They are divided by less than six miles along Seaman Road, with Wheeling Street serving as the border between East Toledo and the city of Oregon. Generational family ties have woven them together as athletic rivals for six decades.
But, these days, Waite and Clay high schools are divided, their athletic connection broken.
In December, after examples of bad behavior involving the football rivalry, Oregon City Schools superintendent Hal Gregory decided to pull the plug.
Clay athletic director Mark Beach, a 1979 Waite graduate, had the awkward task of calling Waite athletic director Cristina Lorton (also a Waite graduate) to advise that, effective immediately, the Eagles would no longer schedule Waite in football or basketball.
Clay and Waite have not scheduled games in other team sports (baseball, softball) in recent years, mainly because of competitive imbalance.
Whether this football and basketball break is a trial separation, or carries the permanence of divorce, remains to be seen.
“What we’re calling it is kind of a suspension of the rivalry for now,” said Mr. Gregory, who said the decision was his. “... It just felt like it was time to just kind of take a break and let everything calm down, because it seems when the rivals come together, there’s concern.”
Mr. Gregory, Mr. Beach, and Clay Principal Jim Jurski outlined the specifics to The Blade.
The concern from the Clay perspective was based mainly on four incidents:
■ Prior to the 2018 football game at Waite’s Mollenkopf Stadium, Mr. Gregory said death threats were made against the Clay quarterback via social media. The matter was turned over to Waite administration, and a student, who was not a football player, was identified. The threat was not judged to be a careless prank.
■ At that 2018 game, because Mollenkopf Stadium no longer had bleachers available on the visitor’s side during renovations, Clay fans were situated among Waite fans on the home side. During the game, Jennifer Galyas, wife of Clay head coach John Galyas, objected to profanity used by a nearby Waite fan. When she objected to the language, Mrs. Galyas said the Waite fan knocked the hat off of her head. Security staff at the game eventually removed the fan, but Mrs. Galyas said the fan remained in the stadium.
■ In the days preceding the 2019 game, Mr. Gregory said young intruders, who Clay administrators determined to be from Waite based on security surveillance video, spray-painted profane figures on the asphalt of the Clay parking lot near Clay Memorial Stadium. They also spray-painted profanity on Clay’s spirit rock.
■ During the 2019 game at Clay, which had already been delayed an hour by lightning, there was another delay when a group of mostly junior-high and middle-school age students suddenly scurried from the north end zone in a panic after one of them said someone had pulled out a gun. No gun was found and, according to Clay administrators, no description of any suspect was ever produced.
THE DECISION
After that game, Mr. Gregory said he and other Oregon administrators assessed what had taken place and decided it was time to break scheduling ties with Waite.
“We didn’t want to close the door and never open the rivalry up again,” Mr. Gregory said. “But, there is no timeline in place at this point to start playing Waite again.”
Because of his Waite ties, Mr. Beach has mixed emotions on the split.
“First off, I don’t think you enter into that lightly with any relationship that you have with anyone, let alone your next-door neighbor, your long-time rival and, for me, my alma mater,” Mr. Beach said. “That’s a sad day when things like that happen, and it’s painful for sure.
“That tugged at the heart for quite a while. But, at the end of the day, sometimes you have to make unpopular difficult decisions.”
Of the four incidents, the one that ironically appears to have been the final straw – the alleged gun brandishing – appears to likely have been nothing more than unfounded innuendo.
“There’s a thousand versions out there of what happened that night, but it wasn’t on the Waite or Clay side, it was out in the north end zone where all the kids are together,” Mr. Gregory acknowledged. “A Clay student overheard what they thought was a Waite student, which is what the Clay students are saying, had a gun. That’s what caused the panic.”
Was there any credible proof?
“No,” Mr. Gregory said, “only what the kids said to us. The police interviewed lots of individuals. There was never a gun found, and I’m not sitting here making accusations either way. That is just how it all started.”
And, ultimately, how the rivalry ended.
REACTION
Waite Principal Todd Deem is a 1988 graduate of the school, and a former Indians football player who, like Mr. Beach, competed in the rivalry. He is disappointed the decision was made by Oregon leadership without discussing the concerns with him.
“If we would’ve had an opportunity to maybe discuss some things prior to that decision being made by the folks at Oregon City Schools,” Mr. Deem said. “I would have loved to have had that conversation.
“That being said, I understand what Hal and Jim are going through with their community. I understand and I respect what they do, and their opinions. But I really wish we would have been able to have a conversation prior to them announcing.”
Mr. Deem remains optimistic.
“The bottom line is, I totally understand the safety [aspect] of the students and fans and the communities, because that’s something we deal with on a daily basis here,” Mr. Deem said. “Whether it’s athletics, clubs, organizations, or the school day in general. That’s first and foremost on all of our minds.
“...I’m not mad. Disappointed is probably the best description of the way I feel about it.”
HISTORY
Clay and Waite played their first varsity football game on Nov. 3, 1961, and except for a stretch in the 1970s, and a one-year interruption in 1982, have faced each other every season since in what eventually became known as the Battle for the Oil Barrel trophy.
That moniker derives from the presence of two large oil refineries located in East Toledo and Oregon — formerly Sun Oil and Standard Oil, now Toledo Refining Co. and BP Toledo Refinery, respectively.
Between 1961 and the 2019 game, the two schools met 52 times on the football field, with Clay owning a 36-13-3 edge in the series.
For many years, an annual Clay-Waite smoker was held a day or two before the football game, with coaches, fans, and alumni of the two schools gathering to socialize and speculate on the upcoming rivalry game.
The Eagles and Indians had also competed in boys and girls basketball, baseball, softball, and most other sports over the years, and between 2003 and 2011, before Clay left to join the Three Rivers Athletic Conference, the Eagles shared City League membership with Waite.
COMMUNITY DYNAMIC
Over time, hundreds of Waite alumni moved further east across the border to become Oregon residents, many ultimately becoming parents of Clay student-athletes. Migration in the other direction is much less common.
Because the communities share the same “East of the Maumee River” association from the rest of Toledo, they are often viewed by those on the other side of the Maumee in the same light, although Oregon is generally a more affluent suburban setting, relatively speaking, and East Toledo has become more of a transient community with as many or more rental properties than family-owned homes.
Outside of its east-side population, the Clay-Waite rivalry did not carry the same high-profile, area-wide buzz as other traditional area rivalries — such as Maumee and Perrysburg’s Battle for the Ding-Dong Bell, or the Battle of Sylvania between Northview and Southview.
Much of that is because of the lack of football success for both Clay and Waite. The Clay Eagles have not won a football league championship since 1982 in the former Great Lakes League. And, although Waite tied Scott and Bowsher for first place in the City League in 2014, the Waite Indians have not captured a CL title since 1963.
Nevertheless, the Oil Barrel rivalry had its own value within the east side setting,
But, for the foreseeable future, that is now gone.
RIVALRY ORIGIN
For much of the 1920s, ’30s, ’40s, and into the ’50s, Waite was regarded as an elite football program, not only in northwest Ohio, but in the early days statewide and even nationally. The Indians teams of 1924 and 1932 were recognized as high school national champions.
As the 1960s began, it was time for Clay to finally schedule neighboring Waite in varsity football.
The Indians senior quarterback in that first Waite-Clay game was Bill Nopper.
Mr. Nopper would later earn an education degree from the University of Toledo, and return to his high school alma mater as a teacher, coach, and athletic director. He then served many years for Toledo Public Schools as the City League’s assistant commissioner.
When he lined up behind center in the 1961 game versus Clay, he looked across the line and realized he personally knew just about every Eagles defender.
“We all knew each other from hanging out at Pearson Park, or at sock hops and other dances,” Mr. Nopper recalled. “We knew each other. They had a good team, and that was a heck of a game.”
Mr. Nopper said he was disappointed about the rivalry split.
“I certainly hope, as soon as possible, that the powers that be get together and work out a plan where the rivalry can be resumed,” he said. “It’s just a natural for East Toledo and Oregon to have this competition. Hopefully this won’t last very long and will get back to normal.”
First Published February 29, 2020, 1:00 p.m.
