Throwback night at Heritage Court rekindles west side rivalry
Heritage Court had an appropriately old-school feel on Tuesday night when Roosevelt and O’Gorman players took to the court decked out in throwback uniforms.
The Rough Riders looked their usual selves save for some extra maroon and gold trim. It’s the same look sported by Sivesind siblings Holly and John — Rough Rider legends — in Roosevelt’s early days.
The Knights, meanwhile, went way back with unis from the Cathedral High era which predated O’Gorman’s founding. These Knights — or Cathedral Irish — donned green and yellow.
Additionally, the Jumbotron color scheme was switched to black and white and player mugshots were run through an app — Yearbook Yourself — which transported their look back to the 1960s.
“The nostalgia and the history of basketball are part of this building, and I think we’re really bringing that to these games,” said Eric Larsen, general manager of the Sanford Sports Complex.
Larsen said the plan is for the throwback game to become an annual fixture. Last season, Watertown and Brandon Valley squared off in the contest. Next year, expect two new teams in the mix.
“We intend to move it around and bring different teams together — teams that have some history maybe, or were rivals at one time,” Larsen said.
For those who took to the court Tuesday, it won't be easy to give up the new/old look — or the Pentagon's extra touches.
“It was really fun to wear the green uniforms and to see the pictures that they put up during free-throws with the weird hairstyles," said O'Gorman's Katie Messler. "And they shut down the lights [at the start] and did all the lights and music – it was great. ... The energy of this environment is really helpful."
Building a rivalry
In 1961 the Diocese built a new school a few miles southwest of the familiar North End — O’Gorman.
With a stretch into the city’s old West Side, it led some of those North Enders to opt for the closer option: Washington High, downtown. If anything, that geographic reality stoked the rivalry fires between O’Gorman and the Warriors, but the issue of territory would arise again with Roosevelt’s founding.
“When Washington essentially split the [public] schools into Washington and Roosevelt, a lot of kids at Edison Middle School — who’d typically go to Washington — now had the choice to go a public school on the West Side,” said former O’Gorman coach Mike Begeman, who’s now the vice president of public affairs for Sanford Health.
“We knew that Roosevelt was going to be a force,” Begeman said, referencing the city’s booming development west of Interstate 29. “There was a lot of connectedness in that rivalry right away between parents, players and coaches.”
Begeman coached in the very first O’Gorman-Roosevelt boys game, and later led his sons Matt and Mitch against the Rough Riders near the apex of the teams’ rivalry in the early-to-mid 2000s.
But while Mike Begeman “still bleeds blue,” he admits that the Rough Rider-Knight rivalry has been complicated of late by his son's employment with Roosevelt.
Mitch Begeman, O'Gorman's all-time-leading scorer (1,333 points), joined the Roosevelt staff three years ago. After a decorated career wearing blue and white, he admits the maroon and gold required an adjustment. His players, jokingly, needed to be sure of his loyalties.
“When we’d play O’Gorman some of the guys would ask me, especially right away, ‘Are you going to be rooting for us or them?’” Mitch said.
Patriots' comeback bid falls short in OT against No. 1 Warriors
A long way in a short time
Though O’Gorman and Roosevelt’s have existed together for just 25 years, the programs have enjoyed their share of memorable moments — and players.
For Roosevelt, who could forget the Sivesinds, Mandy Kappel, Fred and Nate Tibbetts, or Tagyn Larson? Likewise, the Knights had Mitch Begeman, Travis Burkhalter, Dusty Coleman, Jayne Even, Steve Miller and Mark Payne.
The Knights and Riders never met in a boys basketball state championship, but Roosevelt got the best of O’Gorman in the girls championship twice — in 2001 and ’06.
Hoops fans will also remember the Knight and Rider boys going at it around the same time, with Mitch Begeman squaring off against future Wisconsin Badger Joe Krabbenhoft.
“I’ll say it until I die — that was the best time in my life,” Mitch said. “High school basketball is so much fun. And however you look at it, Roosevelt was — and still is — the biggest rivalry. It’s Roosevelt and O’Gorman. It was fun for everybody involved.”
In those days, standing room only was the best option (read: the only option) for patrons who showed up the game’s scheduled start.
“I remember people lining up outside at 4 o’clock — that’s when the JV game started,” Mitch said. “They’d have a huge crowd. It was so much fun to have that atmosphere.”
It was a high standard to have set, and one that — given the average attendance of even top-flight city rivalry games — we might not see again.
Fast-forward to Tuesday night. The stands, while not completely packed — a tough task for any high school game in a 3,200 seat arena — were mostly full and offered a big-game environment.
“When the the whole idea for the Pentagon came about, and putting together Heritage Court, this was the type of game were were thinking about at the time,” Mike Begeman said.
As for the throwback unis, the players got to take them home.
"These shorts will make a reappearance for sure," Messler said. "I'm not so sure about the top yet."
The top, of course, reads "Cathedral."