Storyline: What makes high school rivalries so special? Players, students, and fans are neighbors. There’s just nothing sweeter than beating your rival.
There’s always a lot of hoopla about college basketball rivalries–intense competitions between schools like Kentucky-Louisville, Kansas-Kansas State, and Duke-North Carolina. The games are talked about MONTHS before they happen and they’re analyzed to death until the rivals meet again.
Courtesy: Pinterest
Rivalries are a big reason we love college hoops. Take, for example, last Saturday’s match-up of “Blue Bloods,” Kentucky v. Kansas–two of the most historic programs in all of college hoops.
But the truth is “level matters” when it comes to rivalries. While college rivalries get a lot of attention, high school rivalries hardly get noticed … at least outside of the towns involved. But local rivalries are just as intense, perhaps more so, than the college version. It can be “clean, old-fashioned hate.”
As a high school basketball basketball player myself (Webster County, KY) I can tell you that there’s no game on our schedule that my teammates and I relish more than playing (and beating) our rivals, Henderson County and Union County, respectively.
Henderson, one of the largest schools in Kentucky, looks down on our school of 600+ student. We’re viewed as “backward hicks,” which is often the chant theme for Henderson students when we play on their home court. We weren’t so “backward” last season when we Henderson for the district crown. And we’ve taken them to the wire in both meetings so far this year, too.
Union is just simply a border war. They don’t like us. We don’t like them. It’s as simple as that.
Jadal Fletcher’s corner jumper isn’t enough to beat Webster County in a 2016 tournament game (photo, The Gleaner)
And there are loads of other rivalries where I live. Madisonville North Hopkins-Hopkins Central share an epic cross-county rivalry. In fact, when Central beat Madisonville this past Friday (for the first time in eight years, I might add) students and fans poured out of the stands and stormed the court.
Another great rivalry in this area is Hopkinsville (aka “Hoptown”) and Christian County. Those two programs have been a major force in this region for the past decade: one or the other has won the region and gone to the state tournament every year since 2009.
And both programs have produced major college players, like Christian County’s Jaylen Sebree, a small forward of interest to John Calipari, who committed to Coastal Carolina last October.
This past Saturday night, the two teams met in Hopkinsville and Hoptown cruised to a 72-53 victory, snapping a four-game losing streak to CC. Impressively, Hoptown held Sebree to just eight points.
Things got a little chippy both on-and off-the-court, too. Five technical fouls were assessed and a kerfuffle broke out between Hoptown and Christian County students in the upper section … resulting in a friendly call to the Hopkinsville Police Department.
The reality is that fans and players are passionate about high school basketball rivalry games. And as much as I love UK and bleed Blue, I’d rather sweep Henderson and Union in district play than see Kentucky win the National Championship.
Christian County, 2008 (photo, tohinvitational.com)
There’s just nothing sweeter than beating your rival. And there’s no worse feeling than losing to your rival. It’s one of the best/worst parts of sports.
What makes high school rivalries so special is the fact that players, students, and fans are neighbors. In our game at Henderson County earlier this year, their student section–called the “Colonel Crazies”–chanted “We want Mason!” to our point guard, Daylan Lewis. It was an obvious reference to Daylan’s older brother, Mason Roland, who had graduated a couple years earlier and went on to play college ball at Brescia College.
Daylan went on to have his best game of the season by far. He dropped 23 points, had about a dozen assists, and almost threw down a dunk at the buzzer over Henderson’s 6-5 forward, D.J. Mitchell. (Daylan isn’t one inch over 5-10.)
And in the Christian-Hoptown game Saturday night, the Hoptown student section chanted “A-C-T” when Jaylen Sebree went to the line. I don’t know Sebree scored on the ACT, but Hoptown students certainly razzed him about something to do with the test.
The point is that the students know what to chant because they know the players. They share the same backyards, the same streets, the same hangout places. Do you really think Kentucky’s Malik Monk and Kansas’s Frank Mason III know each other personally? Monk grew up in Arkansas and Mason III grew up in Virginia. Do you think the UK student section knew anything about Mason III besides his stats? Barring the possibility of rumors about the Jayhawk guard floating around on social media, stats are the only thing the student section probably knows about Mason III.
Union County v. Blackford High, Jan. 2014 (photo, YouTube)
All in all, what makes high school rivalries so special is that they’re unique. I’ll bet people in Eastern Kentucky could care less about rivalry games with Henderson County and Union County. Around here, though, they’re the biggest games of the year.
So while college basketball rivalries are the ones that garnish all the national attention, high school basketball rivalries are the REAL rivalries in the game. They may not be on television or be heavily publicized, but they mean the most to coaches, players, and fans involved.
I think they’re the heart and soul of American sports today.
