How St. Joe’s Prep vs. La Salle became Philadelphia’s ultimate football rivalry

It had been more than a year since Scott Waters felt a football graze his pinky finger, deflecting what should have been an easy field goal and pushing La Salle College High to an upset win over St. Joseph’s Prep in 2005. They were bigger than rivals, two schools that played every Thanksgiving morning and warred for Catholic League supremacy.

“Everything was turned up to 11 when the other side was wearing black and red,” Waters said. “That’s how it always was.”

So no, Waters didn’t like the guys from the Prep. But here they were — days after graduating high school in the summer of 2007 — at the same Senior Week party in Ocean City. The prep-school kids who had used each other as measuring sticks for four years were in the same spot. It was time to put the swords down.

“I was like ‘Wait. What was the big to-do?’” Waters said. “We’re the same people. Why were we enemies? We’re all the same. This is fun.”

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And that’s why the Prep vs. La Salle is Philadelphia’s ultimate rivalry. The Phillies have the Mets and the Eagles have the Cowboys, but how often do those players end up hanging together at the Shore or attending the same college or working in the same Center City office?

It is a game as intense as ever — more than 10,000 fans are expected Saturday when they meet again at Franklin Field — as the result often defines a season. These guys don’t like each other. Maybe it’s because they’re so similar.

“In my experience, most of the kids narrowed their choices down to two schools: La Salle or the Prep,” said Joe Colistra, who starred at La Salle in the 1960s and was the head coach for 21 seasons.

“The thing that made the game so special was that the families of the young men who went to each school were very, very similar to each other in their economic makeup, social standings, and in many cases their neighborhoods,” Colistra said. “The kids know each other before they go into high school. The rivalry was naturally born, and it went beyond the football field. It reached the families and the alumni.”

St. Joe’s Prep-La Salle might be the city’s best high school rivalry, but it is far from the oldest. Two Inter-Ac rivalries — Episcopal Academy vs. the Haverford School and Penn Charter vs. Germantown Academy — date to the 1880s. Central has Northeast, Archbishop Ryan feuds with Father Judge, and North Catholic loved to play Frankford.

All of them predate Prep-La Salle, which didn’t start the rivalry until 1976, when the schools’ administrations thought it would be a good idea to play on Thanksgiving. The greatest rivalry is not that historic.

St. Joe’s Prep played Malvern Prep on Thanksgiving and didn’t really have a true rival. Some years it was Archbishop Carroll, others it was Cardinal O’Hara or St. James. La Salle changed rivals just as often. One year, the Explorers played the Pennsylvania School for the Deaf on Thanksgiving. The Prep and La Salle needed a big game, and it didn’t take long for it to become a rivalry.

“The first game was played at Springfield High School,” Colistra said of the Montgomery County school. “Can you imagine? There were only stands on one side. That was overwhelming. There were fans ringing the field. The track was filled with fans.”

The best rivalries have a common thread, and the Prep and La Salle were then the two non-Diocesan schools in the Catholic League. They were already seen as different from the schools that built their teams through feeder parishes. Prep and La Salle often found themselves drawing students from the same areas.

“We were going for that same type of kid: a high performer in the classroom, a driven-type kid who wants that prep experience and wants to be challenged,” said Gil Brooks, who coached the Hawks from 1992 to 2009.

“I used to always say you could see it in the parents,” Brooks said. “I could say, ‘We’re practicing at 4 o’clock in the morning and Johnny has to run through a brick wall and you have to lead the way,’ and the parents would be there at 4 o’clock slamming into that brick wall. La Salle had a lot of the same kids.”

The rivalry was one-sided for years — La Salle won 14 of the first 17 games — but it became so popular that the game moved from a high school field to La Salle University. The Explorers were a powerhouse and the Prep wasn’t yet the Prep.

But then Brooks, who played at the Prep in the 1970s just before the rivalry started, became the head coach. Everything changed.

“When I came back, I knew right away that it was a huge game,” Brooks said. “You could literally make the case that from a Prep alumni standpoint: They don’t care about the 10 games beforehand. They just cared about that La Salle game.”

The already entrenched rivalry became even better when the games became competitive. Brooks lost his first game in 1992 against La Salle — which had current Buffalo Bills head coach Sean McDermott at quarterback — but toppled the giant in 1993. St. Joe’s Prep soon became one of the nation’s top programs, and the rivalry was more real than ever.

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“I remember getting notes from alumni and some were anonymous letters,” Colistra said. “They would say, ‘No matter what your season record is, just beat the Prep.’ It was one of those things. Texas-Oklahoma or Penn State-Pitt back in the day. Name any kind of natural rivalry that there is, and this was natural.”

The games often matched the hype, like in 1996 when Brett Gordon — now the Explorers head coach — tied the score in the fourth quarter with a fourth-down touchdown pass and then kicked the winning field goal with just seconds remaining. Or last season when La Salle won in four overtimes. Or in 1997 when Brooks ordered his coaches to stop calling a zone defense against Gordon because the teenager could read defenders like a pro.

“We blitzed them every snap ,and we won that game,” Brooks said. “I still have a picture with us and that big trophy. You can make a case that there was more excitement that we won that game than when we beat Ryan in the [Catholic League] championship game.”

The Thanksgiving tradition ended in 2006 as scheduling forced many area schools to cancel rivalry games. A new Catholic League alignment meant the Prep and La Salle could potentially play each other three times: in the regular season, on Thanksgiving, and in the playoffs. It became too much. The schools agreed to drop the Thanksgiving game for just the regular-season matchup.

But the games — just as on Thanksgiving — still become memories, something for players to think about long after the clock runs out.

“I got this from one of my teachers at La Salle, and it was one of the things I always told my players,” Colistra said. “If you do your best, you have two lives: the life you lived and the life of your memories. Often, the life of your memories is bigger in many ways.”

The Prep had grown into a national powerhouse by the time it beat La Salle by a touchdown in October 2005. But the close loss allowed the Explorers to believe they could hang with the juggernaut. They got their chance on Thanksgiving, just four days after La Salle blew a lead against Cardinal O’Hara in the playoffs. But this was Prep-La Salle, the game so important that it could make a disappointing season feel like a championship year.

“That game is always everyone’s best shot every time because you know that’s the one that matters most,” Waters said.

It was cold and damp that morning as the student sections chanted back and forth across Franklin Field. The stands were packed, just like they were when Waters attended the games as a child to watch his older brother. The intensity was ramped up. It was a rivalry.

“Everything you think high school football is supposed to be in the Northeast is what that game felt like,” Waters said.

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La Salle hung with Goliath but seemed to run out of rocks as the fourth quarter faded away. The Prep marched down the field with the score tied, positioning itself for an easy field goal. It was over. But Waters — a 185-pound defensive back who was also on the Explorers’ crew — had a chance.

He lined up as a defensive end on the field-goal block, sped past the offensive line, and blocked the kick as time expired. It was a frenzy as the players chased after the ball and Waters ended up on Prep’s sideline.

“I looked at them and said, ‘See you in overtime, boys,’” Waters said.

La Salle won the game in OT and Colistra’s house was filled on Thanksgiving with “people who I hadn’t seen in years.” A win made a meal that much better, and a loss could spoil a holiday.

“It was such an empty feeling,” Colistra said of a loss to the Prep. “The turkey didn’t even taste good.”

Colistra retired after that game, and La Salle knocked off the Prep again the next season for the Catholic League championship. Ted Silary — the legendary Daily News sportswriter who covered St. Joe’s Prep and La Salle better than anyone — picked the Hawks to win that game by three TDs. The kids saw it and used it as fuel. Anything to make a rivalry better.

“He pegged us to lose 35-14 and we won that game 14-7,” Waters said. “The running joke was that he got half the score right.”

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It felt great to win a title but even better when it came against the school you constantly tried to be better than. It’s what makes a rivalry a rivalry. And then you’re partying on Senior Week and wondering why you didn’t just get along.

“It humored me that when our kids went away to college, a lot of their best friends were La Salle guys,” Brooks said. “When I look back, there’s some things I’m proud about. Thirty-five wins in a row, the championships, and all that is great. But that’s not what was important. It was important to get to know these kids, make them better football players and better men. And then create memories.

“I talk to Kevin Stefanski [the Cleveland Browns head coach] all the time, and I talked to him after he beat Green Bay. No one gave him a shot to win,“ Brooks said of the Browns’ 13-10 victory two weekends ago. “The great part is that all the Prep guys from his class came out to that game. After the game, they’re all at his house.

“A professional football coach with one of the biggest wins you can have and how is he celebrating it? With his Prep teammates. That’s the stuff that sticks with you.”