I grew up in small town located in northern New Jersey called Randolph. Randolph is located approximately 45 minutes from New York City. It is your typical suburb with town center, Main Street, shopping centers, restaurants and four different elementary schools. The people in my town can be considered very active people. Everyone plays an active role in the community, whether that is donating, coaching sports, organizing a charity event or helping clean up the town. In addition, the people in my town are very competitive in nature and spirit, especially when it comes to sports. The most competitive sport is baseball, kids start at a young age in little league. Heinsteins Park, located in the Ironia section of Randolph, is notoriously known as the little league headquarters. The park is comprised of two little league fields, named “2a” and “2b”. “2a” is known as the field where the really good players play, the kids who make the summer all-star team. “2b” on the other hand, is known as the field that the scummy players get to play on.
You could easily tell by looking at the fields which one you would rather play on. “2a” has the nice infield grass, the groomed dirt, and the professional looking dugouts. “2b” doesn’t even compare, it has an all dirt infield, no dugouts and players share equipment. There is a lot of animosity between the players on which field they get to play on. The player’s who get to play on field “2a”, showboat around and think they are the next MLB superstars. The kids who play on “2b” wish they could one day play on the nice field. They constantly strive to improve their skills so they could one day make it on the professional looking field. Not only are the players competitive, the parents of the players are way worse. They always put their children on a pedestal, believing that their child will be the next Babe Ruth.
Another aspect of my town that forms a type of segregation based on location is what elementary school you went too. There are a total of four elementary schools; they are Ironia, Shongum, Fernbrook and Center Groove. As an elementary school student there was a formed stereotype on what school you went too. The Ironia kids were considered farm kids, the Fernbrook kids were considered poor/ghetto, the Fernbrook kids were considered rich and the Shongum kids were considered the jocks/athletes. Now as an elementary student I had no idea these stereotypes even existed, later that changed when I entered Randolph Middle School. When I transitioned into middle school, I finally got to meet all the kids from the other schools and learn what each stereotype meant.
I was an Ironia kid and I couldn’t understand why I would be considered a farm kid. It was definitely hard to adjust into a bigger middle school, when coming from such a small elementary school. Your class goes from 150 to 400+ in one day, plus there was a lot of animosity between most students because of all the new faces. After a while everyone learned to adjust and make new friends and people were able to get along and coexist. These are the people I eventually had seven years of school and eventually graduated High School with. Now that I look back on it, the stereotypes really made no sense what so ever, they weren’t even true at all.
Roxbury the neighboring town of Randolph was our biggest rivalry in everything. By using the word everything I mean, academics, sports (the biggest aspect), community service and overall town wellbeing/spirit. The road leading into Roxbury was considered the most controversial part of town. High School students from both towns would meet on this road. Sometimes there would be fights and sometimes there would just be just trash talk. This road was definitely patrolled by both town police because of such the heated rivalry.
High School sports were the biggest aspect of the rivalry, whether it is baseball, basketball, football, lacrosse, soccer or field hockey. Each game grew huge crowds whenever it would be Randolph vs. Roxbury. Each sporting venue whether it is at our home field or Roxbury’s home field was sacred grounds for both teams. There were numerous fights between students over protecting their home school turf. Looking back the rivalry was a good thing because it promoted competition and gave people the desire to do better.
