MEDINA: The 48 men who play in the annual Meadows Turkey Bowl football game have to meet some tough criteria for the privilege of participating in the hotly contested Thanksgiving Day matchup.
But as the years have passed since the first meeting 22 years ago, the former Medina High School football players have begun to realize older bodies feel pain more acutely than younger ones, admitted Mike Meadows, a founding member. The ritual has raised more than $250,000 for charity in the past seven years.
“I like to say it’s the perfect blend of charity and testosterone,” Meadows will tell you. It’s the same line he has used each year since 2004, when the game took on new meaning. Players, competitive to the extreme, began using the event to raise money for the St. Vincent de Paul Society at St. Francis Xavier Catholic Church in Medina.
Even adrenaline doesn’t stem all the pain.
“I ran pass routes a couple of weeks ago for about a minute. The next day I couldn’t move,” said Meadows, 45, who hosts the event in his Medina Township backyard.
Team captains Bill Meadows, Tom Judson, Mike Biskup and Terry Blascak might believe that claim, or they could chalk it up to a pregame ploy to throw them off.
On- and off-field trash talk is an integral part of the fun.
Team members, many of whom have crested the hill of middle age, have been recruiting “new blood” to fill the ranks.
John Lurtz, 33, who played alongside future NFLers Jason Taylor and Dwight Smith at the University of Akron, was recruited after a rigorous selection process and interview. Lurtz, in turn, recruited his business partner, Joe Hurst, a Medina transplant from Olmsted Township who could be a ringer.
Their participation in the game came with a caveat: Donations Lurtz and Hurst collect, which will be matched up to $3,000, will be funneled through the St. Vincent de Paul Society to Hurst’s former UA roommate, Jeff Thomas, who suffered a traumatic brain injury last year when his vehicle collided with a minivan.
Since the crash, Thomas has been in treatment for severe head, shoulder, hip and hand injuries.
Slow progress
Jeff and Jennifer Thomas of Louisville, who have three daughters ages 10 and under, count the days — 552 as of today — since the accident. They measure his progress in inches.
Jennifer and two of the girls sustained minor injuries, but it was more than six months before Jeff Thomas was able to return to his family.
“I would walk through a wall for Jeff,” Hurst said at the couple’s home last week. He spent the first few months at Jeff’s side.
At the time of the accident, Thomas, 37, was working as an engineer for Diebold.
“He is a Mensa scholar, the smartest man I know,” Hurst said. “Even during his darkest days since the accident, he has kept his sense of humor.”
“That’s all I had left,” Jeff Thomas quickly responded.
Thomas, who uses a wheelchair, has few memories of the past, but is at last able to recognize his wife and daughters. Due to the brain damage he suffered, his conversations have a tendency to veer off into strange directions, Hurst said, which he takes in good-natured stride.
Since the accident, the family has been without financial resources. Through the help of their church, The Chapel in Green, friends who set up the Jeff Thomas Benevolence Fund to help with expenses and volunteers who have rehabilitated the couple’s basement for his care, Jennifer has been able to care for her husband of 14 years at home.
Doctors initially told the family Thomas would not survive his injuries.
“We all took the lead from Jen’s faith,” Hurst said. “She just refused to accept that, and we decided we would help her to do whatever it takes to get Jeff back.”
Jennifer said she has been overwhelmed by the generosity of people.
“It’s been a wonderful show of God’s love,” she said.
Helping people like the Thomas family is just what “the game within the game,” is all about, Mike Meadows said.
The St. Vincent de Paul Society dispensed $140,000 worth of food or direct financial help in 2010, said Tom Rebescher, conference president in charge of the charity.
“Our funding comes from parishioners and, of recent years, the major funding has come from the Turkey Bowl,” Rebescher said in a recent interview.
Players raised $90,000 for the society in last year’s bowl game.
Fewer donations
Donations for the 2011 game have been harder to collect due to the downturn in the economy. They could be off by 20 to 50 percent this year, Meadows said.
Even Al Melchiorre, who garnered the coveted “Heavy Hitter Award” last year by single-handedly raising more than $11,000, might come up short. But it would be unwise to underestimate him, Meadows said.
“Let’s put it this way: Al does not like to lose at anything … it’s a guarantee he will perform.”
Medina plumber Bill Biegel began in September to collect donations from his customers rather than charging them for work. Erin Cureton of Akron raised the bar in pregame donations with a fundraiser at a Lakewood tavern, Meadows said.
Team captains will bid for their players off the auction block Wednesday evening at Weymouth Country Club, Meadows said. They use the donation money they collect in the weeks and months before the game.
“Part of the strategy is whether captains pick a man for their money or because he’s a jock,” Meadows said.
He predicts Hurst will go for a lot of cash in the auction.
“He’s a $16,000 guy,” Meadows said.
“All joking aside, it’s not the dollars we raise, it’s the people we help. If we stay on that mission, we will be successful.”
Donations can be made to the Meadows Turkey Bowl at http://meadowsturkeybowl.com/. The site’s home page includes a button to donate exclusively to the Thomas family. Donation packages are matched almost dollar for dollar with gift givebacks, such as Indians tickets, rounds of golf and gift certificates.
Kathy Antoniotti can be reached at 330-996-3565 or kantoniotti@thebeaconjournal.com.