The Takeaway Check, Issue #130
How rivalries bring out the best in us
Meriam-Webster’s Dictionary defines the word rival as a person or group that tries to be more successful than another person or group, explaining that rivals usually come in pairs. It says that rivals “can also mean ‘equal’ or ‘peer’” and usually conveys “how good or impressive something or someone is.”
My journalism professors at Emerson would not be happy with this lede because it is cliche and frowned upon to start a feature with a dictionary definition. I wanted to break that tradition, however, to break the stigma of what a rival is.
Often, when sports fans think of rivals, they think of a WWE-style of animosity between two foes. They envision dustups between the Red Sox and Yankees with Jason Varitek shoving his glove in Alex Rodriguez’s face or Pedro Martinez pushing Dom Zimmer to the ground. They think of fights between the New York Knicks and Miami Heat erupting in back-to-back years in the playoffs with the imagine of head coach Jeff Van Gundy desperately clinging to Alonzo Mourning’s leg in an attempt to break things up.
Fans think the word means a hatred of another side.
But the best rivalries, the ones that stand the test of time, come from a place of history and tradition, high stakes, and, most of all, respect.
The latest web series from the PLL, “Rivals,” explains the woven histories of two players pitted against each other. The first three episodes are available, and they feature the shared histories between TD Ierlan and Trevor Baptiste, Brennan O’Neill and Connor Shellenberger, and Jack Rowlett and Michael Sowers.
What’s clear in each of the videos is that there is a level of respect and admiration for each other.
“I wouldn’t say we’re best friends, but we have a very good respect for each other,” O’Neill said about Shellenberger.
Even more so, the rivals even talk about how they need each other to get to the elite level they play at.
“Without guys like Trevor, I don’t get to where I am,” Ierlan said of Baptiste. “It pushes you … you have to go out and train harder and go out and make adjustments and you have to get better.”
“Iron sharpens iron,” Baptiste said of Ierlan. “You’re going to come out either learning a ton or probably better than when you went in.”
In 2012, I wrote a year-long series for the New England Lacrosse Journal profiling the greatest rivalries between New England programs. I remember one coach I reached out to initially didn’t want to participate because he was afraid the idea of “rivals” would mean he despised the other team, which he didn’t want to associate with.
What I found in those stories were fun, shared histories that often involved programs consistently playing for high-stakes, which meant for intense and fun atmospheres.
One of the rivalries I wrote about was prep programs Deerfield and Salisbury. The matchup was usually the last on the schedule, and in a league without a playoff at the time, it typically (ten of 11 years going back to 2001) meant a share of the championship was on the line.
“Any way a team has won the league outright is if they finish undefeated and that puts a lot of pressure on the teams. It means every game is the Super Bowl,” Deerfield Academy coach Chip Davis said. “Usually, one team is undefeated, and one has one loss, so … that game is critical.”
“I think the players understand the recent history and the stakes and have a ton of respect for the other team,” Davis added.
The battle between the girls’ lacrosse teams at Yarmouth and North Yarmouth in Maine, schools so close in proximity that the teams walked to the game instead of taking a bus in order to save money, usually were close contests and resulted in a team earning a spot in the state finals.
“People showed up from the stands from everywhere because it was always down to the wire,” Julia Sterling, who started the program at Yarmouth and ended her career coaching at North Yarmouth, said. “It was anybody’s game. For female players and coaches to get fans like that was really crazy and really exciting.”
The rivalry between Division 3 schools Williams and Amherst goes back to 1821, when Amherst was founded. Zephenia Swift Moore was the second president of Williams College, but he thought the school couldn’t succeed where it was located. Massachusetts State Legislature wouldn’t allow them o move, so Moore resigned from his position, went to secondary school Amherst Academy and founded Amherst College. Legend has it that Moore began the Amherst library with books he stole from Williams.
Christine Paradis, then the head coach of the women’s lacrosse team at Amherst, said she and the players felt like they were a part of history when they went up against Williams.
George McCormack, the head coach of the men’s team at Williams, emphasized how special it is to have the connection between the two programs.
“I tell my guys all this all the time. We’re really fortunate and blessed to have this rivalry,” McCormick said. “After the game, when we shake hands, we feel fortunate to have this.”
In Connecticut, the success of the Wilton high school boys’ lacrosse team is what Darien boys’ lacrosse head coach Jeff Brameier learned from to help build his own powerhouse program.
“Obviously Wilton established the benchmark of what a lacrosse program needed to do to be successful back in the 80’s and 90’s,” Brameier said. “We became a varsity sport in 1984 and had to play catch up.”
When I coached at Osbourn Park, our big game was against our cross-town rivals, Unity Reed. The game was special because the schools were close, and the kids knew each other, often going to middle school together or playing various sports together and against each other for years.
Both programs were in similar positions, though. Neither school had many athletes that were dedicated lacrosse players and had to build programs inviting newcomers to try it. That also meant we both struggled against other programs in the district that were perennial state championship contenders.
Games against Unity Reed were an opportunity for our kids to compete. To feel what it was like to have a game come down to the final possession.
In our first matchup against them in my coaching tenure, we promoted the game as “Middle School Night.” We promoted the games in the middle schools that filtered into our high schools and invited all sixth, seventh, and eighth graders to attend for free. We hoped the more young student-athletes we could expose the sport to, the more likely they would want to play when they arrived on campus.
After the game, our two teams came together at midfield for a picture. I spoke to both groups and told them how special this was, and how we needed to work together to improve lacrosse in the area so that we both could compete alongside the best of the best in our district.
While we competed hard on the field against each other — just like Baptiste and Ierlan or the programs at Wilton and Darien — we also made each other better in the long run thanks to the competition.
It’s rivalries like those that bring out the best in all of us.
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