DUNBAR, W.Va. — Dunbar’s unique Thanksgiving day tradition is reaching an impressive milestone this year.
The annual Commode Bowl game is kicking off this Thursday for the 75th time. It’s a tradition that dates all the way back to November 1948. Following a parade down Dunbar Avenue an hour prior, a tackle football game at Dunbar Middle School (formerly Dunbar High) takes place between the Hillside Rams and the Riverside Rats.
The story goes that the game got started after guys that were in a local bar were arguing over who had the better football players, according to longtime Commode Bowl player Drew Mounts.
“It started in a watering hole in Dunbar,” Mounts said. “They were bragging about who had the best athletes,”
The Hillside Rams are to the north, and the River Rats are to the south of the train tracks that split the city in two. Wherever you lived determined your respective team.
How the game got its name is another story.
“Word has it that some guy showed up one day with a commode and watched the game at Dunbar football field,” said Mounts, who also believes it’s the oldest game of its kind that is still played ever year to this day.
“As far as I know, this is the oldest sandlot football game in America,” he claims.
For 37 years now, Mounts has played in the annual Commode Bowl game. Now residing in Raleigh, Mounts comes back to the area every year around this time to keep his playing streak alive.
“I’ve been playing in the game since I left college which was in ’87,” he said. “I haven’t missed a game except in 1995.”
Mounts played collegiate football at West Virginia State University. He said in 1995, he was playing semi-pro football for the West Virginia Lightning alongside quarterback and WVU great Major Harris. He was a receiver back in the day but said nowadays he’s limited himself to offensive and defensive line.
The minimum age requirement to participate in the game is 18 years old, meaning there’s no age limit either. Mounts is 58, but that’s not stopping him from staying off the field. His friend Dave Wallace, who lives in Florida but also makes his way back up to Dunbar on the week of Thanksgiving, is at least 60 years old and will be playing in his 40th Commode Bowl game on Thursday for the Hillside Rams.
Many years ago, Mounts said he was asked by a friend of his if he was interested in playing in the game. The rest is history. Don’t think either that anything can stop the game from happening.
“Even the year during covid, they were gonna cancel the game, and we said ‘we’re just gonna kick a football down Main Street and Dunbar and play the game then,'” said Mounts.
In recent years, Mounts and some of his friends who are the much older players have tried to recruit a more younger crop of guys to play in the game too.
It’s not always your friendly backyard game of touch football either. Mounts says the guys hit hard. He’s seen dislocated shoulders, fingers and loose teeth.
While some take the game seriously, others like to have fun with it as well.
“Some guys have football cleats and some don’t. Some wear costumes and some people paint their faces,” he said.
Once the game is over and the teams are no longer playing against one another, Mounts said all the players become friends and they have a party afterwards to celebrate the game. They also hand out plungers as awards to guys that are recognized by the coaches as worthy members of the All-Commode Team.
The game is also for a good cause. Canned goods and other donated items are collected at the game for the local food bank.
FOX will air a feature on the Commode Bowl at 12:30 p.m. before the Thanksgiving Day game between the Detroit Lions and Green Bay Packers. The network sent a crew to Dunbar earlier this month to film a scrimmage of the players participating in this year’s Commode Bowl.
Anyone can join the parade, which starts at noon and is followed by kickoff of the game at 1. The Rams won last years game over the Rats 28-6.