By Bro. Stanley
One of the most storied rivalries in San Antonio will be taking a two years break in 2014 and 2015. The annual rivalry between Holy Cross and Central Catholic, dubbed the Holy Bowl, will not be played for the next two seasons. Based on enrollment, Holy Cross and Central Catholic are members of different districts and alignments. Holy Cross will be in an eight team district. For the past two seasons the Holy Bowl has been played on week zero, the season opening game for both teams. After much discussion involving the coaches, athletic directors and school administrators, a date agreement could not be reached. Holy Cross sought a continuation of the week zero contest. Central Catholic sought later dates that conflict with the Gala, the major fundraising event for Holy Cross, or with its district schedule.
While Central leads the overall series 35 to 11, Holy Cross has won 6 of the last 10 contests-including the last 3 in a row. Since football games are scheduled on a two year cycle, Holy Cross loyalists anxiously look forward to resuming the Holy Bowl rivalry in 2016.
Not too worry. I always saw the opportunity to play CC as good sportsmanship and as Mr. Colunga ’75 said: “They’d like to say that we are not “THAT” much of a rival, but we all know better.” Yes, we indeed know better! The HC experience is like no other and as alumni we must continue to carry the flag of excellence, knowing that our education has prepared us well. Therefore, let’s seize the moment and build upon past accomplishments so that when the two-year hiatus is over that HC will be in a position to determine whether scheduling them will be in our best interest.
Money maybe? Proceeds from the Holy Bowl helps both programs ours more than theirs. Our resources are less. Not to exclude the difficulty explaining why a school that has 150 boys (young men), (550? for them) to choose from, is consistently winning this classic. A small school payroll staff compared to having a college team payroll, on a higher level this is the number one reason for staffing changes. Maybe they will try to hire away our staff. It’s taken our program 50 years to be competive with the assistance of Alumni, they have been doing this for years. It’s tough to take the same medicine that has been given out. Holy Cross Alumni need to pull together and come up with ways (two golf tournaments a year) to offset the funds we will lose from our football programs number one fundraiser The Holy Bowl. A two year hiatus will help them re-build with the numerous other resources available while we fall behind, when one program has more state of art equipment it’s hard for the others to keep pace. Right now we’re stable and the future looks bright and this may not be the case downtown. I have childhood CYO friends that are CC Alumni and they too wish to continue the tradition. I’m asking them to petition their upper echelon the athletic department. God Bless Holy Cross, Central Catholic and the Holy Bowl on week zero.
Correct me if I’m wrong, but in recent memory, seems this is the second time CC has not been able to compete and therefore called off the game. They’d like to say that we are not “THAT” much of a rival, but we all know better. I remember as a young man, moving to Dallas Tx and running into a CC Football Player who also graduated in ’75… As we shared a drink together, every once in a while the insults were traded between sips… Yeah, it’s the game they remember as well as ours… All I got to say is, continue to “SHAKE DOWN THE THUNDER!!!”
Until we are able to move back into the same district the 1st game of the season is the best senario for both schools. The school downtown wants the game later in the season because they feel their team will be playing better ball and the kinks will be all worked out by then. Sounds to me like they are scared.
Central’s just chickening out! They know they are on the decline and we are still on the rise even though we are in a lower class. Looks and sounds like they are picking up their ball and going home with this rivalry. We should consider these next two years as moral victories and we got to let them know that.
We need more info on this! Why was week zero not good? There’s more to this, please give us more detail!
Sounds like Texas & Texas A&M!
Please tell me that they are not that afraid of losing 4 in a row, and have the first CC class that could not beat HC. I would like to say more but…
Week Zero is the best possible scenario!! It makes sense for everyone involved. What reason does cc have in not keeping it in week zero?? Keep the tradition alive!! It’s not fair to the student-athletes who will miss their opportunity to play in this great game. Come on cc, do what’s right!
Well put brother Stanley. But they should have asked for 4 years because we have some great seasons to follow.