My Favorite Rivalries

     Duke and North Carolina advanced to the ACC basketball tournament finals for the 512th time yesterday, and will play the ACC Championship about an hour from now.  This made me think of all of the rivalries I really enjoy watching.  What really makes rivalries great to me are the tradition that goes into these games.  Players and coaches come and go, but the rivalries that are truly great stay strong no matter who is on the team, and it seems new stories are created with each new meeting.  I'm going to list a few of the rivalries that I look forward to every year.

Duke and North Carolina Basketball

     Duke and UNC basketball might be my favorite rivalry.  I will always take a college rivalry over a professional one, because you don't get a whole lot of the switching teams other than the occasional transfer student, and most of the time transfer students will go from a small program to a bigger program, or the other way around, and there is not a whole lot of lateral movement like you might get in the pros.  The thing that makes Duke and UNC a great rivalry is that these two teams rarely have down years.  The best high school basketball players always seem to take a look at going to these two schools, so the talent keeps pouring in year after year.  Including today's game, this will be 15 years in a row that one of these two teams played in the ACC Championship, and out of those 15 games, 14 of them were won by either Duke or UNC.

Duke and Maryland Basketball

     I know, you don't have to say it.  Duke and Maryland is not as big of a deal as Duke and UNC, and everyone knows it.  You get the idea though that this rivalry gets a little nastier.  Maryland fans have known to be pretty intense with the burning couches and starting riots, either in celebration because of a vicotry, or in anger because of a loss.  In 2001, Duke forward Carlos Boozer's mother got hit in the head by a water bottle thrown by fans after Duke just finished a huge comeback win over the Terps.  Former Duke guard J.J. Redick once said Maryland is the only place in the country that he didn't want his parents to travel to the game. 
     This rivalry really started to take shape in the late 90s into the early 2000s.  Maryland started to become a national contender, and UNC happened to be going through a couple of down years, and for a few years Duke and Maryland held the top billing in the ACC.  The Duke fans often chanted "Not our rivals" at a home game after this rivalry started gaining more momentum with the national media, but players such as Boozer, and Jason Williams have admitted that while they were at Duke, it was a bigger rivalry than Duke and UNC.  The one thing this rivalry has that most don't is a David and Goliath feeling.  Most rivalries stay heated because the two teams are on equal ground, but Duke recruits far more heralded high school basketball players, while Maryland is more known for having 2nd tier high school players, but guys who have high work ethic, and reach higher levels of skill during their time at Maryland.  Duke and Maryland will never be as big of a rivalry as Duke and UNC, but it's still a big rivalry, and a game worth watching every season.

Boston Red Sox and New York Yankees
     These two baseball powerhouses compete in everything, not only with who wins the games, but also who gets the best free agents in the offseason.  I have heard stories that these teams sometimes make decisions not only to make sure their team gets better, but also to make sure the other team doesn't get any better in the process.  The thing that baseball rivalries have that other sports don't, is that these teams will meet anywhere from 15-25 times a year including possible playoff games.  Baseball is a long season, and it's nice in the dog days of the summer to have a mid-week 3 game series between these two teams, especially if your team isn't doing all that well that season. 
     The fans of these two teams might hate each other more than any other rivalry.  I once went to a 3-game series in Boston between the Angels and Red Sox, and after the National Anthem, the Red Sox fans started chanting "Yankees Suck!"  I couldn't believe that the Angels were playing, and the fans didn't even care about them, they were still chanting about the Yankees.
     I'm not a fan of either of these teams, but if I had to choose a team to pull for in this rivalry it would be the Yankees.  The Red Sox fans bother me more because they call the Yankees the "Evil Empire," and accuse the Yankees of "buying their championships" by offering free agents huge contracts rather than drafting and developing their players, when in reality the Red Sox are no different.  The Yankees at least know what they are.  The Yankees always have the highest payroll in baseball, but the Red Sox are usually right there at #2. 

Army Navy football

     There are tons of college football rivalries I could pick, like Ohio State/Michigan, Texas/Oklahoma, Tennessee/Florida, or Alabama/Auburn, but I love this rivalry because it's less about money than any other one.  Even in college games for big programs, it's about doing something to get to the pro level and get paid.  The Army and Navy players aren't going to the pros, they are going to the military.  This game will never have the top football players, but it does have a lot of history, traditions, and is rich with pomp and circumstance.  The crowd is packed with former and current military servicemen and servicewomen in uniform, and the President of the United States often attends this game, and makes speeches in the locker rooms to the teams.  The best part of this rivalry to me, is that these teams may have as intense of a rivalry as anyone, but they all know that at the end of the day, they play for the same team.

Redskins and Cowboys

     The thing I like about this rivalry, is that no matter how good one team is, it seems like these two teams always play each other close.  This rivalry is similar to the Red Sox/Yankees rivalry for me.  Like those teams, the fans hatred for each other seems to push this rivalry far more than the teams.  The owners seem to one-up each other often as well, with both wanting to have the most seats, the biggest stadium, the biggest scoreboard, or the best free agents.  These teams also happen to have a combined 8 super bowl wins as well.

USA vs. Europe in the Ryder Cup

     For those of you who aren't huge golf fans, I'll explain this one a little bit.  Every two years, the USA and Europe each have 12 representatives for their golf team, and play team matches against each other.  The best part about these matches is that they are so different than a normal golf tournament.  In a normal tournament, there are no teams, everyone is just playing for themselves, but in the Ryder Cup, it turns into a team sport.  All of the teammates are working together and helping each other throughout the match.  Also, golf is not traditionally a sport where players show a lot of emotion, and this also changes for this event.  Golfers are jumping around, getting pumped up, and high-fiving their teammates as they make good golf shots.  As far as rivalries go, I think this is the one where the rivalries mean as much to the players as it does the fans.  If you have a few minutes, watch these highlights of the 1999 Ryder Cup, and look at the golfers getting into these matches.

     These are my favorite rivalries to watch, not necessarily the "best rivalries".  What are your favorite rivalry games to watch?  Share them in the comments section.