are still going to be able to take part in a tradition that meant a lot to me and to a lot of my friends,” he said. “I give playing football here a lot of credit. I tie all of my professional success to what happened down the street at Alumni Field.”

In his presentation to the board, Panto said: “In 2011, my senior year, we ended an eight-game losing streak to Northampton. I remember looking to see members of our student body charge the field. Catasauqua football taught me grit, determination, and how to aggressively pursue excellence and not back down from a challenge. These skills served me when I accepted an appointment to West Point and served in the 82nd Airborne.”

The conversation about the game’s future was limited to the public portion of the meeting. The board conducted no public discussion, and board president Dale Hein went right to a roll-call vote. Hein, Jamie Nattress, Shawn McGinley, Lauren Cieslak, Jillian Emert and Jason Bashaw, who made the motion, all voted in the affirmative.

Jeremy Smale and Eric DeLabar were the board members who voted against continuing the game. One board member was absent.

The vote means this Thanksgiving will feature the 102nd game in the series between neighboring communities. The Rough Riders and Konkrete Kids played twice each in the first two years of the rivalry and the only time no game was held was in 2021 due to the pandemic.

Northampton leads the series 64-33-4 and has won the last 10 meetings, including last November’s game by a 58-14 margin. The lopsided nature of the game in recent years was one of the reasons why the Catasauqua administration, including athletic director Tom Moll, assistant to the superintendent Eric Dauberman, and Rough Riders football coach Joe Henrich, had made the case at a special board meeting last month to end the game.

Also, it was pointed out that Northampton’s enrollment size is approximately four times larger than Catasauqua’s and the Konkrete Kids football program — Northampton is a 6A school in the PIAA classification system, and Catty is 2A. Also, the Konkrete Kids have three times as many kids as the Rougher Riders.

Injury concerns were brought up as a reason to end the game, but others in the community pointed out that the Rough Riders generally Catty has a typical roster of 40 kids in grades 9-12 and a middle school roster of 20, while Northampton has 126 kids in grades 9-12 and 50 on its middle school team.

But several speakers refuted the injury concerns, and one pointed out that Catty scheduled Pleasant Valley, a 5A school, for its preseason scrimmage last season.

Longtime Catty resident Bob Zakos, who also spoke at the April meeting, said: “The community has spoken overwhelmingly that they want this game to keep going and continue our tradition.”

He also said to the board with his voice cracking with emotion that if the game doesn’t excite them, rather than vote to end the game, they should abstain. Zakos said this is a game “that should pulsate through your mind and heart starting on November 1” and is much more important to a Catasauqua Thanksgiving than merely “having a day off from work, eating a big meal and watching NFL football and the Macy’s parade.”

When the board vote was counted, Zakos immediately got up and gave out a loud shout of joy as he exited the building.

Catasauqua-Northampton football: It’s not easy to end a 100-year tradition

Originally Published: May 6, 2025 at 11:31 PM EDT