Pretty much every team in every sport at every level has that one team that just makes their skin crawl. It’s an opponent they want to beat more than anything else. A foe that stirs up emotions that cannot be described with words from a dictionary. A date on the calendar circled several times in red ink pen. A rival. You know them: Indiana-Purdue, Warsaw-Wawasee, Red Sox-Yankees, Tippecanoe Valley-Rochester, Alabama-Auburn, Bears-Packers. Today I want to spend some time not just looking at the rivalries, but what makes people rivals. Think of it as the “anatomy” of a rivalry. All rivalries have some common traits: 1. PROXIMITY: When you are close to someone for a prolonged period of time, even something you love a lot, you eventually will see them in every scenario and you will see every flaw. They will drive you crazy. Think about siblings. Siblings fight because they’re around each other all of the time. Ever drive to Florida or someplace far away for a vacation? By about the fifth hour in the car the kids go stir crazy, start picking on each other, and that’s followed by the famous line “If you kids don’t straighten up right now, I’ll pull this (vehicle) over and then you ALL will have something to REALLY be upset about!” Proximity in sports means fighting for territory in attention, in recruiting, and bragging rights. What makes local rivalries great is that many times the kids play in summer leagues with or against each other, and parents work side-by-side in businesses around the area. So the loser is faced with the realization that they have to go sit in a cubicle or stand at the polishing machine right next to a fan from the other team for a whole year. There are few things in sports more painful than that. 2. LONGEVITY: Rivalries are like grills – food tastes better on them the more times you use them. A new grill works great, but a grill that gets used a lot produces a better taste because everything that’s been cooked on it before helps flavor what’s cooked in the future. When two sides go head to head enough times, it makes the next game that much better. When two organizations have a history, you don’t need to add much seasoning to it to make it a big deal. 3. CHARACTERS: We are human beings, not robots. So certain people in our lives drag up the worst in us. They make people who are the least violent people you’ve ever met want to just punch them right in the face. They make our spouses get in between us and the television because we want to go get a piece of that person. They make us act illogically, irrationally, and just not like “ourselves.” And there are different kinds of characters too. Some focal points of rivalries are the “just not good people” kind, like how Colts fans feel about Bill Belichick or Michigan fans felt about Woody Hayes (and vice versa with Bo Schembechler for Ohio State fans). Colts fans, admit it, you want to run up to Beli-cheat, pull his hoodie up over his head and beat him silly, right? Bears fans ... Brett Favre? Cubs fans … Tony LaRussa? Bulls fans … Bill Laimbeer? THAT feeling is the feeling of a true rivalry. 4. FANS: Let’s be honest, FANS make a rivalry. Especially in 2015 with Twitter and Facebook and Instagram and all of the ways we can communicate now, rivalries are intensified by the fan bases more than ever before. Players may meet in competition once a season, but for fans of rival teams it’s an everyday thing. Heck, you can make a good case that fans can stir a good matchup and either make a rivalry that wasn’t there before or push the players in the game to an even higher level of intensity. And from the fans point of view there can be sociological and demographic differences too. For example: Purdue and IU are rivals for all of the above reasons, but the “doctors and lawyers vs. farmers” angle is a tangible part of it. How many of you hate Notre Dame because of the financial status of most of the kids who attend there? Fans of teams from the Midwest tend to express disdain for teams from the East Coast because of the “East Coast bias” shown by the media and the sense of self-importance and superiority by East Coast residents in general. It shows up locally too. A local high school used to wear overalls and straw hats when another local school comprised of small farming towns, or another where the Amish way of life is prevalent, was the opponent. That generally was not well received, and that makes a rivalry. People ask me all the time “what is your favorite thing about broadcasting games on the radio?” The answer is simple. There is nothing more fun for a player, a fan or a broadcaster than that moment just before the rivalry game begins. That snap shot in time when the kickoff team runs onto the field, when the two basketball teams emerge from the huddle to a thunderous roar, when the first batter of the game strolls to the plate. It gives you goose bumps. It causes your heart to race. It’s kinetic energy that you can feel through your whole body. It is FANTASTIC! I’ve written about one of those moments before. Back in October, I let you in on my continuing ritual on the day of the Argos-Culver Military soccer match. That rivalry has all of the criteria firmly in place (including the farmers vs worldly elite factor). One of the challenges that Triton will face next fall when they start play in their new conference is finding new rivals, because half of the teams they will face will be brand new to them. And one of the biggest complaints about class sports is that in separating schools by size to compete in state tournament games, you lose a lot of the rivalries that used to be commonplace. One of the best football rivalries in Indiana was Butler and the University of Indianapolis. The Bulldogs and Greyhounds played the last football game every year in what was called the “Top Dog Game.” You could be 0-11, but win THAT game and it was a good season. Now they don’t play anymore, which is really too bad. Rivals … two entities that can’t stand each other, but who wouldn’t be the same without each other.
