“Come, Watson, come! The game is afoot!”
— Sherlock Holmes
It’s a recipe of sorts. You take that dissonance you get when a bone of contention rubs up against a territorial imperative and you bring it slowly to a boil.
You blend in a spoonful of conflict, a dash of animosity, and a pinch of discord. You then cover, reduce heat, and let it simmer for a few days say until Friday night. Then all that’s left is to remove the lid and begin to stir, to agitate, to disturb. And, voilà! The gumbo of rivalry is ready to serve.
Yes indeed! Another edition of the annual high-school gridiron ruckus between the Park City Miners and the Wasatch Wasps is at hand. To some of us, it’s a holy day of obligation. We of the Heber persuasion would just as soon snorkel in sheep dip as miss one of these brouhahas.
The competition, of course, encompasses much more than just football. There is the pestering, to be sure, and the top-shelf trash-talking not to mention the taunting and badgering and the ruffling of feathers.
Among the athletes it’s about the X’s and O’s and reading the defense and filling the gaps. We of the tailgate tribe, however, need not be bothered by such trivialities. Our responsibilities involve man-to-man coverage upon quite dissimilar turf. Defense in this realm relates more to resisting your opponent’s efforts to stiff you for the last round of beverages than stopping a running back prior to the first-down marker.
Historically, at least, honor upon the field of battle has played a role in these exercises of the sporting life. Take, for example, the following paragraphs from The Park Record edition that hit the newsstands on November 11, 1933:
“The football team that represented the red and white of our school this year has been classified as the best team ever assembled from students of the Park City High School. With the splendid spirit and cooperation of the faculty and the students, the team has been spurred on to victory.
“Mr. Birkbeck met with the fellows who were interested in football about two weeks before school started. He read the rules of the game and, with his ability to do so, he taught the boys sportsmanship and other facts necessary to play a good clean game of ball.”
Now, if this white-bread wholesomeness gets much deeper, they’re going to have to swap cleats for hip boots. Speaking of which, the article continues:
“After the commencement of school, suits were issued and the boys began working on what had been read to them and also different mechanical plays for the purpose of making yardage in a game. The complete group of boys were urged to keep good training and most of them did so.
“The players on this team developed among themselves a sort of friendship that is hard to break and also the essentials of sportsmanship and good health.”
Well, no wonder they enjoyed a winning season. They had a reservoir of “different mechanical plays” from which to draw. And they practiced them, over and over, with nothing more altruistic than to further their “purpose of making yardage in a game.” Blatant narcissistic skullduggery, if you ask me.
the way, if Mr. Birkbeck’s book is still in print, perhaps someone could overnight a copy to my USC Trojans. And if there’s any residual “splendid spirit and cooperation” lying about, drop that in the box also.
That 1933 Miner ballclub operated under the best of intentions as in they “intended” to triumph. Check this out, from an earlier edition of The Park Record:
“The football players are still anxious that you keep in mind the afternoon and evening of October 13. In the afternoon of that day we intend to defeat the Wasatch High School football team and in the evening there will be the big football dance. The dance is given to raise funds for the athletics department.”
Well, alas, by actually demonstrating an agenda out there where hash marks and yard lines hold forth, the Miners did indeed emerge victorious over the Wasps that autumn afternoon in 1933. They scored two touchdowns to Wasatch’s one. It wasn’t mentioned how they made out at the dance.
So once again, the redcoats are coming. Miner faithful will trek to Hebertown Friday evening for what should, by all accounts, prove to be a barnburner. Both squads have been on a rollercoaster of sorts this season and both are coming off huge wins this past weekend.
Park City made the most of their trip out to Vernal by putting a 64 to 21 thumping on Uintah. Call it a rout, a cakewalk, or a shellacking, whatever, the Miners flat out took it to them. The impressive win ended a two-game skid and bumped them up to Number 6 in the state 3-A rankings.
During a similar timeframe in a quite soggy landscape far, far away, the Wasps were, should I say, improbably dismantling the previously undefeated Judge Bulldogs 27 to 14. Not only that, but it was Judge’s first home loss since they opened their brand-spanking-new gazillion-dollar football stadium last year. Mother Teresa may well have been sending them a message.
Be that as it may, as ugly as their triumph proved to be, Wasatch woke to a Number-3 ranking in 3-A. And that, as they say, portends for some grand eloquence upon the grassy sidelines at Booster Field in Hebertown come Friday evening.
Hard tellin’ which team will emerge victorious. Or as my man Sherlock might offer: “Chance has put in our way a most singular and whimsical problem, Watson, and its solution is its own reward.” But, when the game’s afoot and there’s trashtalkin’ to be done, all that becomes instant sidebar.
Jay Meehan is a culture junkie and a free-lance writer with a background in commercial and community radio. He has been a columnist and feature writer for various Park City publications going back to 1973.