Many moons ago, when I was a high school student, there was one opponent that we all looked forward to competing against more than any other.
The campus for our biggest rival was located only about 20 miles away and that certainly added to the intensity of the banter between students and, to some degree, adults.
It’s not that rivalry games aren’t a big deal in college. They certainly are. Alabama-Auburn, Georgia-Georgia Tech, Army-Navy, Oklahoma-Texas, Michigan-Michigan State, Florida-Florida State, Ohio State-Michigan, and Clemson-South Carolina are only a few talked about each time an athletic contest between the schools take place. It’s debatable as to which are the most storied. I have always said Army-Navy with Alabama-Auburn a close second.
I guess in high school it just seems more personal, especially when one went to a smaller school as I did all those gridiron seasons ago. In fact, it didn’t seem to matter if we were playing our No. 1 rival in football, basketball, baseball or even golf. There was no opponent we wanted to defeat more. The feeling was mutual for our rival.
During my senior year of high school, we met our rival in the second game of the football season. The game, as it typically was between our teams, was competitive and went down to late in the fourth quarter. In the end, we won this matchup 13-7, and it was made even sweeter because we did it on our rival’s field.
The 1988 season would turn out to be a successful one, not only for my alma mater but for our rival. We were undefeated until the state championship game at Class A while our rival suffered only one loss (to us) until their state championship contest in the AA classification. While we always wanted to give our rival a loss when it came to one-on-one competition, we also respected them. I doubt many would have admitted it back then, but we wanted our rival to win their state championship. The reason was simple: if they were the best at the classification one step up from ours, then that meant we really had a pretty good football team.
Many football seasons have come and gone since the fall of 1988, and the rivalry between our schools has never gone away completely. There were stretches where we didn’t play in football and while other sports were important, it seemed most of the back-and-forth took place leading up to the matchup on the gridiron. When you are young you typically don’t appreciate certain things. The reason is simple. You haven’t lived enough years to have the knowledge to appreciate those things.
One summer during high school (prior to the 1988 season) I worked a summer job with a student from our rival school. We talked a good bit about football and how our schools did seem to hate each other. We actually became pretty good friends, and I gained respect not only for him but for his school. My newly made friend played against us in that 1988 game and it was hard to wish bad on him even though I clearly wanted my school to win. When the game was over, I purposely sought him out on the field and congratulated him on a solid performance.
I told him I thought he and his team would do well the rest of the way. It turned out I was right. I also knew we were fortunate to leave town with a win that night. If memory serves, it was a rainy Friday night in Middle Georgia and weather conditions of that nature always contribute to the outcome to some degree.
All of this comes to mind because my alma mater played our old rival this past Friday night. As it turned out it was one of the best games in the long series.
The players are different now, of course, as are the coaches. There is a new set of parents who watched their sons play and watched their daughters cheer.
Knowing my alma mater won this time around as well made it easier to write about another chapter in a rivalry that dates back decades and is still something to get excited about. Fortunately, some things in life never change.
Chris Bridges is a former sports editor of The Covington News. He welcomes feedback at pchrisbridges@gmail.com.
