Rivals

Some people are rasied to root for specific teams. It's part of who they are and runs in their blood. For me, that's Ohio State and Peoria High School. No matter how thuggish the teams are, I have to root for them.

While some folks are die hard fans of teams, not nearly as many folk are lifelong enemies of their teams' rivals. But me...I am. Oohhhh, yes, I am. There are three teams that should never win a game. Nothing good comes from them, and all demons various other forms of evil eminate from them. These teams are the University of Michigan, the Baltimore Ravens (F you, Art Model! There are still people waiting to kill you back in Cleveland!), and the Cactus Cobras. Yes, that's right. I still hate my old high school's rival team. We don't even play them regularly any more because the district has intentionaly kept Cactus' population lower so that they can continue to dominate a lower division of sports rather than play with the big boys. Bitches. It wouldn't be so bad if their football coach weren't such an idiot, but he is. And this bothers me. In his 20 years of coaching, he's gone to the state championship at least 5 times, maybe more. It wasn't until last year that he finally won one. He FINALLY learned the error of his ways in 2004.

Cactus was playing Moon Valley in the finals and was romping. An absolute ass-whoopin', 35-0 at half. They then proceeded to lose 42-35. I laughed my ass off when I read the headlines. Same ol', same ol', Coach Fetkenheier. Bear in mind, this is also the same idiot that thought it was a good idea to go for it on 4th and 8 on their own 12 yard line when playing us (we sacked'em on the play, then scored on our first play after the change of possession...stick that in your eye, bitches). The next year, his team finally finished the mission and won the whole thing. Why? Because he realized that you use your best athletes on DEFENSE, not as wide receivers. The offense will get you to the big show, but the defense will win it for you. That's a twenty year lesson learned. Good job, coach!

I learned that one when I was seven.

The only reason this comes up is because I read in the paper today that Cactus was finally dethroned from the #1 ranking, getting thumped by another local school, and I could feel this sick, cheesy grin come over my face as I started to laugh. :-) I don't go to the games very often any more, but after following Peoria football for the past seventeen years, I still love seeing the old rival get it handed to them.