It’s 3:30 pm on a Thursday at James A. Garfield High School, and school has just ended. Students push past each other, posters for graduation, and an upcoming production of Into the Woods. A bulldog glowers down at them from a crimson and blue sign. Beyond its watchful gaze are the streets of East Los Angeles. This GHS is not the one we know and love, but it’s similar, perhaps a little too close for comfort.
The existence of these eerily similar schools says a lot about the American high school experience. There are hundreds of high schools with bulldog mascots across the country that are often nearly identical. The only real way to tell these schools apart, and most importantly, decide which one is better, is of course sports. While the two Garfield high schools don’t play each other, their performance in each sport this year gives us a rough estimate of how we might stack up against each other.
Football:
The purple and white footballers fought hard but were no match for their crimson and blue doppelgangers. The LA Dawgs went undefeated in their league last fall and won a major victory in a longtime rivalry. They routed their rivals -the other Roosevelt Rough Riders- 49-16 in the East LA Classic in front of thousands of fans.
Basketball:
Both Garfields are powerhouses when it comes to boys and girls basketball. Throughout this past season, however, LA appears to have a slight edge. Seattle did perform well at the state level, winning the girls’ championship, and narrowly defeating their male rivals at O’Dea.
Tennis:
Unfortunately, there’s just no competition when it comes to tennis. The LA racqeuteers rallied hard and placed second in their girls and boys leagues, coming out ahead of Seattle, who did not advance to metros
No Competition:
Seattle GHS has a slightly larger selection of official school sports than LA. We win by default at lacrosse, bowling, and wrestling for both boys and girls, since LA GHS doesn’t offer these.
Mariachi:
While mariachi is not a sport, it is important to recognize that our SoCal counterparts have a mariachi band, and we don’t.
