Rivalries are some of the best things about college sports. What’s better than when two programs clash on the court or field and the animosity between the players and fans is palpable?
Recently, fan conduct has come under dispute after some incidents at Texas Tech (the Marcus Smart shove) and Utah Valley (player vs. fan on-court nightmare) have raised the issue that there should be a modicum of basic human kindness expected between fans, players and coaches. But when kept in check, the feelings of contempt and dislike that seep out from a great rivalry are a thing of beauty. I grew up in a land where one of the best in sports resides.
It doesn’t have the attention of the Alabama-Auburn, UCLA-USC or BYU-Utah, but Montana State and Montana is just like all those celebrated matchups. The Bobcats despise the hippie ground Grizzlies stand on and Grizzlies cover their noses around the ’Cats, fearful they could take in a whiff of manure from the state’s Ag school.
Favorite Montana State joke: What do you get when you cross a groundhog and a Bobcat? Six more weeks of bad football.
Favorite Montana joke: What's the difference between a Montana Grizzly fan and a carp? One is a bottom-feeding, scum sucker, and the other is a fish.
That sort of in-state hate penetrates the atmosphere everywhere in Montana, whether it’s football in the fall or track and field in the spring. Any athlete in Bozeman or Missoula understands that when you meet the “other school,” you had better win.
It’s the sort of rivalry I’ve thought Idaho State is missing. The Bengals have Weber State to direct some animosity toward, sure, but I’ve never sensed an overriding hostility between the Bengals and Wildcats where a win or loss defines their entire season.
I do think one could form, though, and it’s between Idaho State and Idaho. The Vandals are rejoining the Big Sky this fall in all sports but football. Granted, all of the rivals I’ve mentioned have included the all-important pigskin as a defining part of the tradition. But there are some interesting story lines between the Bengals and Vandals that I’m not willing to dismiss just because they won’t meet on the gridiron.
It starts with women’s basketball.
The Idaho women face Louisville this Sunday in the opening round of the women’s NCAA tournament. As a No. 14 seed, the Vandals will travel about 1,300 miles to Iowa City, Iowa, for the game. Louisville is 30-4, ranked fourth in the latest Associated Press top-25 poll and is 385 miles (as birds fly) removed from Iowa City.
The Cardinals are attempting to reach the Final Four for the second straight season after upsetting Baylor a year ago along the way to the title game. Under head coach Jeff Walz, Louisville is 5-0 in the NCAA First Round. President Obama filled out a bracket and he has Louisville making it to the national semifinals.
Let me just get to the point — Idaho isn’t beating Louisville. But that’s not what’s important here. The Vandals are going to the NCAA tournament for the third time in the school’s history. Under head coach Jon Newlee, Idaho has won 42 games the past two seasons.
As Newlee leads his troops against the Cardinals, he’s a few short weeks removed from the six-year mark of when he stepped down as the head coach at Idaho State. At the time he was the winningest coach in the program’s history with 93 victories.
He left for Moscow when the Vandals were coming off a 4-25 season and his raise was nominal. But Idaho State was dealing with an $800,00 budget shortfall and current ISU athletic director Jeff Tingey was wearing an interim tag. Newlee cited that the “instability” played a role in his decision to move on after coaching in Pocatello for six years.
Plus, Newlee said he preferred Idaho’s athletic facilities. In a April 16, 2008 article in the Idaho State Journal, Newlee said, “Their facilities are in place. They’ve done a great job with their BCS money they got, and their facilities are tremendous. The women’s locker room is unbelievable. What they’ve done to the Kibbie Dome is great.”
It was a rough time for Idaho State athletics. The budget was a major issue, there was no permanent athletic director in place and ISU was already in need of a volleyball coach.
Of course, things have turned out all right for both sides. Tingey took over as Idaho State’s athletic director and hired Seton Sobolewski, who has since overtaken Newlee as the winningest coach in Bengal women’s basketball history. Sobolewski hit win No. 100 in a quarterfinal victory last week against Eastern Washington in the Big Sky postseason tournament. ISU has invested in its own basketball facilities, too, upgrading the women’s basketball locker room in 2012.
And with Idaho’s grand facilities, Newlee has won back-to-back WAC championships. But you have to imagine Newlee will still want to clobber Idaho State. He moved on. He moved up to a bigger, “better” program — remember? For Bengal fans, what’s better than beating in the brains of your old winningest coach who spurned you for the school up north with your new winningest coach?
Football or not, that’s an awfully good start for the kind of rival Idaho State can use.
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