The 28 seniors on the Woburn football team have never played at home. Bumped from the high school by a nearly four-year, $68 million reconstruction project, the Tanners have had to play "home games" in Burlington and hold practices at an elementary school field boasting a single, sagging goal post.
Through it all, Woburn has remained one of the toughest teams in the Middlesex League, posting a 37-8 record, including a Super Bowl championship two years ago. All the while, this year's seniors have envisioned coming home for their final game, on Thanksgiving Day against Winchester, before thousands of fans at the new Woburn Memorial High School.
But that prospect remains uncertain, even with the construction project wrapping up.
Woburn officials will meet today to determine whether the game can be played at home Nov. 22. If not, they will need two weeks to secure an alternate venue, because Winchester's stadium is also unfit for the game. The bleachers there failed a preseason safety inspection, forcing Winchester to become a similarly vagabond team, playing its home games in Somerville.
Mayor Thomas L. McLaughlin of Woburn set today as the decision deadline after a meeting last month with the superintendent, the principal, the athletic director, the city's building consultant, and the general contractor, among others. That group will meet again today to assess the stadium and school and make a decision on the Thanksgiving game.
Officials say the entire project - anchored by the 340,000-square-foot high school, which was opened to students last fall - is likely to be finished by year's end, the scheduled completion date.
And the stadium, said to be better than those at some Division 3 colleges, appears mostly ready to the casual observer: a bril liant-green FieldTurf playing surface ringed by a synthetic track, cornered by light towers, and lined on the home side by bleachers for 2,500.
But the game decision depends on more than whether the field is ready for players or the stadium is sturdy enough to hold spectators, Woburn principal Bob Norton said. The campus could still be a construction site, with heavy vehicles rumbling through, and officials want to make sure the facility can appropriately handle the traffic, parking, and flow of people at a game that could draw 3,500 to 5,000 fans, he said.
"It has all the possibilities in the world of being difficult, because it's the first time we've ever done it," Norton said. "And it's going to be potentially difficult on the biggest attendance day of the year, so we've got to make sure we have all of our ducks in a row."
McLaughlin remains hopeful the game can be played at home, complete with a dedication ceremony involving athletes and officials. He declined to speculate about what might force officials to move the game out of Woburn. "I am eternally optimistic that the game is going to be played on Thanksgiving, so I don't even want to go there," he said.
Athletic director Jim Duran is also optimistic about the outcome. But "everything has to be done right," he said. "We don't [want to] rush just to get the game in, because safety is more important."
Norton stressed the need for caution, though he said a home game - instead of one at Bentley College, possibly, or another venue - looks increasingly possible.
"I was sort of 60-40 'no' a month ago, and I'm maybe 60-40 'yes' today," he said late last week. "But 40 is still a big number. Things have got to break our way a little bit."
Rocky Nelson, in his 22d season as Woburn's football coach, said his team understands that it can't control the outcome. But like many, he is hoping the city can deliver a first and final home game for the seniors, who have regularly trudged half a mile to their makeshift practice field - and boarded bus after bus for games - with minimal complaint.
"They've been doing this for their whole career, and they've won a lot of games here, through a lot of adversity," said Nelson, a Woburn native who has won more than 150 games and taken the team to five Super Bowls. "We've never had a home game. They say their home games are in Burlington; it's not the same. So we are really, really rooting and hoping for Thanksgiving here at Woburn High School."
With Woburn's tradition of winning, its "Tanner Pride" shirts, and its Friday night home games, football matters here in a way that's uncommon in Massachusetts but customary in the South and West. That collective pride has provided a boost to a squad that has had to play all of its games out of town.
"The fans, they always follow us," said senior quarterback Dan McLaughlin, who is not related to the mayor but is the brother of Boston College linebacker Mike McLaughlin. "Even out to Acton-Boxborough [for a nonleague game], a ton of them went. So our crowds have been pretty good this year."
But that same spirit has made the seniors, many of whom grew up going to games and watching older brothers play for the Tanners, pine even more for a game at their stadium. "You see it walking into school every day," said Matt Ramos, an offensive guard and one of five senior captains.
McLaughlin, another captain, agreed. "In school we're looking out the windows, seeing the field, watching the field, going, 'When is it going to be ready?' " he said. Thanksgiving is "coming up quick, so we're like, 'Please be ready.' "
Winchester hasn't been on the road quite as long, but the Sachems were evicted from their stadium over the summer after officials deemed the bleachers in violation of the local safety code, said Jay Gill, operations manager for the Winchester Department of Public Works.
Gill, who played in a few Thanksgiving games against Woburn a generation ago, admires the neighboring community's nearly complete stadium.
"It's beautiful," he said, hoping that the game can be played there - and that Winchester follows suit. "Hopefully some day we'll have something like that."
Eric Moskowitz can be reached at emoskowitz@globe.com.
