Powder puff game lives up to towns’ rivalry

Published by The Boston Globe

WELLESLEY — Clad in blue shirts, goldenrod shorts, and black leggings, the Needham girls powder puff football team stood along the sideline yesterday, hopping up and down, as much from adrenaline as from the chilly weather.

“I’ve been waiting all four years of high school for this,’’ said Courtney Steeves, 18, staring across the field at the rival Wellesley High team.

The Wellesley girls, wearing red shirts and black pants, were screaming so loudly they drowned out the Needham players across the field. They had nothing to lose. Needham had beaten them three years in a row, hanging on to a powder puff trophy Wellesley was determined to win back.


“We’re really competitive,’’ said Erin Baker, 18, of Wellesley. The Needham-Wellesley powder puff football game has been held the day before the boys’ Thanksgiving Day matchup since the 1980s, a boys’ rivalry that the towns contend is the nation’s oldest public-school sports rivalry.

Until the past decade, however, the powder puff games were secretly held by students in the woods and would attract underage drinking and violence between the schools.

“It was very unorganized and wasn’t very safe,’’ said Officer Tim Barrows of the Wellesley police. “It got pretty carried away to the point where police were called every time the game was played to break up fights.’’

It got so bad that the towns’ police departments volunteered to take over the tradition and coach the senior girls to compete for a trophy each year. Now the game is quite a bit more peaceful, but no less passionate.

At yesterday’s game, a group of shirtless boys with blue paint on their faces and chests spelling “NHS!’’ cheered on the sidelines, blowing blue plastic horns. “I love this,’’ said Tyler Reilly, 17, a Needham High senior.

Said Christina Gagosian, 17, “It’s a women-bonding thing, a rite of passage’’

Wellesley played Needham to a 6-6 tie in regulation time, with Needham’s Katherine Rayner scoring a touchdown with only 20 seconds remaining. Then, the two teams had a sudden-death “kick-off,’’ won by Wellesley.

“There was so much more community as a group,’’ said Leah Dowd, 17, who scored Wellesley’s touchdown. “We got really good at our positions and were really able to excel.’’

The Wellesley team, with about 30 girls, was smaller than usual this year. Needham’s team had about 50 girls.

The Wellesley girls will take a victory lap with the trophy at Needham High School’s Memorial Field during the football game today.

Yesterday’s game was a far cry from the pranks of years ago.

In 1991, some Needham students planted a rocket on the Wellesley field to show support for their mascot (the Needham Rockets), but officials at first thought the device was a bomb and the Thanksgiving game was delayed a day.

The Globe reported the rocket incident at the time, along with fans’ concerns that the prank and the powder puff “rumbles’’ were taking the rivalry too far. The Globe quoted one graduate as saying that students looked forward to the powder puff fight more than the game.

“We were chasing them through the woods,’’ said Officer Mike Schlittler, who coaches the Needham team. “The kids were put into a situation where they were going to get injured.’’

Now-retired Holliston Police Chief Tom Lambert, who was a sergeant in Needham at the time, led the effort to get the police involved with the game in 2000, said Schlittler. The first couple of years had a low turnout, but participation has grown ever since, he said.

The organized games now attract family, friends, and even teachers in the stands, although the event is still not school-sanctioned and the football team is not supposed to attend, said Barrows.

“They’ve really taken what could’ve been a bad experience for many people and turned it into something great and positive,’’ said Diana Parkhurst, a wellness teacher at Needham High.