By Jim Owczarski Sports Editor Published Nov 28, 2013 at 1:02 PM

Three things (things, not people) bring absolute joy to my heart on Thanksgiving:

  • The sweet potatoes my aunt makes, perfectly soft, and brown sugary and … bliss.

  • The cranberry dish my wife prepares, with real cranberries and orange zest and … heaven.

  • Football.

OK, football doesn’t really conjure up any visceral feelings like homemade food does but there are few moments in regular life that sports feel so much a part of.

The NBA has tried to make Christmas Day a thing, but even as a Chicago Bulls fan growing up in the Michael Jordan era, that was never really something you made an appointment to watch. Optimus Prime, Nintendo and then RumChata mixed with hot chocolate always takes precedence over that.

At one point, college football owned New Year’s Day. I do remember waking up late, even as a kid, to watch national championships or Rose Bowls or whatever it was because that’s what my parents used to do. But, as the television monster took over that game, Jan. 1 became just another day. But from where I’m from, college bowl games never really mattered that much either – it was a pro football town.

The World Series is tied to a season (fall), the NCAA basketball tournament a month (March) and the Super Bowl is just sort of a thing unto itself. There might be auto and horse races tied to a particular day or weekend, but really, those events are for the die-hards.

Thanksgiving and football have a really unique symbiosis.

While the popularity of the NFL has exploded in my lifetime, Thanksgiving Day games go back to the Detroit Lions kicking it off in 1934. The Dallas Cowboys followed suit in 1966.

No one in my family had any rooting interest in these games if the Chicago Bears weren’t playing in it, and they often weren’t. Yet there they were, on all day long. I don’t know, maybe because as a kid, I was drawn to it because able to watch TV during dinner. Maybe it was because the older I got, I could take seconds or thirds to the couch with me.

But, see, whatever the reasons why I’ve loved it – football went with Thanksgiving as much as the mashed potatoes and your sleeping grandfather did.

The funny part about that is this – only Detroit and Dallas fit that bill. Apparently, a third game has been going on Thanksgiving Day for the last seven (!) years. This shocked the heck out of me, to be honest. I don’t remember any of them. Apparently, that third game has gone over about as well as

But I can visualize certain plays by Sanders, Herman Moore, Troy Aikman, Brett Favre, Sterling Sharpe and Emmitt Smith.

I can still hear John Madden and the late, great Pat Summerall.

What’s interesting to me is that while there is definitely a bit of nostalgia associated with football and Thanksgiving, it’s not like I’m mourning a past gone by. Detroit and Dallas are again playing today (with the Lions are hosting the Green Bay Packers for the fourth time in the last eight turkey day’s) and the feelings are still the same – I’m looking forward to great food, great family, and football.

It wasn’t so much about the game as it was the holiday. Or was it not so much about the holiday as it was the games? Exactly.

Jim Owczarski is an award-winning sports journalist and comes to Milwaukee by way of the Chicago Sun-Times Media Network.

A three-year Wisconsin resident who has considered Milwaukee a second home for the better part of seven years, he brings to the market experience covering nearly all major and college sports.

To this point in his career, he has been awarded six national Associated Press Sports Editors awards for investigative reporting, feature writing, breaking news and projects. He is also a four-time nominee for the prestigious Peter J. Lisagor Awards for Exemplary Journalism, presented by the Chicago Headline Club, and is a two-time winner for Best Sports Story. He has also won numerous other Illinois Press Association, Illinois Associated Press and Northern Illinois Newspaper Association awards.

Jim's career started in earnest as a North Central College (Naperville, Ill.) senior in 2002 when he received a Richter Fellowship to cover the Chicago White Sox in spring training. He was hired by the Naperville Sun in 2003 and moved on to the Aurora Beacon News in 2007 before joining OnMilwaukee.com.

In that time, he has covered the events, news and personalities that make up the PGA Tour, LPGA Tour, Major League Baseball, the National Football League, the National Hockey League, NCAA football, baseball and men's and women's basketball as well as boxing, mixed martial arts and various U.S. Olympic teams.

Golf aficionados who venture into Illinois have also read Jim in GOLF Chicago Magazine as well as the Chicago District Golfer and Illinois Golfer magazines.