This Friday, the Sandie football team faces their biggest rival, Tascosa High School. The game starts at 7 p.m. Nov. 7. Students prepare with spirit week dress-up days and a pep rally, matching the game theme of safari.
The rival history brings a lot of tension and pressure on players and coaches. With this comes a lot of preparation and hard work.
“To prepare we’ve had great practices and have been scouting Tascosa to make new game plans,” head coach Chad Dunnam said. “We just try to get better every single day up until game time.”
In order to take down rivalries, confidence is needed. The faith that a team will win will ultimately prove the result.
“We just need to make sure they don’t use any good plays against us, outplay them and have good defense,” Dunnam said.
Being a senior also comes with a lot of stress from wanting to perform well. This stress filters out over time, but affects everyone differently.
“I feel very confident about the rival game,” senior Jude Dunnavin said. “I feel pressure but I usually feel pressure for every game.”
As an annual rivalry, it brings back many memories and emotions for the upperclassmen. Many members of both teams grew up and attended the same schools together. With that, there is much intensity to beat one another.
“I went to Tascosa my freshman year, so playing them will be exciting and competitive,” junior Gaetan Veazey said.
After 67 years of rivalry, the game continues to be a widely covered and attended game. Students, staff, and parents look forward to this game all season. The hard work, dedication, and stress is all worth it for the outcome of either team.
