When it comes to high school football rivalries, one will be hard-pressed to find one more bitter than Great Bend and Hays.
Great Bend vs. Hays? You’re talking about longtime Western Athletic Conference foes that basically can’t stand each other and basically, can’t stand to lose to each other.
“You have two teams that don’t like each other very much,” Great Bend head coach Bo Black said.
Besides being the conference finales, Friday night’s game at Memorial Stadium is also the Class 5A District 6 opener for both teams. It’s the first of three games in determining which teams will advance to the state playoffs. The other two teams in the district are Salina South and Salina Central.
Hays, 5-1 overall, holds sole possession of first place in the WAC with a 3-0 record. Great Bend, also 5-1, is tied for second place in the standings with Garden City at 2-1, meaning the Panthers need  a victory over the Indians to clinch a share of the conference crown.
It doesn’t matter what the sport is, the feeling is mutual between Hays and Great Bend, only an hour’s drive from each other.
“It’s just the communities that grow up in such a rivalry between the two,” Black said. “When the communities have that attitude towards each other, it’s not my job to cool it off.”
Breaking the norm, Black and Hays head coach Ryan Cornelsen don’t have a bitter rivalry.
“Ryan Cornelsen is one of my best friends in the profession,” Black said. “Ryan and I have known each other for years. There’s no one that I respect in the profession than him. Our wives are friends, and we’ll get together for basketball games.
“We spend a lot of time together in the offseason, and we talk to each other once a week during the season about common opponents.”
Black hasn’t called Cornelsen this week, and he doesn’t expect to receive a call from his buddy, either.
It’s Rivalry Week.
Even good friends will be putting that aside for Friday night’s game.
“You spend a week without talking to each other,” Black said. “I talked to him last week, and I’ll talk to him again next week. He’d say the same thing.
“I’ve been to baseball games for 8-year-olds, where you hear coaches on both sides … ‘It’s Great Bend that’s we’re playing … we don’t like Great Bend.’ It’s instilled for kids by the time that they are old enough to compete.
“For whatever reason , the two towns enjoy beating each other in competition and don’t like losing. At the same time, from a football perspective of things, the game itself and the ramifications of the game make it that much bigger.”