Sports rivalry and school spirit are what make sports events fun, apart from watching the sport itself of course. Schools similar to each other or in close proximity to one another tend to form rivalries. In this case, Middle College High School and Circulos High School students both take college classes and the schools themselves are small. Since we are small in size and don’t have regular sports teams like other high schools, we have something called small school tournaments.
The first sport that’s played is flag football. The schools that participate, Middle College, Circulos, Cesar Chavez and Lorin Griset, all start training for the tournament a couple of weeks before the big game, which is always on a Saturday. For Middle College and Circulos, the flag football tournament is when this rivalry started.
As the champions of last year’s football tournament, we went into the tournament with extra confidence. Coming out of this year’s tournament, the champions boosted our small school’s ego just a little more.
The second tournament of the year is basketball, and this is when the rivalry really flourished. After bragging about winning the previous basketball tournament and claiming that Middle College would most definitely be coming home with the trophy again, Circulos proved us completely wrong.
Senior Carlos Arca-Palacios believes we might’ve gone into the basketball tournament overconfident.
“We made it to the final against Círculos, and from how the football tournament ended we knew it was going to be more competitive, and they ended up winning,” Arca-Palacios said.
With a bruised ego, Middle College came home empty-handed but determined to beat Circulos. As a school, we were excited to face Circulos in the soccer tournament, but unfortunately, we weren’t granted that wish. This new rivalry brought more school spirit and motivation to the students of MCHS, and it’s a rivalry that other student-athletes want to see continue.
Junior Denise Loaiza believes Middle College wants the rivalry to continue.
“I think this rivalry will continue next year because MCHS wants the trophies back,” Loaiza said.
U.S. history and ASB teacher, Rafael Ramos, who is also the flag football coach, explains how the rivalry started.
“It wasn’t just the games. The ASB advisors and ASB presidents for all of the Santa Ana Schools meet once a month. Last year, or maybe two years ago, I don’t remember exactly when it happened, at one of these ASB Presidents meetings our ASB President and the Circulos President at the time said, ‘Hey our schools are kind of similar.’ We have a similar student population, and jokingly they said, ‘We should be rivals.’ So, it kind of started as a joke,” Ramos said.
Despite its origin, the Middle College and Circulos rivalry has taken off this year. It’s estimated to continue to thrive and encourage both of our schools to work hard and win the tournaments.
“I think this is a good rivalry to have, especially because we’re a small school. It motivates the players to play harder and to put more effort into the game,” Arca-Palacios said.
