As a judge’s hand raises, the crowd’s energy vibrates off the walls of the arena and into the bodies of the gymnasts. The adrenaline is higher than normal due to the gravity of the moment: these two teams are rivals. Gymnasts regularly say that rivalry meets are their favorite, whether it is a gymnast from LSU talking about competing against Florida, a Bruin anticipating a competition against the Red Rocks, or, back in the day, a gymnast from Alabama talking about taking on Georgia. In these meets both teams go all out, and the gymnasts know they need to perform to their best ability in order to win. Wins and losses don’t typically matter in a regular season meet, but with a rivalry it’s all about the bragging rights. With the recent conference realignments, classic in-conference rivalries, like Utah vs UCLA, have been broken up. While it marks the end of one era, it is the start of a new one as opportunities for fresh rivalries begin to take shape. The ACC is adding two new teams in California and Stanford, and Stanford might just be the perfect new rival for reigning ACC champion N.C. State.
N.C. State and Stanford are the only two teams since the new postseason format was put into place that have reached the regional final from the play-in round. Last season, Stanford surpassed N.C. State and made it all the way to Fort Worth; but that’s only half the story. Throughout the regular season, these two teams were neck and neck: they were separated by less than a tenth in NQS and by only two hundredths of a point on average. If this degree of parity continues into this season, it will make for a great competition on January 18th, even if there isn’t quite enough of a history between the two to officially declare it a rivalry.
Across sports, rivalries bring a little extra spice to a typical game or competition. In football, rivalry games bring the whole campus and surrounding town together to band against the opposing team. These games fill stadiums because students and alumni alike have the innate desire to see games or competitions involving these historical matchups. It’s especially apparent when the rivals are geographically close, making it easy for fans of the away team to travel. It’s a culture where people like to root against the other team to be a part of a community. Stanford gymnast Brenna Neault immediately thinks of California when it comes to rivalries, saying, “people are extra excited to go to those games. I think it rallies people around the sports, [and] gets more people interested.”
Having experienced both big SEC and ACC rivalries, N.C. State assistant coach Emily Gaskins echoes that sentiment, saying that it allows people to root for something bigger than themselves and “it’s just fun to have a little bit of bragging rights in a sense as well.”
With conference realignment, teams are now competing regularly against schools that they may not have competed against before. To make room for these new matchups on the schedule, it requires that schools give up on some other frequent matchups. While rivalries within these new matchups will take time to form, new matchups create new opportunities for great competition. N.C. State sees Stanford as a challenging new competitor. Though both teams have a similar recent history, they have not competed against each other. N.C. State’s Chloe Negrete described the meets with both California and Stanford as something that is “going to kind of raise our standards in a way too because they did so well last year, that we now have a bunch of goals to match them and to make it competitive and challenging.”
Rivalries often take time to come to fruition, but that is not always the case. This past season was Clemson’s first year as a program and its first season in the ACC, and a rivalry developed with N.C. State almost immediately. The teams were close in terms of both geography and scoring ability, making for close competitions where the team’s fans were able to travel in. This brought that similar energy the gymnasts were able to feed off of. The emergence of Clemson as a rival surprised Negrete, but it was a welcome surprise. The teams were being pitted against each other for the ACC title, with N.C. State being the favorite and Clemson being the challenger. The Tigers and the Wolfpack competed against each other at each of their home arenas last season so after the first matchup, Negrete looked forward to the next one, and now considers Clemson a main rival.
Stanford assistant coach Hallie Mossett mentioned a key reason why she likes these rivalries and how new conference opponents are bringing more eyes on the athletes. According to Mossett, these new matchups and potential rivalries bring attention and entice fans to watch the meets, and that combined with social media helps to grow the sport. Word of mouth is still huge in promoting these meets, and even though social media helps, it isn’t everything. Mossett hopes that between athletes being active on social media, and new conference matchups “that will help the visibility of the sport overall which should lead to the word of mouth and then, hopefully circle back to the rivalries being a thing.”
While social media can help, and naming the meet can’t hurt, the real way this N.C. State vs Stanford matchup will become a rivalry is through the energy of the fans. Using word of mouth to bring more fans into the arena and yelling throughout the meet creates an energy that both teams thrive off, and it makes winning the meet that much more important for a sport where wins don’t really matter in the regular season. Or who knows, maybe something controversial will happen during the first meeting that will fire up fan bases on both sides for years to come. Whether it becomes a rivalry or not, it is sure to be a great competition when these two teams meet for the first time on January 18th.
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Article by Alyssa Van Auker
