The younger generation will never fully understand what the Penn Hills–Woodland Hills rivalry meant.

You had to live it.

This wasn’t just another football game or basketball matchup on the schedule. It wasn’t about standings or playoff seeding. It was personal.

Every player circled that date the moment the schedules came out. You carried that game with you all week. You couldn’t sleep the night before. You walked the halls of school with butterflies in your stomach because you knew what was waiting for you under those Friday night lights or on that basketball court.

In football, guys weren’t just trying to tackle you, they were trying to knock you out of the game. You kept your head on a swivel because somebody was always looking for the blindside hit. Knees weren’t safe. Heads weren’t safe. Every snap felt like a collision.

Basketball wasn’t much different. Nobody wanted to just win. You wanted to dunk on somebody. Cross somebody over. Embarrass them. Let them know whose town it was.

The rivalry became so intense that basketball games eventually had to be moved to 3:30 in the afternoon because the fights after the games had become out of control. My senior year at home against Woodland Hills, a fight involving around 30 people broke out after the game. Police had to bring in K-9 units just to restore order. It looked like a Royal Rumble.

Things got so bad that when we played them again later that season, no fans were allowed in the gym.

Ironically, that was the night I scored my 2,000th career point. Almost nobody got to witness it. That’s how powerful the rivalry had become.

But as great as the basketball battles were, football was the heartbeat of the rivalry.

It was our version of Alabama vs. Auburn. Ohio State vs. Michigan. The Backyard Brawl. Future Division I athletes. Future professionals. Future champions. Every year they collided wearing either Penn Hills red and gold or Woodland Hills turquoise and black.

Legendary coaches Neil Gordon and George Novak built programs that demanded toughness, discipline and pride. They represented everything their communities stood for, and the players followed their lead.

When those two men retired, it felt like a piece of the rivalry retired with them. The intensity slowly faded.

Back in the 1990s and early 2000s, it felt like two worlds colliding. If you ran into a Woodland Hills player outside of school, there was a good chance words, or worse, were about to be exchanged. That’s simply how much pride existed.

Today, many of us laugh together, tell stories and have tremendous respect for one another. Time has a way of doing that. As adults, you realize the rivalry helped shape all of us. It pushed us to become tougher competitors and better athletes.

I always joked with Woodland Hills players that they never won a WPIAL basketball championship or a state football title. But the truth is, I always respected them. They had incredible athletes, outstanding running backs and players who made us better every single time we faced them.

Special shoutout to Tutu Ferguson. He made me earn every point I scored. That’s respect.

Today, both school districts are much more transient than they once were, and this season Penn Hills and Woodland Hills won’t even play each other because they’re no longer in the same conference.

That’s a shame. Some rivalries are bigger than conference alignments. Some rivalries belong to an entire region.

Penn Hills vs. Woodland Hills is one of them. Western Pennsylvania deserves to see that game every single year.

Make the Penn Hills–Woodland Hills rivalry great again.