The Turkey Club : It’s a Thanksgiving pigskin tradition as old pals knock the stuffing out of each other.

It was an annual pilgrimage for the 16 slightly bedraggled weekend athletes who traipsed from as far as San Franciso and San Diego to the dusty Van Nuys gridiron Thursday morning.

These luminaries of the Grant High School Class of 1981--now more concerned about jobs than homework--gathered to uphold a cherished 12-year Thanksgiving tradition fostered by male friendship and tackle football.

They call it “The Turkey Bowl.” It is, by all accounts, much more than just kickoffs and touchdowns.

“It’s a symbol of the fact they’re all still together,” said Julie Abbott, who married class Homecoming King Kevin Abbott Aug. 22 before more than a dozen Turkey Bowlers. Abbott, 24, a television screenwriter, was the first of the flock to wed.

“It’s really amazing you have so many of them who are friends when they’re all doing different things and all living different places,” Julie added. “They just have a strong bond.”

No one could pinpoint the intangibles that have nurtured these boyhood friendships--some of which date back to kindergarten--through the crucibles of adolescence, college and careers.

“If I knew, I’d bottle it,” said Jeff (Foxer) Fox, one of the group’s organizers and a vice president of the class of ’81.

The Turkey Bowl is only one highlight of this evolving male bonding, which has included ski trips, marathon poker sessions, basketball, softball and heavy doses of beer and humor. “Beer is our life,” Fox joked.

Annual November reunions also feature a “no-wenches” pre-Thanksgiving evening of pizza and beer and an intensely competitive poker game after the group has downed drumsticks and pumpkin pie with their respective families.

The pigskin ritual began Nov. 27, 1975, at a time when Gerald Ford was president and long before anyone had even heard the word “Yuppie.”

The Turkey Bowlers were then 12-year-old sixth-graders at Millikan Junior High School in Sherman Oaks. The first three games were played at Millikan before the classmates--and the contest--graduated to the Grant High School field.

“Same place, same time, same day,” said Fox, 24, a free-lance writer who lives in Van Nuys. “The teams change, the names remain the same.”

The most memorable game occurred three years ago when a rainstorm turned the Turkey Bowl into a mud bowl. “We loved it,” Fox said.

When the sweat-shirt-clad gang gathered under sparkling blue skies Thursday, two of the 18 charter members--both of whom live on the East Coast--were missing. But the others, including 5-foot-6 1/2-inch, 123-pound linebacker Brad Margol, dutifully trudged onto the field to knock the stuffing out of each other--sans protective pads.

“Every year we say we’re not going to play tackle next year and every year we do,” said Robert Levitt, president of the class of ’81 and now a North Hollywood businessman.

Asked to recall auspicious moments of a dozen years in the trenches, Levitt said: “Unfortunately, only the injuries stand out. . . . And the drinking.”

“We’re happy now that we all have medical insurance,” Fox said.

Some of Turkey Bowl XII’s hardest hits were verbal--and self-inflicted.

As the offense mapped strategy on the game’s first possession, a voice barked, “Hey, no holding hands in the huddle.”

When Abbott lined up as a wide receiver, Levitt taunted him: “Kevin, be careful, you’re married.”

And, during an informal team picture, Mark Shore, a.k.a. “The Mouth,” quipped, “I feel like the Laker girls.”

Two and a half hours--and uncounted bumps, bruises and disputes--later, Levitt returned an intercepted pass for the winning touchdown. His heroics ended a 3-2 contest marked by nearly as many passes intercepted as completed. The Super Bowl it wasn’t.

“This is good scab ball,” said quarterback Lee Winikoff, alluding to the low-caliber games played by those who crossed the picket line during the National Football League strike.

“The games get shorter and shorter and seem to end with an injury” as the ex-classmates get older and older, said Chris Sheron, attending University of San Francisco Law School. He left the fracas with a battered leg after tossing two touchdown passes.

A broken nose abruptly halted last year’s clash.

Though the Turkey Bowlers had been, in Fox’s words, “BMOC--big men on campus--no ifs ands or buts,” they had not achieved their stature between the goal lines.

“Jewish boys don’t play football,” Fox said. “Their moms won’t let them.”

Later, true to form, Sheila Fox proclaimed of her son and his pals: “None of them has any brains to come out and play football.”

This year’s game drew a larger crowd than usual, including Fox and Winikoff’s parents. Several girlfriends--described by one as “the ones who take care of the wounds and the raspberries”--joined Julie Abbott on the sidelines.

“It was a big step for these guys to have someone get married,” she said of her August wedding to a leading Turkey Bowler. “You should see our wedding video. With 350 people at the wedding, it seemed like they were the only ones there.”

“I couldn’t even go to their wedding,” lamented Amber Paquette, Travis Shain’s girlfriend, who came from San Diego with him. “He said, ‘It’s the guys.’ ”

Nevertheless, she added, “I’ve lost touch with all the people I went to high school with and these guys even went to junior high together. Every time we come to L.A., he’s on the phone calling these guys. I really respect it.”

Julie Abbott, a public relations and advertising executive, agreed. Asked how long she expects the Turkey Bowl tradition to continue, she replied, “Hopefully for a long time.”

Maybe next year they’ll add the wishbone offense.