by WES FERGUSON
Come Friday night, there will be no brawl for Bob Shelton Stadium. No havoc in Hays. No bedlam in Buda.
To many people, football is a metaphor for war – from ground attacks to aerial assaults, to blitzes, bombs and battles in the trenches. But as the Hays High Rebels and Lehman Lobos take the field this Friday, district administrators are downplaying references to a battle between the schools.
“A rivalry is fine in terms of friendly competition,” said Tim Savoy, the district spokesman. “But the administration doesn’t want it to be something that would lead to vandalism or fights or anything like that, so they’re careful about how they shape it.
“I think everybody from the superintendent on down is aware of it and wants to make sure (the game) stays safe and fun for the kids.”
Lehman High and Hays High share a home in Bob Shelton Stadium, but Lehman, a much newer school, has lost all five times the teams have met. Early in the rivalry, Hays High fans wore shirts that said, “Whose house? Our house.”
Robert Pankey, a Texas State University professor who has studied sports sociology, said kids who are involved in sports benefit when fans appreciate them and turn out to games to support them. Problems arise, though, when fans’ passions spill into deviant behavior.
Student athletes should be taught good sportsmanship by their coaches, he added, and parents should set examples for them by behaving reasonably on the sidelines and in the bleachers. It’s also important for students at both high schools to communicate.
“I don’t really see much value in a rivalry other than the pure entertainment of it,” Pankey said. “It’s good entertainment, but it’s not designed to teach our kids to be better at sports or stronger athletes or whatever the case may be.”
Hays CISD has taken steps to bring together the students from the two schools. This evening, 25 kids from Lehman and 25 from Hays High will come together for what amounts to a unity dinner through a program called Team Hays Teen.
The students will brainstorm community projects they can work on with their counterparts at each high school.
“We’re challenging them to work collaboratively,” said Damon Adams, a Hays High assistant principal who is organizing Wednesday’s event. “It’s OK to have athletic competition. I think that’s healthy. But also build a collaborative relationship between the schools.
“They’re all our kids,” he added. “It doesn’t matter if they’re Lehman or Hays.”
The value of a school and its students should not be determined by the score on a scoreboard, Adams said.
“Athletics is part of any high school experience, but sometimes I think we have a tendency to think athletics is the be all and end all,” he said. “As we head into Friday night, it’s important to put everything into perspective.”
Lehman head coach Steve Davis also played down the rivalry, saying he and his players would prepare for the game no differently than they do for every other game. Even so, he added, no one from the district administration had directed him to de-emphasize the rivalry.
“I haven’t talked to anybody,” Davis said. “I hope Hays does well, just not in this game. If they’re playing anybody else, I’ll pull for them. And they’ll probably tell you the same thing.”
