For more than 100 years, Biddeford High School and Thornton Academy have competed against each other on the gridiron in the “Battle of the Bridge.” This month, however, they will be competing together for the right to be named “USA’s best football rivalry.”
As part of a contest being run by USA Today High School Sports, the Biddeford-Thornton football rivalry was recently named as the best rivalry in Maine, beating out Portland-Deering and Cony-Gardiner. Biddeford-Thornton garnered 64 percent of the more than 11,000 online votes cast for the state’s best rivalry. Now the rivalry will compete with other state rivalries in a regional contest, with the four regional winners moving on to the national contest.
“It’s a very exciting opportunity for both of our schools,” said Thornton Athletic Director Gary Stevens. “Thornton and Biddeford have certainly had a long and historic rivalry on the playing fields. But I think it’s a really neat opportunity for the two schools and the two communities they represent to combine efforts for one week and try to strive for something common.”
The winner of the national contest will split $10,000 between the two schools and will be presented a trophy at the football rivalry game in 2013.
Biddeford Athletic Director Dennis Walton said while those prizes are all well and good, “this is a lot more about trying to get recognition for what we believe to be one of the greatest rivalries in the entire country.”
Walton said of the football rivalry, “there’s so much passion and so much excitement about it every year, regardless of where either team is in the standings. It’s exciting. It’s an exciting event.”
It is one of the fiercest rivalries in the state, according to Stevens, but he also said the thought of the two schools working together is “not a farfetched thing whatsoever.”
“I’ve said forever that TA is our greatest rival, and our greatest friend,” said Walton, noting that Thornton and Biddeford combined on a large-scale food drive last year, among other things on which the schools work hand-in-hand.
Stevens said that the two communities have been intertwined ever since the mills were established, and that “in many ways it’s one community.”
The rivalry will have a much harder time in the regional competition than it did in the state voting, as the sheer number of kids in the schools and people in the towns of other state winners is much larger than that of Thornton and Biddeford.
Stevens said that some rivalries gained more votes than the three Maine rivalries combined.
He said that he and Walton have discussed reaching out to alumni as well as possibly trying to get the backing from schools around the state.
Voting for the regional round begins Wednesday at 11 a.m. at contest.usatodayhss.com. The “Battle of the Bridge” will be in a battle if it hopes to have a chance of getting to the national round. Still, Walton and Stevens said they have hope that their rivalry can prevail.
“I think that one thing that we won’t be beat at is the passion and the commitment from these two communities,” said Walton.
— Contact Wil Kramlich at 282-1535, Ext. 323.
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