There are always rivals in the world of high school sports.

"Being a Horsemen, everyone is your rival," said Brian James Baca, 17, who attends St. Michael's High School. "We get everybody's best game, we constantly have a target on our backs ... and I absolutely love it."

Baca has been playing sports all his life, starting with tee-ball at 5.

"I started football, the game I love, in fourth grade," Baca said. "I was the only fourth-grader in a fifth- and sixth-grade league."

Baca finds that every sport is violent in nature. "You can't be a nice guy to play football," Baca said. But he believes it's not the true intentions of the players to be rude and brutal, but instead just a result of the emotions everyone brings onto the field. In simple words, he finds that deep down, it's nothing personal.

Kyle Miller, a junior at Monte del Sol Charter School, has a different outlook on violence in school sports: "Chicks are crazy," she said.

Miller has been an active member on her school's soccer team for years, and speaks from experience when saying that school sports definately get more vicious than the game really allows, or intends to.

"Aggressive girls are just sneaky and vicious," Miller said. During this season
while once again playing as an MDS Dragon, Miller injured her leg during one of her matches. A player from the opposing team tackled Miller while she was trying to run down the field. Forms of tackling are allowed in the game, but Miller recalls this one to be far more vicious than the rules allow.

But it's not always about the rivalries and the violence. Just ask Ron Porterfield, the former athletic coordinator at Santa Fe Indian School. Porterfield retired three years ago after committing 43 years of his life to the Braves and Lady Braves.

"Being a boarding school, technically, rivalries are not like you would find with St. Michael's High School or Santa Fe High School," Porterfield said. He has noticed that throughout the state "there's always a pretty strong push by most schools to lean towards sportsmanship." He finds that among Santa Fe teams, the violence is not excessive and the injuries that occur are not uncommon.

"When you don't have the rivalry ... the violence will be less," Porterfield said about some of the other states' high school sports programs.

Porterfield attended St. Michael's High School when he was a teenager, and can "guarantee you it was probably more violent then than it is now," Porterfield said.

Stephen Castille, the head football coach for Capital High School, says most teams in Santa Fe, and New Mexico as a whole, have a basic understanding and respect for the game.

"It's history," Castille said. "Every time they put on a jersey, we want (the players) to represent the community and all the players before them."

Castille believes that if teachers and coaches are doing things right, there should be no disciplinary problems regarding sportsmanship and dirty play on the field. He finds that the players know there are rules, and know that ramifications for foul play could eliminate their opportunity to participate in the sport. "That fear keeps them from doing stupid things," Castille said.

Castille pointed out that football, by nature, is an aggressive sport.

He said football players hit hard and play hard whether their opponents are their sworn enemies or not.

He mocked the idea of "these guys aren't our rivals, we aren't going to hit them as hard," Castille said.

Things can get rough no matter the sport.

"But that's kind of true with any sport," Castille said. Baca agrees.

"There's going to be dirty play," Baca said. "I don't praise intentional dirty play, but I do promote aggressive play. Sometimes the difference between those two is very blurred, but hey, that's sports for you."



Jahla Seppanen is a senior at Monte del Sol. You can reach her at jnm747@hotmail.com.