Putting out the Fire

By Jessica Walendukanis
Courier Staff

On Saturday, Nov. 5, Monmouth and Knox College will face-off in their 107th football game in college history. Monmouth seeks to clinch its 7th consecutive win.   

Ranked the fourth oldest rivalry among Division III schools and sixth overall in college football, the Monmouth vs. Knox football game draws people from both schools onto one field.

According to Jeff Rankin, director of college communications, the rivalry started long before 1888, which is the date most people think it started.

“Before football, basketball and other organized sporting events,  there were debates; time for students from different schools to come together and dispute over issues,” said Rankin.

 He believes the rivalry between the two colleges began around the 1860s.

In 1928, the newspapers from both towns, the Galesburg Register Mail and the Monmouth Review Atlas, donated money towards a trophy that would be awarded to the winner of the football game.

Due to the fact that the annual game was held on Thanksgiving Day, the trophy received the name “The Bronze Turkey.”

Rankin recalled memories he had concerning the rivalry.

He reminisced about the story his father, Glen Rankin ’43, former MC football player, would tell about one incidence over the disappearance of the trophy. 

The trophy disappeared in 1983 and went missing until 1993.  It was then that a duplicate trophy was made.

Currently, the original trophy is housed at an undisclosed location and it is the duplicate that is traded.

With a rivalry so intense, and a trophy is so prized, the battle includes more than the actual participants.

Through the pranks of stealing the “The Bronze Turkey” and all the other stunts pulled around the time of the Monmouth vs. Knox game, the rivalry is one both schools enjoy.