The Evening's Events
This lovely, chilly evening was one of the final phases of homecoming week: the football game. It was cold, very cold. I think it quickly got to below freezing about the time the game started at 7:00, but I began my work much earlier. At 4:30 I arrived at school to go to Party City to buy decorations for our homecoming float. We managed to build the whole thing in about an hour, although many of our pieces were already made. At halftime there was extreme confusion relating to the class floats, and a change in the point of entry to the stadium made it such that all of our banners were on the wrong side of our float, so we had to have people rip them off and carry them. Nevertheless, despite the failure, our float was better than that of the Freshmen or Juniors. The Seniors, however, somehow got their hands on a gigantic 10 meter-long pirate ship replica-structure-thingy. It was amazing. Amazing is the only word which encompasses the true scale, scope, and grandeur of it.
With that over with, I purchased several cups of hot cider and tried to warm my numb hands (they're still tingly). But before I forget, let me summarize the other highlights of what we in leadership did to make this game quite possibly one of the greatest ever. For the unfamiliar, let me describe the principle of the Wilson-Lincoln rivalry. It is a rivalry between our school and the other high school on the west side of the Willamette River in Portland. I have no idea why we have this rivalry; if you were to ask a student they would merely say that it was because the opposing school "sucks!" In reality both schools are strikingly similar: they are generally considered the best in the district, they both generally perform the best in athletic competitions, and they are both chock full of snobby, wealthy people who don't feel bad about occasionally destroying things (Lincoln slightly more than us, however). This has had the effect of causing rampant spates of vandalism fluctuating between the two schools. To my knowledge, we have typically been vandalized slightly more historically than they have been. In previous years this has led to wide-spread spray-painting and window-breaking, and even the burning of Lincoln's track one year. This year, because Lincoln and Wilson have the two best futbol americanos teams in the league, the tension was especially tight. Last year and this year, the vandalism seems to have died down, but today was certainly no exception. I do not know of anything that has been done to their school thus far, but a tree was planted in the middle of our field, various obscenities (one of which was LHS) were spray-painted in red (the primary Lincoln color) on the giant green W that sits in our stadium, and it is rumored (although I doubt it, based on my own evidence) that a computer virus was unleashed on our network which somehow disabled the connection and displayed some anti-Wilson/pro-Lincoln slogan when one tried to use it. This particular game that was played tonight was the final game of the season. Wilson was 8-0 and Lincoln was 7-1, effectively making this the "championship" game of the season. I personally find the nature of this rivalry very barbaric and distasteful.
Anyway, the first order of business that we arranged for the football game was to have the cheerleaders arrive on a rather large group of Harley-Davidson motorcycles (courtesy of some Harley-Davidson club in the area). I was personally unable to witness this spectacle because I was building the float, but I certainly heard the noise it produced.
At this point, the game was almost 25% complete, and I had turned fanatical, trying to round up the people that I needed for the halftime float. It just so happened that I needed to borrow a wig that a friend of mine (Bret Emerson) was wearing for Halloween. At the quarter break, he said he needed to do something before he could give it to me. I consented due to the fact that I had until the middle of the 2nd quarter before I needed to go for the float. I paused for a moment with Maxwell Fritz and some other random people to watch the game itself, until someone told me what Bret Emerson's "thing that he needed to do" actually was. Within 30 seconds I noticed him running at top speed toward the stands on the opposite side of the stadium (the visitor stands). Before long he was running through the visitor stands (visible only from his blonde, afro-wig), gradually slowing down, until he finally disappeared. Apparently he did actually emerge from the other side of the stands, but not before being tackled numerous times, and having lost the wig and several items of clothing. I needed the wig desperately for my 70s costume, so I ran over to the visitor stands and approached the person now wearing the wig. The general animosity between people toward people from Wilson by the people from Lincoln is extreme, so when he asked if I was from Wilson I tried to convince him that I was from Grant (another school). I spent a little time sweet-talking him about the athletic event, and cheering with the visitor crowd before pushing the wig too much. Once I started asking for the wig my Grant-persona fell through the cracks. I tried bartering for a little while with him and he wouldn't give it up, but finally got him to offer to sell it to me for $1. I really didn't want to spend a dollar, but the number of threatening remarks being issued my way was getting to be alarming, so I paid the dollar and left. Bret reimburst me for the wig bartering, but it was still a rather humerous event.
Halftime commenced with the floats and bit of confusion (but at least there was a halftime). With my responsibilities finished, I watched the game for a little while (while my hands turned completely numb), and 7-7 tie at the half turned into a 25-7 victory for us. That was the championship game, and fireworks were shot off from near the pirate ship.
And as a sidenote, the sophomore class, in all of its glory, won the most homecoming competitions (to the best of my knowledge), therefore making us the winners. This means that according to the rules that the seniors declared at the beginning of homecoming, our homecoming royalty people or whatever it's called, should be king and queen. Not that that really matters, but it just shows the degree to which our class is superior in a great many ways to all the other classes.
Adam, you miss the point, and I don't blame you.
In your attempt to sound all logical and play the "rivalries are dumb" card, you miss out on the whole point of it.
Lincoln is the high school closest to us. I grew up in elementary school and middle school playing their West Sylvan kids in basketball. I grew up knowing kids that eventually would go to Lincoln.
Wilson and Lincoln, as you note, are constantly at the top of the PIL in academics and in sports. If you can agree with nothing else, then you can see that the Wilson-Lincoln games are huge in terms of who wins championships and such. That the two teams constantly go up against each other with the title on the line is enough to develop a rivalry between the schools of who is the best.
Add to that the relatively close proximity of the schools, the fact that a lot of us know people that went to the other schools, plus vandalism that goes on every year that contributes to the agression, and you've got yourself a serious dislike.
You are right in that the schools are relatively similar, and both schools constantly want to show that they are the better of the two.
It's easy for you, as really not quite an athelete type, to say that the extra intensity surrounding the Lincoln game is silly, but Lincoln is always going to be the one team I want to beat more than any other, and the loss to Lincoln last year in which I only scored 8 and had 3 turnovers is going to haunt me more than any other loss.
28-0, 25-7.
School rivalries are only your so-called "mini-nationalism" if it interferes with human contact with members of the other school. Having rivalries is not at all a bad thing, and has many positive benefits, if it is not allowed by the self-control of the students to get out of hand.
At Outdoor School, while on plants field study, 2 of my fellow plant field instructors were from Lincoln. This may have created superficial arguements between us about whose school is better, but in reality, this trivial fact mad little different in our human contact. I identified just as well with them as any other members of the Outdoor School group.
As long as school spirit and the semi-inherent rivalries that come with it is not kept out of hand, it provides a release for the student body, providing them with a release, something fun to occupy their minds and something to direct their inherent human anger at. Without such a release, anger without an available release can build up and have drastic consequences. I doubt the murderers at Columbine had much school spirit.
But the entire positive aspect of rivalries is eliminated when it becomes out of hand, as it has many times. Thus, school spirit in the hands of the wise, or at least not stupid, is beneficial, while school spirit in the hands of the foolish is damaging. But it also promotes semi-healthy competition, something highly valued in out society.
Your arguement about school spirit being damaging, while not totally without base, is still incorrect and formed without any consideration of people.
So there, El Presidente. If our president doesn't have school spirit, he doesn't belong in that position. Just like our president needs patriotism to suceed.
Colin, you're cool and all, and I think you were arguing on my side, but I don't think Colombine happened because of a lack of developed rivalries in which those students could release anger.