Category:College Rivalries
From Hoopedia
A sports rivalry is intense competition between athletic teams or athletes. This pressure of competition is felt by players, coaches, and administrators, but is perhaps felt strongest by the fans. The intensity of the rivalry varies from a friendly competition on one end to serious violence on the other. Rivalries tend to improve attendance and television ratings for rivalry games, but a rivalry that gets out of control can lead to fighting, hooliganism, and rioting.
Many factors can lead to a rivalry developing. Simple geographic proximity as well as frequent meetings in important games can lead to rivalries. Social and political tensions can also be played out by proxy in a sports rivalry. Often the most intense rivalries take place between colleges that share many similarities, for example Harvard vs. Yale or North Carolina vs. Duke. Alternatively, geographic proximity can create rivalries between schools that are relatively dissimilar, for example Kentucky vs. Louisville or Temple vs. Penn.
Rivalries of the friendlier sort are common between colleges in the United States and often involve pranks that rival student bodies play on each other such as by stealing the other school's mascot or painting school colors somewhere on the opposing school's campus.
