On Nov. 15, Loyola’s annual Turkey Bowl took place on Diane Geppi-Aikens (DGA) Field. The tradition had an excellent turnout this year, with over 100 participants from 22 teams. The players and spectators enjoyed a late fall afternoon of football and free hot chocolate and apple cider.
The Turkey Bowl is a March Madness style bracket where teams play in ten minute flag football games. If a team loses, they are eliminated until only one team is standing. This year’s winning team, Team Osik, was awarded bragging rights and 25 meal points per player.
Student Government Association (SGA) hosted the Turkey Bowl, with collaboration from the Center for Community, Service, and Justice (CCSJ) and intramural staff. SGA Director of Events and Traditions Ryan O’Keefe ‘26 played a large role in coordinating the Turkey Bowl and ensuring it ran smoothly.
O’Keefe has played in the Turkey Bowl every year, including this year. He led his team, the Should’ve Been Records, to the quarterfinals before being defeated. The Director of Events and Traditions says this has been his favorite event during his time at Loyola, even before he began working with SGA.
“This is a fun way to get some friendly competition going. We also are running a canned food drive today. This is a good way to get people in the holiday spirit with Thanksgiving coming up,” O’Keefe said.
The Turkey Bowl canned food drive supported the York Road Community Fridge. The fridge can be found in the motor pool parking lot and helps members of the Govans community.
Flag football supervisor and computer science major Nyrique’ Butler ‘26 highlights the importance of service.
“I find that to be amazing … to be able to help the broader Baltimore community around us. I find it to be amazing and I love that,” Butler said.
Butler often makes sure regular intramural flag football games are officiated properly, but the Turkey Bowl was a bit different. The supervisor says the fields are smaller than for regular intramurals, and teams consist of five players on the field at once instead of the usual seven. Butler explains that these rules have been changed to make flag football more open.
“The rules are a lot more relaxed, especially because we have a lot of teams who sign up for the tournament, and they don’t play flag football at all. We try to make it as simple as possible for the tournament. We take some of the rules that we have for flag football and we institute them here, but overall we tell the officials to be more lax on the calls because a lot of these players don’t play flag football,” Butler said.
Team Osik, the winning team, was not new to flag football. Finance major Nick Trela ‘28 was the snapper for the victors and explained that his team consisted of many of his intramural flag football teammates from the earlier fall season. This preexisting chemistry helped Team Osik defeat Team Vargas in the championship, alongside a good amount of subs.
“On certain plays, we’d have certain guys on offense or certain guys on defense. I think this definitely gave us a good advantage because a lot of teams didn’t have as many subs as we did, if any at all. If some of our guys were tired, we had people on the sidelines ready to go,” Trela said.
Win or lose, the Turkey Bowl provided plenty of opportunities for bonding. Trela says friendly competition was central to the event.
“It’s a very fun community event where people can be competitive, but that competitiveness is friendly. Imagine you’re playing a game against a sibling. It’s that loving and competitive brotherly or sisterly rivalry that at the end of the day brings you two together while doing something that you enjoy. At the end of the day, it’s all out of love,” Trela said.
Trela says that he has become friends with many fellow students by playing either with or against them in intramurals.
“There were a lot of people on other teams that I know, who I got to know through games like this … We started talking and furthering our connections. I think it was a great event. There was a huge showout. There were so many teams, so many people, it was a lot of fun,” Trela said.
Although the Turkey Bowl has come and gone, the Loyola holiday spirit is continuing. Be sure to check out the Christmas Tree Lighting on Dec. 4.
