Friday night games against Hermiston can feel like the whole county stops breathing — but some folks argue the intense rivalry puts unfair pressure on student athletes and divides communities that should be working together. Does the rivalry do more good or harm?
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Add your commentHere's what nobody wants to say out loud: the rivalry is a convenient distraction from the fact that both school districts are underfunded, both towns have real infrastructure problems, and the county commissioners would rather watch us argue about touchdowns than actually demand accountability. I love local sports. I hate when sports become the only story anyone tells about a place.
Born and raised in Boardman, graduated '98. That rivalry IS Morrow County, full stop. You want to talk about community spirit? Every single Friday night under those lights, it didn't matter if you were a rancher, a cannery worker, or a teacher — everybody was wearing the same colors and screaming together. You can't manufacture that kind of unity. People who call it "overblown" have never felt what it's like to beat Hermiston on their home field.
lol "divides communities that should be working together" — buddy we are Morrow County and they are Umatilla County. We are literally different counties. Division is kind of the whole point
every fall without fail my dad drives four hours from portland just for the boardman-hermiston game. doesnt come for thanksgiving. doesnt come for christmas most years. comes for that game. so yeah. its important. at least to us.
Overblown? My son plays JV baseball and his coach literally used a loss to Hermiston last spring as a "teaching moment" for two weeks straight. TWO WEEKS. The kid is fifteen. Let him be fifteen.
My daughter was the starting point guard for Boardman girls basketball and she told me the Hermiston games were her favorite memories of high school. The nerves, the crowd, her teammates hugging her after a big shot. That pressure people keep wringing their hands about? She called it "feeling alive." Maybe ask the actual athletes before deciding they can't handle it.
The rivalry goes back to 1954 when Boardman first fielded a varsity football team and Hermiston deliberately scheduled them on Thanksgiving to embarrass the smaller program. Everything since then is earned bad blood. Do your homework before you say it's manufactured drama.
MOST IMPORTANT THING IN MORROW COUNTY?? Sir we have a coal plant being converted to a data center hub, billions in renewable energy investment, one of the busiest rail corridors in the Pacific Northwest running right through here, and you're asking if a high school football game is the most important thing? I love the rivalry. I go every year. But this framing is embarrassing.
ok genuine question for the boardman diehards here — do any of you actually know kids who quit a sport because of the pressure specifically around the hermiston game? because i moved here three years ago and the first thing my neighbor told me wasnt about the columbia river or the wind farms or literally anything else about this town. it was about this football game. that felt a little intense to me ngl
I used to live in Hermiston before moving to Boardman for work about six years ago and I will tell you right now, from the other side, it is equally intense over there. Maybe more. My old neighbors still text me trash talk before every game. It's genuinely fun and I don't think we should pathologize fun just because some op-ed writer decided competitive spirit is harmful now.
Technically Boardman and Hermiston have been in the same OSAA classification since 2009 which is actually why the rivalry intensified so much — before that they weren't always meeting in playoffs. So anyone saying this is some ancient timeless thing is exaggerating a little. It got big pretty recently.
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