A Replay Worth Watching

Maybe by the time Sunday night rolls around you will have decided you’ve had enough football. Starting Thursday morning and rolling through Sunday evening was a full schedule of games, from late morning to late at night. The pros and colleges were all over the place. But there’s one more game you need to watch.

REPLAY can be seen on the Fox Sports Network on Sunday. In most areas around the country, the FSN affiliate will carry the program at 9 p.m., but check local listings just to be sure.

What is REPLAY? It’s a little slice of fantasy that became very real for two high school football teams. For over 100 years, the high schools of Easton, Pennsylvania and Philipsburg, New Jersey have finished their seasons with a Thanksgiving Day game. The towns are separated by the Delaware River and it’s only a short drive over the Northampton Street Bridge to get from one town to the other. We are talking tradition. We are talking rivalry.

Back in 1993, these teams played to a 7-all tie. This was before most states instituted overtime periods for high school ball.

The folks at Gatorade decided to offer the teams a chance to play again. Not the current squads, but the original players from that game in ‘93. Sixteen years later, the Red Rovers of Easton and the Stateliners of Philipsburg met again. The game was played back in April, and I won’t spoil the ending.

Sounds like a pretty crazy idea, but it’s all based on the thought that everyone who has ever participated in high school sports has had at some point: what if I could go back in time and play a game over again?

Originally produced in five episodes for the Gatorade website, REPLAY has been edited together with extra scenes and the one-hour documentary takes us inside the preparations, the training and the atmosphere that eventually overtook these two towns that economically have seen better days, but still love their high school football.

You will know only two characters in REPLAY: the Manning brothers make an appearance at the game as honorary coaches for both teams. The actually players and coaches are stories that never made it out of either town.

But I guarantee once you watch, you will care about guys like Philipsburg’s Tyrone Randolph and Tim Gadwell of Easton. One black, one white, from different sides of the river and different high schools. But they were and remain best of friends because Gadwell and his mother were there when Randolph was left homeless.

These players are all 32, 33, 34 years old. Some have gained weight. Some have gained a lot of weight. Some have lost hair. Some have lost a lot of hair. A few got hurt in the eight weeks of training that Gatorade provided the teams. Some had dealt with physical problems far greater than sprained ankles and broken fingers they picked up in practice.

As REPLAY tells the stories of these two teams, you can see these guys transported back 16 years to those seemingly simpler times. They become high school kids again, minus the acne and homeroom. The camaraderie that quickly develops between these men is testament to one of the great things that high school sports provide young athletes. That’s the concept that all things are possible when a team works together and becomes a sporting family. If you enjoyed movies like Hoosiers or Invincible, the story of the 1980 U.S. Olympic hockey team, then you will love REPLAY.

If you have overdosed on football during the holiday weekend, then Tivo this one hour of football and watch it later.

Just make sure you don’t miss REPLAY.

For more information on REPLAY you can visit the show’s website replaytheseries.com. Here’s the link.

There is also information pictures and links on REPLAY the series page on Facebook. Here’s that link.