Photo by Eric Brady | The Roanoke Times

First-graders cheer from the sidelines Wednesday during the Turkey Bowl at Crystal Spring Elementary School. The fourth-grade Jamestown Jammers and the fifth-grade Williamsburg Wave played in the flag football game in Roanoke.

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• See photos from Wednesday's Turkey Bowl game

On most days, David Merritt is the principal at Crystal Spring Elementary School in Roanoke. On Wednesday, with black paint smeared under his eyes, he became a stand-in quarterback for the fourth-grade Jamestown Jammers.

His opponents, the fifth-grade Williamsburg Wave, soon learned he could easily be flushed from the pocket.

No one seemed to mind, though. It was a bright warm morning and Crystal Spring students and parents had gathered at the school's field for a spirited game of flag football, the first Turkey Bowl.

Children sat on the sidelines and screamed while their parents stood behind them, clutching Styrofoam coffee cups and cameras and chatting about Thanksgiving and its mountains of leftovers.

"It's so much stuff," said one mother.

Another one agreed. "You just lay down on the sofa with your jeans unbuttoned."

One man in a beige shirt ran back and forth along the sidelines, trying to start the wave. Eventually he picked up a train of screaming children, like the Pied Piper.

On the field students dressed in red (the Wave) and in yellow and blue (the Jammers) threw themselves at the ball, sliding on the slick artificial turf that a parents' group installed before the start of the year after receiving $60,000 from donors.

There were trick plays, quarterback scrambles, dropped passes, an offensive pass interference call and a spectacular goal-line interception by a child with red paint in his hair.

A man ducked behind a minivan to put on a turkey outfit.

It was Kevin Spencer, fifth-grade teacher at Raleigh Court Elementary, and the Rescue Mission's official spokesturkey.

The tail was made from old ties salvaged from the Rescue Mission. The legs were loose enough to let the turkey run in today's Drumstick Dash.

At halftime, quarterback/Principal Merritt presented the mission with an oversized check, the result of a fund drive at the school. The check said $1,476, but Merritt said late donations boosted the contributions to about $1,525.

Other schools, Fairview Elementary, Wasena Elementary, James Madison Middle, Patrick Henry High, the Roanoke Valley Governor's School and Noel C. Taylor Learning Academy, held food drives recently. William Fleming High School students raised $300, and Highland Park Learning Center teachers and nearby churches adopted the family of one of the school's students who lost her house recently in a fire.

The Crystal Spring game tightened up in the second half as coach David Carson (also the school board chairman) tried to rally his Jammers and Wave Coach Todd Putney (also a school board member) sought to hold on to the lead.

In the final two minutes, Merritt, again flushed out of the pocket, heaved a desperation pass that landed squarely in the hands of one of his receivers. Touchdown, Jammers. Victory lap around the field.

It wasn't enough. The Wave won, 35 to 28.

Nevertheless the Jammers ran another victory lap while the Wave huddled around Putney.

Then team photos, gentle taunting ("We'll see you next year.") and back to school.