MDHigh.com - Maryland wraps up regular season with rivalry week (Part I)

November 4, 2009

Dave Lomonico
MDHigh.com Publisher

Part I

It doesn't get much better than rivalry week in high school football. Alumni return in droves. Old timers reminisce about the flea flicker that won it in '75. Kids paint their faces in the school's colors. Families fire up the grill in the parking lot. Pranks are played, signs are made, music is blared.

Best of all, records don't matter. They are tossed aside like empty hot dog wrappers. These games are for tradition. These games are for bragging rights. These games are for pride. Winners feel the adulation for 365 days. Losers can expect a "For Sale" sign in their front yards.

This Saturday features four of the most storied rivalries in Maryland High School football history. Here's a look at each of the grudge matches.

Poly vs. City @ M&T Bank Stadium, 12 p.m.

Back in 1889, a junior varsity squad from local City College went toe-to-toe with a group of boys from the Baltimore Manual Training School (later named Poly) at a park in Baltimore. City came away with a win in that first game and the two schools decided to play a rematch the next season. One-hundred-and-twenty rematches later, the two schools are still going at it. Poly-City is the second oldest public school rivalry in the country; only a pair of high schools in Boston have played each other longer.

"It's huge," said Poly coach Roger Wrenn. "We've played longer than Army has played Navy. We've played longer than Michigan has played Ohio State. This has just gone on forever and ever and ever."

In Baltimore City, the annual Poly-City battle is known simply as The Game. It needs no other qualifications.

"Whenever a Poly or City person talks to one another they say, 'Who won the game?' " said City coach George Petrides, who has been at the school for 34 years. "And they already know what game they're talking about. There is no other game. There is no other sport that matters."

The importance of Poly-City cannot be overstated. No matter where the teams are ranked and no matter what their respective records are, the Baltimore community rallies around The Game. Thousands upon thousands pack the stands, rivaling the crowds seen at college contests.

Even the week leading up to the Saturday afternoon contest is something extraordinary. Both schools pump up the atmosphere with pep rallies, tailgating, alumni meet and greets and plenty of back-and-forth banter.

"There's always some little pranks the schools pull," Petrides said. "One year the City people came over to Poly and hung a banner that said, 'City Forever.' But for the most part the schools really respect each other."

Sure there's plenty or respect, but make no mistake: this is a win-at-all- costs grudge match. Just how important is it to win? Before the season even begins both coaches get out their red Sharpies and circle the first Saturday in early November.

"Ever year our No. 1 goal is to beat City," said Wrenn, who coached at Patterson for 32 years before coming to Poly in 2006. "The No. 2 goal is the win the Baltimore City championship, and the No. 3 goal is to win the state championship. And the No. 4 goal - just in case they didn't get it the first time -- is to beat City."

Poly won last year's game and they hold overall edge in the series, 59-54-6. But this rivalry has been defined by fits and starts, with both teams dominating for decades at a time. For the first 14 years Poly didn't win one game. But the tide soon turned and both teams ebbed and flowed throughout the century. In fact, Poly holds the longest winning streak from 1970 to 1987. Petrides, who took over the Black Knights' program in 1975, bore the brunt of the losing.

"After awhile people asked me why they kept playing the game and I said, 'Do they cancel Army-Navy?'" Petrides said. "No, they don't. They wouldn't think of it. City-Poly is tradition. It means a lot to the Baltimore community."

Petrides' City team ended the losing streak in 1987 in a game the longtime coach called his "most memorable moment in 34 years." With the Black Knights ahead by less than a touchdown late in the fourth quarter, Petrides instructed his quarterback to kill the clock. On the next play, the young signal caller -- not wanting to go out of bounds -- started running backwards as he was being rushed. Just as he was about to be sacked he threw a crazy lateral across the field to running back Chris Smith. Smith corralled the pass and saw nothing but daylight in front of him. His mircle touchdown run gave City its first win in 17 years.

"I will never forget that first win," Petrides said. "That will always be my No. 1 memory."

There have been plenty of classic games over the years. There was the 1926 affair played in front of 20,000 fans that ended on a fourth-quarter field goal, giving Poly a 3-0 victory. There was the 1965 game when City rocked Poly, 52-6, in the most lopsided score in the series' history. There was the recent 2007 game where current City quarterback Adrian Coxson made an acrobatic catch in the end zone to give the Black Knights a 26-20 victory.

Years after the details of these games are lost to history alumni gather together, waxing nostalgic for boyhood's golden past. On the Tuesday before Thanksgiving the Poly grads hold an annual alumni dinner at Martin's West in Woodlawn. There are so many alums who attend that the large banquet hall has to open every door just to accommodate the masses.

"They have 80 year olds leading cheers," Wrenn said. "And they all want to know about the team. It's all about tradition. It's all about the game."

Wrenn recalls one particularly poignant moment during one of those annual reunions. The Class of 1944 invited Wrenn to a luncheon and, naturally, began reminiscing about old Poly-City games.

Poly hadn't beaten City in years, but in '43 they edged out the Black Knights. One gentleman began telling Wrenn about a letter he wrote to his brother, who was fighting in World War II in Europe. But his brother was killed at the Battle of the Bulge. Did he ever get the letter?

"This guy knew his brother got the letter because his commander in the Army wrote back and said, 'Whatever it is you wrote in that letter it left a smile on his face,' " Wrenn explained. "He told him Poly had beaten City."

And ultimately, that's all that matters.

Fort Hill vs. Allegany @ Greenway Avenue Stadium, 12:30 p.m.

All that separates the two schools in Cumberland is three miles and a small stretch of I-68. On one side, the town is adorned in Allegany blue. The other, Fort Hill red. All year the two sides gnash at each other, rib each other, compare, contrast, debate. It's like sticking Redskins fans and Cowboys fans in a room and telling them to act civilly.

But the war of words ends on November 7 for the 78th meeting between the schools. Two teams steeped in tradition will clash in front of 15,000 fans at Greenway Avenue Stadium, the home field for both squads. In Cumberland, they simply call it Homecoming.

"It's sort of like Christmas, New Years and homecoming all rolled into one around here," said Fort Hill coach Todd Appel, who has donned the red since 1993. "It's like no other game anywhere. There are not many rivalries that match this. It's special; we're blessed to have it."

The rivalry started in 1932 when Allegany defeated the new school on the block, Penn Avenue, 21-0. Three years later Penn Avenue defeated Allegany, and a year after that they renamed the school Fort Hill. Since then Fort Hill and Allegany put on a show that can only be matched in places like Texas and Ohio, where high school football reigns supreme. No other game engenders so much hype. No other game is so important to the psyche of a city.

"It's the talk of the town all year," said Allegany's sixth-year coach Tom Preaskorn. "Everyone is always comparing you to Fort Hill and vice versa. This is for bragging rights, and if you lose this game then you have to live with it until next season. It's lasted like this for generations. Winning this one game can make your entire season."

Children raised in Cumberland don't dream about the NFL - they dream about playing football for Fort Hill or Allegany. Every year they watch in awe as two football teams rumble like a herd of buffalo down the fabled steps at Greenway. Drowning out the click-clack of cleats on concrete is the music blaring in the background. And over the din are the vociferous screaming fans, who are consumed in hysteria.

"It's something no other school gets to experience," Appel said. "We're spoiled because it's like a college crowd. Some of our kids go away to college and if they don't go to a Division I school they don't have that kind of atmosphere?they're like, 'What happened?'"

Years later the fans and players won't recall how many games Fort Hill or Allegany won, but they will remember where they were on homecoming night. And they will remember who emerged victorious.

Folks in Cumberland can recite Fort Hill's 46-31-4 record against Allegany faster than they can cull up their social security numbers. And the players who stepped on the field on homecoming night? Immortalized.

Appel remembers watching in1979 when Kevin Poling, Denny Hockman, Robbie Shewbridge and Joe Powell led Fort Hill to a last-minute victory. He remembers 1977 when Todd Martin set a record with the longest kick return in homecoming history. He remembers 1981 when his brother, Joey Appel, was stood up on the goal line in a 14-7 Fort Hill loss. And he remembers his senior year at Fort Hill in 1986, when he personally helped the Sentinels to a 21-0 victory over Allegany.

"It's moments like that that drew me to coaching," Appel said. "I wanted to be part of that every year."

Preaskorn, for his part, remembers Allegany upsetting Fort Hill in overtime in 1980 under legendary coach Jim Refosco. Preaskorn then turned the same trick 15 years later in 2005, when he was coaching the team.

"Doug Hamilton knocked down a fade pass in the end zone to win the game," Preaskorn said. "That's the moment I remember most. I'll never forget it. The sidelines just erupted."

The moments are great, and thus the pressure is immense. Therefore the two coaches do their best to treat the game like a normal Saturday afternoon gridiron battle. Not happening.

The week leading up to the game is filled with festivities, from school spirit days to pep rallies to cookouts. The players can't walk down the hallways without hearing their classmates yell, "Beat Allegany" or "Beat Fort Hill." Focus is near impossible, especially for first-year varsity players.

"You're never going to keep this like any other week because it isn't like any other week," Appel said. "But that's part of it; you don't want to take this away from them. This is what they play for."

Rivalry Week Part II

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