Letter: Halachic Way to Watch Shabbat Football

In the discussion about going to football games on Shabbat and how to enter the game without carrying tickets (“Redemption in Red and Black,” Jan. 5), I would like to present a halachic solution to the same question in Atlanta in the 1950s.

I was a big football fan of my Henry Grady High School team. One year, I think it was 1954, our team was quite good, and I wanted to see all the games played at Grady Stadium on Boulevard. One or two games were on Thursday night, the rest on Friday night. I knew the coach, the late Erk Russell, quite well, and he encouraged me to come to the games because he liked my positive attitude.

My grandfather Rabbi Tobias Geffen proposed a two-part solution: My ticket would be at the box office, and I had to go to Kabbalat Shabbat and eat something before I walked to the game from our home at 1435 N. Highland Ave.

The most significant moment for me was the district finals in Decatur Stadium. I had to find someone to walk with me; it was four miles. The great tennis star Crawford Henry, a very good friend, said he would walk there and back with me.

Grady triumphed that night and won the state championship the next week in Macon. I did not walk to Macon.

— Rabbi David Geffen, Israel