While You Were Eating Left Over Turkey, Teenage Boys Were Living Out Gridiron Dreams

Jennifer Silverberg

Proud American Traditions: Jazz... Ford... Capitalism... Thanksgiving weekend high school football state championship games.

​Not even a man wearing a cowboy hat while eating a Big Mac, listening to Bruce Springsteen and trading derivatives on his iPad is more American than high school football state championship games on Thanksgiving weekend.

Those games were played on Friday and Saturday afternoon and evening. The Missouri state title games took place in the Edward Jones Dome. The Illinois contests were in Memorial Stadium on the campus of University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

If you'll remember, the East St. Louis Senior High Flyers, subjects of a recent Riverfront Times cover story and accompanying slideshow, had been eliminated in the quarterfinals by fellow regional juggernaut Warrenville South. The two-time defending Illinois Class 7A state champs ended up losing in this year's title game to Boylan Catholic.

On the other side of the river, it was a rough weekend for 314 area-code teams, who went a combined 0-4 against their western Missouri opponents.

Here are all the results, with the state champs in bold:

Missouri 6A
Blue Springs South - 40
Christian Brothers College (St. Louis) - 37

Missouri 5A
Staley (Kansas City) - 35
Kirkwood - 21

Missouri 4A
Webb City - 56
MICDS (St. Louis) - 42

Missouri 3A
Logan-Rogersville (Rogersville) - 21
John Burroughs (St. Louis) - 14

Missouri 2A
Lamar - 49
Lafayette County (Higginsville) - 19

Missouri 1A
Valle Catholic (Sainte Genevieve) - 49
South Shelby (Shelbina) - 7

Illinois 8A
Bolingbrook - 21
Loyola Academy (Wilmette) - 17

Illinois 7A
Boylan Catholic (Rockford) - 21
Warrenville South (Wheaton) - 14

Illinois 6A
Prairie Ridge (Crystal Lake) - 35
Richwoods (Peoria) - 14

Illinois 5A
Montini (Lombard) - 35
Kaneland (Maple Park) - 31

Illinois 4A
Rochester - 42
Richmond-Burton (Richmond) - 39

Illinois 3A
Aurora Christian (Aurora) - 34
Mt. Carmel - 7

Illinois 2A
Morrison - 23
Casey-Westfield (Casey) - 14

Illinois 1A
Dakota - 41
Tuscola - 27