Rivalry

Good cross town rivalries, conference foes; the games you circle on your calendar at the beginning of the year. Those are the games that are exciting. Rivalry games. The games that you go into knowing it will be a fight, a challenge. Those are the games that make me lose sleep at night. That's what playing sports is all about.

As a Kennedy Cougar we have three big rivals: Washington Warriors, Xavier Saints, and Jefferson J-Hawks. In my opinion, Washington is my biggest rival. I know going into the game that it will be physical, a close game, and everyone will give it their best shot. Every time I've played Washington, as far back as when I was in 4th grade, its been a great game!  Over the years the wins and losses have been about even between us, and this year we got the best of them for both of our games, including a big quarterfinal showdown. I've never felt so excited and so anxious for a game in my life. I couldn't sleep the whole week leading to that game because I couldn't stop thinking about it. I always thought about the game plan, and who I was going to be facing on every play; wearing the red and blue. That's the sign of a good rivalry. When you know them and they know you.

Xavier used to be a big rivalry game, but they moved down to 3A and now we will never play them. The reason,why that was such a big game was because it was the battle of 42nd Street. Going into that game you played to say that you were the best school on the street. Playing them in football we always knew it would be a physical game. Both of us run the ball first and pass if we have too, so we knew going in that the defenses had to be on the top of their game. Also it brought another sense of rivalry because we are a public school and they are a private school. That gives you that extra motivation to beat the other team.

Finally,  Jefferson is a rival school from the west side. The reason why this is a big rival game to Kennedy is because people know a lot of students from the other school, and we are both from Cedar Rapids. As sports go, Kennedy usually get the better of them and has a lot of success. This year in football we continued that success and beat them back in week 5. They always love to trash talk before the games, and I use that as motivation. In all rivalry games trash talking occurs and that makes them that much more special.

I love playing teams in the city. It just gives me a sense of pride to do well and represent my school well. Each team in this city brings a great challenge and I look forward to it every year. Until next year I'll be waiting.