This was more than a rivalry. It was a deep-seeded hatred that spanned the generations. Everyone from my high school in Kent, Ohio, hated anyone from the neighboring city's high school to the north. Hudson.
Truth be told, however, being Hudson's rival was one of the biggest compliments our school had ever gotten. Their teams were better than ours in almost every way. Even their mascot put ours to shame. They were the Bulldogs. We were the damn Muskrats.
Everyone from Kent hated Hudson. Everyone, except for me.
It was junior year and our golf team was playing Hudson at the annual match play tournament hosted by our home course-the Mighty Muskrat Hill Course and Pub. The competition would span 17 gruesome holes at Kent's finest golfing venue (the 18th hole was closed due to a sewage backup in the fairway). No one from our school had beaten anyone from Hudson in recent memory, and that streak didn't look to be in any jeopardy this year.
On the first hole I was matched up to go against Hudson's Jimmy Schlesinger. I remember it like it was yesterday. Jimmy was wearing a bright orange sweater vest with plaid knickers. He looked like a failed attempt by the Queer Eye Squad. He had a full set of shiny golf clubs resting in his fancy bag. I didn't need a bag. I had three clubs: a putter, an iron and a long pole with a scoop on the end that functioned both as a ball retrieval tool and as a utility club around the green.
Over the course of the next 17 holes, however, there was magic in the air. I was smashing drives and holing putts left and right. Jimmy's normally smug face had turned to an expression of worry. Word had spread around town that I was holding my own against Jimmy, and a moderately sized crowd had begun to form around the clubhouse. As we finished the last hole, we were tied.
Nobody knew how to break the tie. No one from Kent had ever come this close to winning a match.
"Let 'em play Sloppy."
Everyone's head turned to see where the voice came from. It was the gray-haired, partially senile course manager, old-man Baker. "Sloppy" was the affectionate name given to the 18th hole that was caution-taped off because it had served as the city's septic tank for the last three years.
And so it was settled.
Battling the limited remaining sunlight, as well as the stench of the city's waste coming up to our ankles, we stepped over the caution tape and trudged on for one more deciding hole. Being well-acquainted with these playing conditions, I would have a definite advantage. It was my match to win or lose.
But then it happened. As I lined up for my first shot, I caught a wave of nausea in my backswing. The ball went soaring to the left and into a pile of muck about six to seven feet deep. My next shot looked to be one of the few shots in golf that would require the use of a snorkel and possibly a chemical suit.
As I went over to retrieve my ball, something reached out of the swamp, grabbed my arm and started to pull me in. It was a genetically mutated muskrat about five feet tall with a mustache thicker than Dick Brodhead's. I reached for a club to beat the fiend off of me, but my rusty ball retrieval tool was clearly outmatched.
Out of the clear blue, Jimmy started to rain blows upon the beast while double-wielding a pitching wedge and a 6 iron. The muskrat quickly retreated into his swamp to avoid the relentless beating. My life had been spared.
Amid all the emotions of a bitter rivalry, all the pressures to come out on top and all the crap on that 18th hole, Jimmy still found room for sportsmanship. His small, gratuitous act of kindness was enough to completely change my perspective of Hudson and prove to me that being rivals and still showing courtesy are two things that are not mutually exclusive.
My fight with the muskrat was so traumatizing that I overpowered my next shot 35 feet over the green, hitting Rami Mikati square between the eyes. After that, he completely forgot his multiplication tables.
Even though I lost that day on the golf course, I still felt surprisingly satisfied.
Nick Alexander is a Pratt sophomore. His column runs every other Tuesday.
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