Sorry it’s blurry…but you can see the green shoe is for St. Mary’s and the red shoe is for DuBourg. Since St. Mary’s won, they get to hold the shoes and have a special place in a trophy case for them.
So I don’t know how I have lived in St. Louis for so many years, had siblings that went to DuBourg High School, had a friend who worked at St. Mary’s and a dad who went there, but this year is the first time I have heard about the shoe game.
For those of you who don’t know the story of the shoes, here it is as told to the students from someone at St. Mary’s:
St. Mary’s High School plays DuBourg this Friday in varsity football in the battle for the shoes. This rivalry is one of the most famous and long lasting in the St. Louis area. The shoes game dates back nearly 60 years and although the game maybe famous, most people don’t know how the tradition was started. In the early 1950s, and well before even then, the city of St. Louis had neighborhoods that were greatly influenced by their ethnic background because of the many emigrants that settled there. South St. Louis had Dogtown where many of the Irish settled, the Hill is where the Italians settled and Dutch Town, home to many of the students of St. Mary’s and DuBourg, was where the Germans settled. The area was so influenced by Germans that one of the local Catholic schools St Boniface, taught English as the second language. So how did this town full of German emigrants become mistakenly known as Dutch town? The German word for its people is Deustch, and after the word was Americanized the town became Dutch town.
In the early 1950s Fr. Reiley, who was the Athletic Director of DuBourg High School, traveled to Europe and visited the Netherlands. He brought back with him a pair of the famous wooden Dutch shoes. One was painted green for St. Mary’s and the other was painted red for DuBourg. Every year, the winning team keeps both shoes for the year. In the last few decades, St. Mary’s has only lost ownership twice, 1987 and 1996. In 1987 the lost happened in the last seconds of the game on a play that the old timers just called “the Punt”. Be sure to ask Mr. Divis in Advancement about it, he loves reminiscing about this game. For 13 years the shoes have been on display all year in the entrance to our gymnasium. So now on Friday, when St. Mary’s once again brings home another victory, the shoes will remain in their rightful resting place.
I’m just so fascinated by these shoes. I had Erin take pictures of them they. They are huge…and wooden-looking clogs. And the good news…St. Mary’s gets to keep them. They creamed DuBourg.
My first St. Mary’s football game was fun…plenty of “Mrs. Jacksons” when I walked into the bleachers and a high-five when we left. Little Erin who isn’t little anymore and I sat with her Aunt Barb and Uncle Kevin (who is the principal) so we didn’t get to test out my theory that the boys would come over to us. I think sitting by the principal had an effect on that. I still love the camaraderie of the school; I just can’t get over how community-oriented they are. Everyone is just so so nice.
