After the state playoff game between Westside High School and Creighton Preparatory High School on Friday, Nov. 1, the Creighton Prep varsity football team was loading onto their team bus when a group of Westside students drove by and fired a paintball gun at the bus; leaving  orange paint splattered across it. Westside sophomore and jv football player Tyler Spady said that he thinks the vandalism between the two schools only strengthens the rivalry.

“I think Prep’s attempts to damage our property are reasons why we want to beat them so badly,” Spady said. “Some underclassmen don’t understand the history of this tradition, but it’s not one to be taken lightly.”

This paintballing of the team bus is not the first form of vandalism that has occurred on both of the school’s property. The rich tradition of vandalism between these two schools has resulted in the Westside senior sleepover to ‘protect the field’, and Creighton Prep paying for a new multi-million dollar turf baseball field after Westside students carved an expletive image into it. 

Creighton Prep sophomore Devin Jones also said that he thinks the vandalism strengthens the rivalry.

“I feel like the rivalry between Westide and Prep is strengthened through the different acts [of vandalism] the students partake in,” Jones said.

Westside High School Principal Jay Opperman said that he believes that the vandalism that occurs between the two schools does not affect the athletic contests.

“When I hear rivalry, I think about the actual athletic contests and the things in which we oppose each other and I’m not thinking about those outside things that happen maybe to courage rocks and vehicles and school campuses,” Opperman said. “To me, I don’t think those things affect the athletic contests but I think that these events create a cloud and take away from the real positive aspect in that.”