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Pirates-Warriors, Raiders-Bears intense rivalries
Sam Parfitt once worked with a nonprofit organization that was able to convince the United Nations to declare a global day of peace in sports.
But Parfitt, a native of Norfolk, a rural town in the east of England, has lived in the Chattanooga area long enough to realize not even the UN could deliver peace to some of our more rabid prep football rivalries.
"I've been at events where as a bystander you could just feel the tension rising between the two sides," said Parfitt, who came to our city on scholarship to play tennis at the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga and is now the athletic director at St. Peter's Episcopal School.
He once put together a group of 10 people from around the world to help bring positivity to young people through sports.
"It can be insanely tough to get people on the same page when it comes to sports, and especially when they're located close together," Parfitt added. "That just seems to build a natural 'us versus them' mentality."
Tonight, a pair of decades-old clashes more akin to the Hatfields and McCoys than high school athletics will be renewed when Bradley Central hosts Cleveland and South Pittsburg travels to Marion County. There are large areas in each set of communities where there is more pride than prosperity, and the outcome of tonight's game will mean a deep sigh of relief and bragging rights for the next year.
The only thing more prevalent than the bright school colors - Marion's purple, South Pitt's orange, Cleveland's blue, Bradley's gold - is the green hue given off by the envious losing fans.
"Social media has added so much to this week, with the negativity going back and forth between students and fans," Bradley coach Damon Floyd said. "You see some of it, and they're being really mean to each other. You just know it's going to wind up in an argument, but it's not even the team as much as it is the students and grownups."
At both games, there will be husbands and wives who will literally drive separate cars or sit on opposite sides of the stadium out of allegiance to their school, and each of the series have been suspended at least once because of the threat of violence after one side was perceived to have run up the score on the other.
"Any time you competed against your brother or best friend, you wanted to beat them so bad you couldn't stand it," said former Marion County coaching legend Ken Colquette, who won four state championships with the program. "And usually you'd wind up in a fight."
I remember reading once about the Christmas truce called between British and German soldiers during World War I. Soldiers from the two warring sides took a day off from shooting at each other to exchange gifts, play soccer and even sing holiday carols - before going back to killing one another the next day.
Somehow I can't see Floyd and Cleveland coach Scott Cummings or Marion's Ricky Ross and South Pitt's Vic Grider, or any of their players or sets of fans, pausing from trying to clobber one another to join hands and sing "Kumbaya."
"The people in those areas that are so passionate about their teams haven't lost their minds. It's all very normal human nature," said professor Libby Byers, who has taught an array of psychology courses, including social psychology, during her six years on staff at UTC. "We all have that sense of rivalry, beginning toward siblings (while) trying to win the affection of our parents.
"Feeling like you're a part of these teams brings people together and gives them a sense of belonging and working toward a common goal. There are innate qualities that explain why people behave this way. It's the perfect storm of proximity, having the same characteristics (being from similar backgrounds), and having the same competitive history (having been successful against other teams).
"It can cause people to lose all sense of perception, kind of like being drunk without actually being intoxicated."
Trust me, professor, I've been to games between both sets of these rivals, and there'll be plenty of actual intoxicated folks, too. It's one of the reasons security officers are instructed not to let fans wearing the colors of one team to cross over to the other side of the stadium and mix with opposing fans.
The only thing as certain as the trash talk before such games is the level of venom spit at one another afterward.
"They're all looking for that common goal, that defining moment," Byers added. "Everybody wants to be a winner, because you feel inferior if you lose. And nobody wants to feel inferior to the people they live closest to."
Contact Stephen Hargis at shargis@timesfreepress.com or 423-757-6293.