The Sports Informant

High school rivalries are great. I sat in on the Oak Ridge-Ponderosa High rivalry last night at Ponderosa, as the Bruins defended their home court with an impressive, and surprisingly dominant, win, 45-33.

But it wasn’t the score, the players or even the overall game that I enjoyed most. It was the fans.

Why? Because it was one of the bigger rivalries in the Sacramento area, and the student bodies of each school actually cared enough to have a battle of their own.

The game itself wasn’t all that exciting. Ponderosa plays a slow-down game that brings them a lot of deserved success, but bores the hell out of anyone watching. They purposely run the majority of the shot clock down on each possession, even pulling fast breaks out to set up a stall offense. While the style’s deficiencies and benefits are enough talk for a completely different blog, I wanna stick with the fans here today.

Both of these schools circle two dates on the calendar each year. When they’ll play each other at Ponderosa and then at Oak Ridge. The schools, only a few exits down Highway 50 apart, sell out each meeting, with fans coming as early as 4:30 p.m. for the 7:30 p.m. varsity game (sitting through the freshman and junior varsity games to ensure they have a seat for the varsity game). They dress in uniform, Oak Ridge fans in blue and gold and Ponderosa fans in green, and they prepare chants, cheers and jeers before the game even begins.

At Ponderosa for last night’s meeting, the home crowd came ready, and was loud. Oak Ridge filled it’s side, too, though, and right after the national anthem, both began their battle.

Some cheers were absolutely hilarious. “Where’s your tractor?” came from the Oak Ridge side, followed by “Where’s your daddy?” from Ponderosa and “Making Money!” from the Oak Ridge fans of El Dorado Hills. Some cheers were reminiscent of the good old days, as Ponderosa fans, with their team holding a big lead, taunted the Oak Ridge fans with, “Just like football!” The Ponderosa Bruins had beat the Trojans during the football season. Oak Ridge fans replied with “How was playoffs?” which reminded Ponderosa fans they didn’t make the playoffs and Oak Ridge did, despite beating Oak Ridge 61-35 to end the regular season. Ponderosa came back with “Lyndell Scarr,” the star running back who lit up Oak Ridge for 471 yards in the game and an amazing eight touchdowns. Oak Ridge came back with “Ryan Anderson,” their former basketball star, who led them to a state championship in 2005 and now plays in the NBA for the New Jersey Nets.

The taunts could have ended there. They didn’t. Ponderosa, knowing Oak Ridge was stretching referring to a player from four seasons ago, came back with, “He’s old news!” to which Oak Ridge shot one last dagger, pointing to Ponderosa’s crowd before pointing back to themselves in a chant, “FFA… NBA! FFA… NBA!” That one made me laugh out loud.

Some cheers, though, were just ridiculous. Both sides used profanities a few times in unison, which was downright disrespectful and should earn them all spankings on their bottoms. Some were geared at specific players on the court, and while that’s great and entertaining when directed at pro players, these kids are in high school, and hearing a whole crowd call you a derogatory term because you turned the ball over is pushing it too far.

In the end, it was an entertaining night surrounding what was essentially a very ugly game. I’m excited to see the passion for school pride is as strong as ever, but I hope in the future whoever is the mastermind behind these cheers grows up a bit. There’s nothing like looking like a jackass in front of hundreds of people.

Use the pride wisely, guys, it’s a great tool that can be used to help your team sail to new heights. Don’t waste it being children.