Thursday, March 15, 2001
Elder, West Hi root for each other
West Side rivals root could play for state berth
By John Fay
The Cincinnati Enquirer
It's fair to say that all of the West Side will be one rooting for the same thing tonight at Division I regional basketball tournament at Cintas Center: Victories by Elder and Western Hills.
If Elder can beat Springfield South at 6:15 p.m. today, ,and West Hi can beat Vandalia Butler at 8 p.m., you'll have two neighborhood rivals playing at 7:30p.m. Saturday for the right to advance to big-school state tournament.
That's something that's never happened in the history of the rivalry.
“We told the kids there's at least a 25 percent chance of that happening,” Elder coach Joe Schoenfeld said. “If you have Elder and West Hi playing for the regional championship, 20 minutes up the road, it would be something.”
Only about 1 1/2 miles separate Elder and West Hi. The schools have played 89 times in basketball; Elder has dominated, winning 74 times.
The schools once were s top rivals. But the rivalry has faded over the years.
First, the Thanksgiving Day football game was scrapped. Then open enrollment for the Cincinnati Public Schools made Western Hills less of a neighborhood school.
“We don't have any kids from Price Hill (where Elder is located),” West Hi coach Lannis Timmons said. “We have some from Westwood and Fairmount, Cumminsville, but none from their district.”
Said Schoenfeld: “Most of our players are from the Oak Hills school district.”
The Elder players don't know the Western Hills players and vice versa, so the rivalry has settled down.
“Withrow and Winton Woods are bigger rivals for us,” Timmons said, “because the kids know each other. The play on the same AAU teams. But in the community, it's still a big rivalry.”
That's because the roots are so deep. The Elder-West Hi football game on Thanksgiving morning was an event as much as a game. The teams packed Elder Stadium each year. When the game outgrew the Pit, it was moved to Riverfront Stadium, where it drew 20,000-plus.
“For 50 years, it was the biggest thing of the year,” said former UC baseball coach Glenn Sample, West Hi Class of '49.
But when the game began to hurt the teams' chances to get into the football playoffs, it was moved to an early date.
That hurt the rivalry. So did changing demographics.
“When I grew up in Price Hill, I hung around with kids that went to Elder,” Sample said. “I was one of two Protestant kids in my neighborhood. The others all went to Elder.”
The fact that Elder's a Catholic school is one reason for its dominance of the basketball rivalry, Sample said.
“I never played basketball until I was in the ninth grade,” he said. “All those parishes in Price Hill had teams.”
While the overall rivalry has cooled a bit, it's still hot on the court this year. That's because Western Hills' lone loss to a Cincinnati school was to Elder Jan.8.
“I was up at West Hi the other day,” Sample said. “They're all talking about playing Elder. They're hyped up because Elder is the only team that beat them.”
Elder is equally excited.
“We had 2,500 tickets,” Schoenfeld said. “They sold out in three lunch periods.”
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Elder, West Hi root for each other