What\’s high school sports without a good rivalry. We all love it. Most of life is about the \”events\” we look forward to. This is true for players and for fans. Otherwise, life degrades into a series of tasks and minutia that blends from day to day in a swirl of mind-numbing reputation. The rivalry takes something we already look forward to and jacks it up a notch. It gets everyone a little heated and maybe that\’s what we need more of in our lives. More rivalries would be welcomed to break the grind. Let\’s look a little at high school rivalries, where they come from, and why we love em.

Some high school rivalries make perfect sense. There\’s usually a geographic basis for their evolution. Cross town rivalries are the norm in this revenge filled arena. It could be that your local schools are a little too close and battle grounds are drawn across community and neighborhood lines. Nothing gets more personal than real close high school football teams. If you lose a game to a team 1 hour away that no one really knows, it doesn\’t sting as much. However, if you lose to the local team and you have to run into them at the mini-mart, well that\’s a different story. No one wants to see their victors every time they cruise around the neighborhood. Teenage players aren\’t always the best of being big about winning either. The local rivalry is pretty good but the rivalry along demographic lines is even better and underpins almost every American movie plot line that matters.

Who doesn\’t like the rich school/working class school rivalry. This goes much deeper than just 11 high school football players on the field. Every move from Animal House to Braveheart hits on the have and have not theme. It\’s strikes at the core of America\’s sense of psyche. For the rich school, it\’s a show that they\’re not just argyle sweater wearing softies and the can get their hands dirty on the high school athletic field or court. For the working class school, it\’s a good come-uppance on the great equalizing field of high school sports. As you\’re watching the game, you can feel the grist of class struggle thriving below the surface. It\’s not just football at that point. It\’s much more than that and everyone knows it.

Some rivalries come from bad blood in the past. In this respect, high school sport rivalries mirror other drama that people fall into from family feuds to national wars. Maybe it was a late hit in a game. It could have been a player standing over an opponent following a dunk. It might be as simple as an ex girlfriend or ex boyfriend…even a little scuffle at a cross town party. Whatever the reason, once it get\’s going, the rivalry is hard to stamp out. That\’s part of the tradition of high school sports in that it just gets past down to the younger players till no one knows what the original reason for the rivalry was. It now has a life all its own.

Author Bio: Dennis Jarvis writes about the world of Prep Sports including high school sports such as high school football, basketball, and baseball.

Category: Sports
Keywords: high school sport rivalries, high school sports, prep sports, prep sport rivalries