Where Rivalries Begin

     You ever been watching a college or pro game and the commentators start talking about how long the two teams have been hated rivals but much of the time there is no explanation as to why the two teams are rivals. The majority of rivals have two things that make a rivalry last. First they are usually pretty close in distance and second both teams usually have very competitive games.  Case and point would be matches like UNC vs. DUKE, Michigan vs. Ohio State, and Alabama vs. Auburn.  Yearly games will get trophies that the winning team keeps and nicknames like the Iron Bowl or Civil War. Some games become known for things other than the game like UGA and Florida with the world’s largest cocktail party.

     Professional rivals don’t have the same staying power as college because of how hard it is for pro leagues to keep parody and for teams to stay competitive, for example the Bulls and Knicks; yet some are considered some of the best ever. Lately some of the best have been Falcons vs. Saints, Ravens vs. Steelers, and Lakers vs. Celtics. Rivalry games often have a lot of added incentive because they often times determine division and conference titles or playoff chances. 

     Some of the most interesting information I found when researching rivalry games was Notre Dame vs. USC and Missouri vs. Kansas. The Norte Dame and USC rivalry started when Norte Dame was searching for opponents to fill their schedule after the Big 10 (then called the Western Conference) banned there teams from playing them.  The wife of USC Athletic Director Gwyn Wilson convinced the wife of famed ND coach Knute Rockne to get him to play the game as a traditional annual game that would alternate yearly the game site from school to school. The game has now been played since 1926. The most interesting to me was Missouri vs. Kansas game which was a game to help heal the wounds from the country’s Civil War. These two states often had actual battles prior as far back to before the war over the same premise.  Missouri was a slave state and tried to influence by politics and violence the new state Kansas was the same. The game was long called the Civil War first being played in 1891 and changed in after math of 9/11 in 2001 to the Border War.  I would like to know what the people feel are the best rivalries right now, and any interesting beginning of any even it’s your high school.

Article written by contributing writer J. Darien Stokes