New York Times features merger of MLK and GHS football in Sunday edition

 Mascots from MLK High and the since closed Germantown High do battle on the field during the teams' Thanksgiving game last year. (Bas Slabbers/for NewsWorks)

Mascots from MLK High and the since closed Germantown High do battle on the field during the teams' Thanksgiving game last year. (Bas Slabbers/for NewsWorks)

In a Sunday sports feature headlined “An Involuntary Union of Football Rivals for Philadelphia High Schools,” the New York Times took a long look at the closing of Germantown High School through the prism of its football team merging with its Thanksgiving-game rivals from Martin Luther King High.

“What was once unthinkable to many players had become intimate and binding,” reads Jere Longman’s article. “Most of King’s current roster played last season at archrival Germantown High School in northwest Philadelphia. Few could have imagined the schools merging, the teams playing as one.”

The story delves into the schools’ history, and the naming of former GHS assistant coach Ed Dunn as the new MLK coach. It’s a job for which Dunn, who was laid off by the School District of Philadelphia, does not know whether he will get paid.

NewsWorks will check back in with Dunn and his new team before the start of the school year and football season.

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