...in sports, that is. Do any of you pay attention to an athletic team of some kind? And does that team have a rival they play every year, whose guts they simply hate (and vice versa)?

In Oregon, there is the University of Oregon (UO) Ducks and the Oregon State University (OS) Beavers. I am an avid fan of the Beavers... in sports they excel at. I haven't payed close attention to their basketball team for years, because they haven't been good since 1990. I went to their games through the mid 90's and rooted for them, but yeah; they've never crossed that threshold of being a good team again (except one year when they went to the NIT's.) I also went to their football games during that time, when they were in the midst of 27 losing seasons. They finally snapped that streak in '99, a couple years after I started caring less about basketball and more about football.

Meanwhile, the Ducks were having much more success in their sports programs, going to the Rose Bowl in '94 (where they got killed) and such. I heard a lot of "Beavers suck!" throughout my childhood, and it still boils my blood when I see Duck trolls on the internet talking smack. I remember in grade school getting into a shoving match with this other little kid over the Beavers and Ducks. It consisted of me yelling "Beavers!" and the other little kid yelling "Ducks!"

In any case, the Beavers have gotten much better in the past decade. They've won two National Championships in baseball, finished ranked #4 nationally in football in 2000 and kicked Notre Dame to crap in the Fiesta Bowl that year, have beaten the #3 team two years ago (USC), the #2 team last year (Cal) and the #1 team this year (USC again) and are on their way to the Rosebowl for the first year since 1965. If they beat the Ducks, they will go. As you can imagine, there is a lot of trash talk going around. We have beaten them the past two years, so they're looking for some retribution now. Particularly knocking us out of our first Rose Bowl in 44 years sounds enticing to them (the Rosebowl is played New Year's Day.)

They think we're overconfident because they have a high-flying offense. But they have no defense, and we have an awesome Defense and a pretty good offense to boot. And it's at Oregon State. I like our chances, but the last two years have been very competitive. I'll update this post with the final score from Saturday's game to let you all know how it went down. Even though you probably don't care.

So... any sports rivalries you care about? Or even only care about indirectly because they happen around you and you more or less can't avoid them? Anyhoo...

Wuv, Yer Mom