Every team needs another team to hate
Bethel’s rivalry with St. Thomas is just beginning.
By Maddie DeBilzan | Royal Report
Trent Anderson, a former Bethel University quarterback, lights up when he recalls his mud-stained jersey and the shivering blue and gold fans from the victory that occurred almost 30 years ago. Water filtered from the bottom of his helmet to the bare skin on his goose bumped back, and sky-water tears catapulted from the tips of his soon-to-be-wife’s sopping pompoms.
He understands that game day energy creeps to electrifying when St. Thomas is the Bethel opponent.
For the Minnesota Vikings, it’s the Green Bay Packers. For the Boston Red Sox, it’s the New York Yankees.
For Bethel, it’s St. Thomas.
Everybody loves playing teams they hate.
There’s just something about playing a rival that causes indifferent fans to paint their faces, stay-at-home mothers to yell at the referees, and die-hards to completely lose their minds (and their voices).
“St. Thomas was always the team that would start fighting amongst themselves. When we learned how to get under their skin, it was an amazing beat-down.”–Trent Anderson, former Royals’ quarterback
Anderson, the Bethel women’s golf coach, former assistant football coach, and former athlete in both football and baseball for the Royals as a 1991 graduate, remembers when St. Thomas tiptoed under the radar as much less of an intimidation. Throughout his athletic career at Bethel, St. John’s was unbeatable in football — literally, Bethel never beat them in all four years of Anderson’s time here — so defeating St. Thomas seemed a more reasonable task. That’s when the Bethel-St. Thomas rivalry surfaced.
“St. Thomas was always the team that would start fighting amongst themselves,” Anderson said. “When we learned how to get under their skin, it was an amazing beat-down.”
Hockey was a different story in the early ’90s. St. Thomas didn’t get Royal hockey fans going, but St. John’s University sure did. The heated rivalry once provoked Bethel to a bench-clearing brawl in the middle of a game, Anderson recalled with a laugh. His roommate and good friend were right in the middle of the madness.
“It was unbelievable,” said Anderson, laughing, as he looked at a framed picture of his roommate and shook his head.
Eventually, however, St. Thomas morphed into Bethel’s biggest target in every sport. Trevor Hall, senior guard for the men’s basketball team, experienced this rivalry long before he started playing for Bethel. His brother played basketball for the Royals and graduated in 2013. Now, as a leader on the team, he’s experiencing it firsthand.
Hall and his senior teammates have lost to St. Thomas in the playoffs three years in a row. The Royals barely lost grip of the title his sophomore year, when the Royals’ in-and-out 3-point shot almost beat the buzzer to put the Tommies under.
Hall still prefers to play St. Thomas over any other team.
“You want to play the best team every time you get out,” he said.
Although most Bethel coaches and athletes from any sport today would say that St. Thomas is their biggest rival, Bethel is not considered to be any team’s adversary. In fact, two other MIAC assistant athletic directors also pointed to St. Thomas as their biggest rival: St. John’s and St. Ben’s. St. John’s is the only school who has earned mutual rivalry status from St. Thomas.
Eugene McGivern, who was head of athletic operations at Augsburg for six years and has been at St. Thomas for 23 years, credits the St. John’s-St. Thomas rivalry to their striking similarities, which contribute to the competitive matchups. Before 1977, the rivalry was even stronger because both universities did not admit women. The schools often recruit the same players because they are both Catholic universities. All of these commonalities birthed a natural rivalry that Bethel does not share with any other MIAC university.
Despite the tenacious rivalry between the Tommies and Johnnies, McGivern acknowledges Bethel as his school’s runner-up rival.
“Bethel football has established itself as a MIAC and regional power under Steve Johnson. In recent years, St. Thomas and BU have had some terrific men’s and women’s basketball games, women’s hockey, baseball and softball, too,” McGivern said.
“A lot of teams play for a traveling trophy, but we don’t play for any traveling trophies in any sport.”–Jared Johnson, assistant athletic director
Jared Johnson, assistant athletic director, also explains the lopsided rivalry that has developed between Bethel and St. Thomas. The way he sees it, the unreturned rivalry is not something Bethel should take personally.
“I don’t think our conference is set up for specific rivalries. If someone has a rival, it’s because they are close to each other or because they play for something. A lot of teams play for a traveling trophy, but we don’t play for any traveling trophies in any sport,” Johnson said.
Johnson used to compare a win against St. Thomas to the excitement of a high school state championship victory. Now that Bethel has grown to be more competitive, a victory against St. Thomas is just a sign that something bigger is on the horizon, like an opportunity to make playoffs or even move on to nationals.
Anderson agrees. Defeating St. Thomas should be another obstacle to get past, not a season goal. His eyes glazed over as he recollected the philosophy he adopted from his favorite coach, Phil Janaro. He once pulled Anderson into his cramped coach’s office and asked him what he thought it would take to walk away with a victory. Anderson stumbled through his answer, intimidated by his new coach’s intensity.
Janaro interrupted. He cussed and slammed his fist against his desk. “No! Wrong. It just takes the will to win.”
“His name should go down in history,” Anderson said. “In one year he single-handedly transformed the football program.”
When Anderson watches Bethel play St. Thomas now, he watches players who are twice the size of the majority of his team in 1990 because they spend so much time in the weight room. He watches smart players who are students of the game — dedicating hours to film each week — as opposed to his former team which barely watched any film due to the video quality.
He watches a rivalry that was born from a football team’s will to win in 1990. It’s an athletic program that continues to grow and impress in every sport — enough to earn the respect of its greatest rival, St. Thomas. Maybe someday, the Royals will earn their hatred.
Biggest MIAC Rivalries
St. Thomas: St. John’s
St. John: St. Thomas
Augsburg: Hamline
Bethel: St. Thomas
Carleton: St. Olaf
Concordia: St. Olaf
Gustavus: Concordia
Macalester: Carleton
St. Ben: St. Thomas
SOURCE: Assistant athletic directors of the MIAC schools
Win-loss records for Bethel and St. Thomas:
58–271–5
SOURCE: Bethel Athletics website
