Thanksgiving Day rivals break bread – again

Sachem and Tanner seniors gather for the 52nd Annual Saugus and Peabody Lions Club’s Football Dinner

By Mark E. Vogler

Guest speaker Chris Collins offered some final game advice for the senior players from Peabody and Saugus who will be suiting up for the final football game of their high school careers tomorrow. “What do you say to a couple of teams under .500?” Collins, a Peabody native and popular sportscaster, asked as he addressed the crowd at the 52nd Annual Saugus and Peabody Lions Club’s Football Meeting and Dinner hosted by the Kowloon Restaurant last Wednesday (Nov. 20).

“At the end of the day, it’s not really where you start. It’s where you finish,” he told the audience.”

The Saugus High Sachems, with a 3-7 record, will host Peabody at 10 a.m. The Tanners go into the game with a 4-6 record. The losing records of both teams don’t really matter in this rivalry game, Collins suggested.

“Play it like it’s your last game. Create those memories with the group of guys you grew up with,” he said. Collins urged the seniors attending the banquet to embrace that “last opportunity” and “play your ass off.”

Peabody Tanners’ Coach Mark Bettencourt, whose team includes 23 seniors, noted that he’s attended 17 Lions Club senior football banquets – 12 as head coach and five as an assistant. “For me, this event is one of the biggest nights of the year,” Bettencourt said.

“Any time you get to sit down and break bread with the opposition – it doesn’t happen very often,” he said.

“It’s a tradition I admire as a former player and coach,” he said.

Sachems’ Head Coach Steve Cummings experienced his first Lions Club senior banquet in 2019. After attending his sixth one last week, he urged the seniors of both teams not to take the event for granted. “Not everywhere does things like this. How special it is,” said Cummings, who goes into the Thanksgiving Day showdown with five seniors playing in their final game.

“It’s a rivalry that people care about and want to keep going. For some of you, this is the last week you get to do the greatest thing on this planet,” Cummings said.

Playing in their final game tomorrow are

• Samy Chahid – running back and defensive back
• Wilderson LaFortune – defensive tackle and offensive guard
• Kiki Raymond – offensive and defensive line
• Cody Munafo – running back and linebacker
• Connor Bloom – kicker, punter, defensive back and wide receiver

Veteran Saugus Lions Club Member John Smolinsky, the master of ceremonies for many of the Lions Club banquets, recognized a Saugus High football Hall of Famer, Eugene Decareau, who celebrated his 95th birthday last Wednesday. Decareau, a 1948 Saugus High School graduate and a veteran Lions Club member who spent more than half a century involved with the organization, played in three Thanksgiving Day games. All three games that Decareau played against Peabody were low-scoring shutouts. Peabody beat Saugus 6-0 in 1945. A year later, Saugus won 7-0. Decareau played end and tackle, on both offense and defense.

During Decareau’s senior year, the Sachems were 7-3 going into the game. But Peabody won 13-0 that year. “It was bitter cold; the ground was like cement. It was difficult. I missed more tackles in that game than I missed in the entire year,” Decareau said in an interview several years ago.

“He played with Harry Agganis in the Northeastern Conference All-Star Game,” Smolinsky said of Decareau. Agganis was a Lynn Classical High School sports legend who went on to play for the Boston Red Sox before dying at a young age.