Think of your local university or your parent’s alma mater that you grew up rooting for. On Saturday afternoons in the fall, the city streets would be empty, with everyone either at the football stadium or seated in front of the living room television.

When the conference basketball tournaments roll around in the spring, every team is four wins away from making it to the Big Dance. All year long, your cleverly-worded vanity license plate proudly announces your loyalty.

Now, remember the in-state and conference rivalry games. You would never be caught in the same room as a Duke fan. Your friend, the Texas fan, doesn’t get invited to poker night. You TP the desk of the Michigan fan at work. It’s second nature for you to stand up for your team and defend it against accusations that your offensive line is weak or your point guard is inexperienced. The rivalry game is crucial because whosever team reigns victorious will earn bragging rights for the entire year.

Rivalries also provide invaluable experience to the teams involved. In a recent interview with University of Illinois football coach Ron Zook, he discussed the impact of these games on the entire season.

“Playing a team of high caliber in a rivalry game early in the season really weathers you,” remarked Zook. “It gets you ready to play in the conference.”

This holds true especially if your rival is having a successful season or is even ranked higher than you.

All of these thoughts beg the question, who is Saint Louis University’s biggest rival in athletics? Do we have one match that the entire SLU (and perhaps St. Louis city) community rallies around? It seems that the Billikens’ greatest rivalries are either in the past or when they must face one of the top teams in the Atlantic 10 Conference.

One of the most noteworthy rivalries of the past was SLU men’s soccer vs. Southern Illinois University-Edwardsville. Many St. Louis-area residents will remember the 35 years that the Billikens and Cougars played at Busch Stadium, once in front of a record crowd of more than 20,000 fans.

However, due to a widening gap between the goals of the two programs over time, the last match of that series came in 1995, and the traveling trophy for the rivalry, “The Bronze Boot,” now resides in the SLU Hall of Fame.

Last season, student groups and the athletic department collaborated to host the annual Billiken Blue Out spirit competition. This event took place during the men’s basketball game against conference-leading Xavier and was aired on ESPN2.

The support from the crowd was fantastic, and the Billikens nearly pulled off an upset win, but could this be considered a rivalry? Most likely the hype was centered around Xavier’s perennial success and the opportunity for SLU to make progress in their conference schedule. A rivalry between two schools must have more meaning in the eyes of the players and the student body than just another conference match.

Can a rivalry be started by a student body that wants to build school pride, and if so, how can the current SLU community do that?

Many SLU fans would like to incite rivalries with local universities. Teams like Missouri and Illinois have not been willing to schedule games with SLU because they had little to gain from playing a middle-of-the-road team.

With those programs on the decline and ours improving, we may see some matches with them in the near future. Other Jesuit schools like Marquette and Notre Dame would make great rivals, but residing in different conferences makes scheduling difficult.

Although it appears that SLU is the landlocked outcast of the Atlantic 10 Conference, we do have a great deal in common with the other teams our conference. The A-10 is rich with mid-major Jesuit schools that have considerably small student populations. These teams have limited access to resources, facilities, and funding, but strive to produce top-caliber teams every year.

Hopefully, the arena, new coaches and new administrators will guide SLU teams to the top of the conference and develop rivalries with schools that we compete with for championships year-to-year.

I believe that, if we support all of our athletic teams by attending matches and wearing SLU blue with an intense pride, we will develop an unwavering passion for our teams among the student body. The first team to come into our home and question our Billiken pride will bring out the best in the SLU community. That is how rivalries are born.

Robert Moehle is a junior in Parks College.