College rivalries are big; Labour Day Classic is ‘a lot crazier’

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 05/09/2009 (5927 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

A guy plays for a big-time U.S. college program like the Tennessee Volunteers or the Oregon State Beavers and he’s bound to hear and see some things.

The Vols, for example, regularly pack 100,000 into Neyland Stadium for their home games — shoot, they had over 51,000 for their Orange-White intra-squad game this April — no matter the opponent. And any time the Beavers meet their state rivals, the University of Oregon Ducks, you can bet the frat boys from both schools have spat out just about every curse imaginable.

But even with all that big-game experience, even with the pressure of playing in front of rabid fans and national television audiences, nothing can ever truly prepare a man for the Labour Day Classic in Regina. And Bomber defensive back Jonathan Hefney, who starred at Tennessee, is already bracing himself for some new sights and sounds.

“Playing in Tennessee, it’s real loud,” said Hefney. “We had a few big-time rivalries. Our biggest could be Florida or Kentucky. Vanderbilt doesn’t like us too much because they are in the same state. Georgia, big-time rivalry. Me, personally, I don’t like South Carolina at all. But from what I’ve been hearing, it’s a lot crazier at this one and if it’s a lot crazier it’ll be fun to see. Everybody’s talking about it, I’m ready to get to it now.

“I mean, I hear they wear watermelons on their heads or something. I gotta see that.”

Interestingly, even when Dorian Smith returned to Corvalis, Ore., to visit some old pals at Oregon State, he was hearing about the Bomber-Roughrider smack-down. “All the coaches, coach Riley (the former Bomber boss), were saying… ‘Oh, you’ve got the Labour Day Classic and the Banjo Bowl, you’ve got to get ready for that,'” said Smith.

“As far as rivalries go, when we played the University of Oregon at their home park I had some kids cuss me out pretty bad. I don’t care to repeat it, but it was pretty bad. These kind of games, they’re more fun than anything. It’s fun to hear the noise from the fans and being on the defensive side it’s fun to hear the boos.

“We want to make all the fans quiet, that’s what we want to do.”

Easier said that done, rook. Just ask veteran Doug Brown, who will be suiting up for his ninth LDC. Trust him: The crowd doesn’t get quiet. And the streets are overflowing with fans who are overflowing with lager and ale. How do you prepare for that? You don’t. You roll with it, soak it up and try to keep your head on a swivel from the moment the team bus crosses the border into enemy territory.

“Everybody here has played collegiate football so we just tell them to rely on those experiences to get through this,” said Brown. “But you see some weird things. I remember being in Regina at the hotel and getting off the elevator and seeing all the furniture from the hotel rooms neatly arranged in the hallways and people were drinking like it was a block party. That’s not something you see every day. And I learned the words to ‘I’d rather be a Bomber than a something-something Roughrider’ right away… probably the first time I was in Regina.

“All the rivalries pale in comparison. First of all, Montreal and B.C. don’t even have one. Calgary and Edmonton is the second-best rivalry and then there is Toronto-Hamilton. But this one is special. It’s not just city versus city, it’s province versus province. It’s farmer versus farmer. It’s combine versus combine, a tractor showdown at Mosaic Stadium.”

ed.tait@freepress.mb.ca

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