Issue date: 10/12/06 Section: Opinion

Recently, I have started to spend some time with a Boston Red Sox fan. I grew up in a house full of New York Mets fans and we have always been tolerant to other teams (mostly because ours was not always very good and sometimes we wanted to win). The eye opening experience of watching someone not only get excited when their team wins but getting even more excited when another team loses has got me thinking… The aspect of rivalry cannot be overlooked in sports. Putting on the uniform with no thoughts but murder, death, kill is an adrenaline rush that cannot be described. Sometimes it is difficult to pinpoint a rival at Stevens. Various teams have rivalries based on ability and geographic location. The men's soccer game Friday is a game the team waits for all year (not season, mind you, all 300+ days from the last time they played). This game was the skyline champion decider last year by a single goal. It has also notoriously been a very aggressive, sometimes dirty game. The crowd is always out in full force, often because of incentives such as food or apparel. Women's volleyball however gets fired up for their contests against New York University. The match is always close both in points and location. NYU is only two stops away on the PATH trains and we brought a busload of fans for the NCAA game last Fall. So the problem of not having a single rival can actually be exciting. The rivals are scattered throughout New York and New Jersey and can make memorable road trips for the devoted fan.
As an athlete, the game against the rival involves pre-game rituals such as posters with squashed mascots, a special play list, t-shirts of the enemy hung up with plenty of graffiti, and talk of not only the game plan, but how nice it will be to shut the opponent up once and for all. Rivalry takes the sport to a whole new level. For one moment, the game goes beyond everyday worries, and it enters the realm of do-or-die. For the duration of one contest it doesn't matter how you feel about your teammates or your own ability, everyone is united against a common enemy and you, as a player, have no limits. Rivalry brings the performance of both teams to almost superhuman. The fan support, posters and school pride that accompany a rivalry supply the motivation that help a team bring the level of play to mirror the intense hatred they feel. The histories of the Stevens rivalries vary and I would like to continue to research exactly why the "big game" is the "big game". Stay tuned, stay spirited, let yourself get caught up in the rivalries.

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