On Thanksgiving Day, Memorial Coliseum was filled with 13,000 fans. The governor would punt for charity at halftime, with the help of local TV stars. Everyone came to see the hometown boys prove their worth.
"I don't remember if we were ranked," Connie says, over the clatter of dishes. "But each game just built the momentum."
The visitors were considered the best foot-ball team in the state. Winning all their games, some by outlandish margins, the Olympia Bears were mauling the competition. "They were rolling over their opponents," Dee says, covering a coffee cup with his hand.
But the home team was undefeated, too. Even Royal Brougham was thankful for the Queen Anne Grizzlies.
"It's interesting, the drama back 50 years ago, and thinking Wow, is that how it went," Phil says as his eggs and toast arrive.
This Thanksgiving will be the 50th anniversary of the 1953 Turkey Bowl, pitting the Queen Anne Grizzlies against the Olympia Bears. The game and the high school have faded into archives and grainy photographs, but at the right time, in the right diner, the alumni can tell you what it all meant.
"We thought we'd win," said Dwight "Dee" Hawkes. "We had a good mix."
Hawkes played quarterback and linebacker for the Kuays and still looks the part, with his thick neck and barrel chest. The retired coach writes about football these days and can still describe '53 on the back of a napkin in Xs and Os.
"We were confident," says Conrad "Con-nie" Jacobsen, who played end, on offense and defense, for the Queen Anne team. Jacobsen speaks with thoughtful understatement as if his job as a minister has taught him to resist the temptation to exaggerate. "We had a strong defense."
During the regular season, the Griz- zlies had five shutouts in seven contests. Garfield managed to score 14 points against Queen Anne. Ballard got two.
The championship was set for a crisp Thanksgiving Day much like this sunny autumn morning, with the sun shining into the atrium of a restaurant a few miles north of the stadium. Three men reconstruct the scene of a game played a few months after the uneasy end of the Korean War.
"We played on a nice, hard, sandy surface," Phil Gallaher wryly comments about the field at Memorial Stadium, where grass was an innovation still to come. Gallaher is graceful for his 6-foot-3-inch frame. He carries the kind of physical dexterity required of a pass-catching football player, and of a dentist who still has a practice in Magnolia.
The Turkey Bowl unfolded much as the Kuays' season had: smash-mouth football - the kind that can only be played without facemasks - and unforgiving defense.
The first half of the championship game ended without a score, though the Grizzlies came close on one occasion. In the waning moments of the half, Gallaher couldn't haul in a pass for a touchdown that would have put Queen Anne ahead. The next day's sports pages would dutifully obsess about this missed opportunity. Fifty years later, Connie Jacobsen brought photocopies. "It was a tough catch," Jacobsen says, watching the other man's expression as he slides newspaper clippings towards Gallaher.
"Poor Phil," Hawkes says, instantly picking up on the reference and laughing.
Gallaher recognizes the article and raises his arms above breakfast in a replay. "...The fact I'm twisting in air and it's right in here and ... well, no excuses." And he puts down his arms, giving into the ribbing with a grin.
The missed catch didn't reflect on Galla-her's value on the field. He would play football for the University of Washington for four years.
"I started under [Husky coach John] Cherberg; Darrell Royal came in for my second year, and then Jim Owens came in for my third year. So it was three coaches in three years," he says.
"And your freshman year, you had a different coach, so it was four," Jacobsen reminds him.
"Yeah, right," Gallaher agrees. "I never did get the system."
The two men have a habit of finishing each other's sentences. They met in ele-mentary school in Magnolia and went to high school and college together.
"We went to the same fraternity," Phil says.
"I went to seminary, he went to dental school," Connie finishes.
The waitress arrives with more coffee and Connie's jacket, which she's retrieved from the floor. She's looking for its owner.
"That is our championship jacket. My kids use it for Halloween," Connie deadpans.
"Queen Anne?" She says as she holds out the immaculate coat with its emblazoned Q. "I went to Queen Anne. I graduated in '68. Get this, my dad graduated in '23. I couldn't wait for my daughter to go there, and then they closed it."
"Where did you live, Magnolia or Queen Anne?" Dee Hawkes asks.
"Queen Anne, of course. Over there in the slums. You know how those Magnolia kids thought of us."
Hawkes solemnly nods. "I'm a Queen Anne kid. Those two," he says, pointing at Phil and Connie, "are from Magnolia." Everybody laughs.
Hawkes would play college football for Washington State University, with his fraternity brother, Bill Steiger, the latter a star fullback for the Olympia Bears. They remain friends to this day, but Hawkes and Steiger were not yet brothers when they squared off in the Turkey Bowl.
The siege at Memorial Stadium continued in the second half until late in the third quarter when Hawkes recovered a fumble at midfield. The play would start a drive that ended when Queen Anne's big fullback, George Varver, took the ball into the end zone, giving Queen Anne a 6-0 lead.
But the Hilltoppers missed the extra point - an ominous portent, sports jour-nalists often write in retrospect. On the next play, the stage was set for a Greek tragedy, as the Grizzlies were tempted with hubris in the face of Olympians.
"On the kickoff to Olympia we were directed not to kick to [Bill] Steiger. But in our excitement and feeling that we were invincible ... well, we kicked to Steiger anyway, and Steiger took off down the field and got all the way back to our 30-yard line," Gallaher says.
"He came right up the middle," Jacobsen concurs.
The kickoff put Olympia close to the Queen Anne end zone. In helping to stop Steiger's run, Jim Suzuki, a linchpin of the Kuay defense, broke his arm.
"After we lost Suzuki ... that was a worry," Phil said.
A few plays later, Olympia scored a touchdown, and the extra point would be the difference in the game. The fourth quarter came and went, and Olympia won 7-6. The players left the field for waiting families and future spouses, and headed up their respective hills for turkey and pie.
"I didn't feel bad about it. 7-6 was anybody's ball game," Jacobsen says.
"We weren't devastated by the loss in any sense," Gallaher says. "It was the next-best thing to winning without the points on your side."
In the spring of '54, the seniors graduated, departing to color in their futures, but not always in isolation. George Varver, Queen Anne's big fullback, was killed in a plane crash in 1973, and what started as a memorial for him is now an alumni gathering in its 30th year. Dee Hawkes, still a quarter-back for the memory of Queen Anne football, has much to do with organizing the annual event.
Hawkes would marry and raise a family, as would the other two men. Phil Gallaher would lose his wife to cancer; years later, when he remarried, Connie Jacobsen performed the service.
Breakfast ends when the check arrives. It's getting late, but for a photo's sake they slip on their championship jackets.
"We both married high-school sweethearts," Connie says.
"Sixty-three years. That's a friendship," Phil finishes.
