From college football to Major League Baseball, rivalries between teams
have always added excitement to fan experience. Many teams are old
rivals, while others have developed a competitive intensity more
recently. What teams have been fighting it out for some time? Rivalries
are at the center of many fan’s lives. Here’s a quick look at some
classic ones.
College football has some of the most talked about rivalries in all of
sports. To begin with, you have the heated battles between the Texas
Longhorns and the Oklahoma Sooners. Being in neighboring states, they
compete for regional bragging rights and often the same recruits. Over
the years, there have been many classic match-ups between the two
teams.
One of the
biggest rivalries in college football history is between Big 10
powerhouses Ohio State and Michigan. These teams, that are usually
nationally ranked, are so well matched and competitive that the
winner is often determined in the final minutes and sometimes the
final seconds of the contest. Consequently, when these two teams
play, the game often determines which remains in the National
Championship picture and which is out.
The South features the tough competition between the Alabama Crimson
Tide and the Auburn Tigers. From the days of Alabama’s legendary coach
Bear Bryant this has been one of the most talked about match-ups on the
gridiron. Both schools are in the same state and are highly competitive
with each other year in and year out. There have been many close,
tight-knit games over the past century to prove it. The Tennessee
Volunteers also have an active rivalry with these two teams but nothing
compares to the legendary hard fought battles between the Tigers and the
Crimson Tide.
On the west coast, there is the University of Southern California (USC)
and the University of California Los Angeles (UCLA) rivalry. This
competition has been dominated recently by the success of Southern
California and the strong teams they have produced over the last couple
of years. Recently USC has taken to the field with Heisman Trophy
winners Matt Leinhart and Reggie Bush, giving the Trojans the edge. This
next year we may see a shift in power with UCLA coming to the forefront.
The National Basketball Association has had the classic battles of the
Lakers and the Celtics. For decades these two teams fought back and
forth to determine who would take home the NBA crown. There were the
great match-ups in the 60’s and 70’s of Wilt Chamberlain and Bill
Russell, which are legendary in the history of the NBA.
The 80’s hosted memorable post-season contests between the Lakers’ Magic
Johnson and the Celtics’ Larry Bird. Their respective teams, with Bird
running the court and dishing off to Robert Parrish for a slam dunk or
Kareem Abdul-Jabbar working the ball inside only to pass back to Johnson
for three, produced some of the greatest moments in NBA history and will
be talked about for decades to come.
The meetings between the Chicago Bulls and New York Knicks produced
another fine rivalry. Michael Jordon with his extreme athletic ability
was the catalyst for tough contests in which the Knicks sometimes
surprised the team from the Windy City; although the majority of the
time Jordan and company were on the plus side in these contests.
Every season a tandem of college basketball teams always stand out as
among two of the best in the nation. In North Carolina both on and off
the court, one college basketball rivalry dominates the region. The
University of North Carolina and Duke, both members of the highly
competitive Atlantic Coast Conference (ACC), are located only 8 miles
apart. Both schools possess myriads of faithful fans that have traveled
Tobacco Road year after year to see their teams fight for victory.
Since 1990, the two clubs have a combined for a total of eleven Final
Four appearances. Those who follow the ACC certainly recognize the high
profile contests that have defined their rivalry. The Duke Blue Devils
and North Carolina Tar Heels are synonymous with big name games, some of
which they have won and others they’ve lost.
Off the court, these two teams also battle it out by attempting to
recruit some of the most talented players in the nation. The Tar Heels
and Blue Devils often court the same players, with coaching staffs
jousting with each other for the finest players available. NCAA National
Championships are the hallmark of both these schools. If you enjoy
excitement and hardcore college basketball at its best, Duke and UNC are
your ticket.
In Major League Baseball, there is perhaps the greatest rivalry of all
sports. The New York Yankees and the Boston Red Sox have battled each
other on the diamond since the early twentieth century. The rivalry
became heated in 1920 when the Red Sox sold the game’s greatest player,
Babe Ruth, to the New York Yankees. From that point on, the Yankees
dominated the rest of Major League Baseball, going on to win 26 World
Series; while Boston, after Ruth departed, was unable to capture a
single crown.
Some people began to call Boston’s championship drought the “curse of
the Bambino.” The trade of Babe Ruth, who was also known as the
“Bambino,” was supposedly the reason why Boston couldn’t win a
championship. But that all changed in 2004 when the Boston Red Sox were
able to come back from three games down in the American League
Championship Series and defeat the New York Yankees, and then go on to
sweep the St. Louis Cardinals in the World Series.
This was what Red Sox fans had been waiting for, and now they’re hopeful
that they will never have to hear about “the curse” again. This has
been one heck of a rivalry over the years and odds are that it will
continue to be one of the best in sports.
When there’s an intense rivalry between two teams it’s always magnified
by fan enthusiasm. The fans are what make two teams want to compete
harder against each other, but it takes exciting, hard-fought games to
get the fans interested. Most great rivalries are not built on one or
two good contests, but over decades of excellent games.
There is no set number of games that teams must play in order to
generate a rivalry. The fans and players together are the ones who
decide what makes an ongoing, classic rivalry. But one thing is for
certain, there is nothing better than watching two, evenly matched
rivals battle it out until only one is left standing.
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