There’s a reason the Yankees are the most hated team in sports.

It has less to do with arrogant Bronx fans or their payroll and more to do with one undeniable fact: They put a quality product on the field year after year.

The same can be said for Sacramento State football fans’ hatred of everything UC Davis. It isn’t that they’re a better school, it isn’t that they have more money to spend on school, or even the location of said school. It’s the fact that we get waxed nearly every time we step on the field with them.

In 51 total meetings between the two teams, Davis has won 35, compared with just 16 for Sac State. The Aggie football program has also posted 35 consecutive winning seasons.

Nobody likes to get beat up on a consistent basis, but still there’s something to be said for being humble.

Last year, when living in Sierra Hall on campus, I was enjoying some TV on the Wednesday night before the Causeway Classic. Then, without warning, an Abercrombie clad fellow in a baseball cap invited himself in my room and asked me if I wanted to buy a T-shirt.

Ever the inquisitive type, even if I didn’t have the cash, I wanted to see the product before I told him to get the hell out of my room and never come back.

It was a green shirt with white screen printing that featured a simple phrase that was not very complementary to those Aggies across the Yolo causeway.

I told the guy I wasn’t interested and that unless he was a guest he should leave the building, to this he just shrugged. But then I got to wondering, why would anyone at Sac State buy that shirt? We haven’t won the game in five years!

We have no right to talk.

When I got to the game, things were even worse. Sitting in the Green Thunder section on the 50-yard line I was surrounded by fans uttering obscenities that would make Bobby Knight cringe. Then, almost as if on cue, fans began to give a one finger salute to the Davis fans across the way.

All I could do was shake my head and wonder what motivates these people.

Typical Sac State football fan: “Davis, oh yeah man I hate those arrogant bastards. What do you mean why? They’re Davis!”

Do we even know why we hate them anymore?

While rivalries are great for sports, especially collegiate football and basketball, they’re able to exist because both sides can gloat and that’s because both sides generally do fair share of winning. Even in the few one-sided “rivalries,” the losing side is at least humble and takes the winning side’s crap like a class act.

There’s a word Sac State could put in its vocabulary. Humble.

Probably a good deal of you are reading this right now wondering if I’m from Davis or have any ties to bicycle capital of California. No, I don’t. I do realize however that hating Davis isn’t going to make our football team perform any better against the Aggies, and I do know what will; actually cheering them on rather than cheering our team just to spite Davis.

Take all your negative energy that you’ve channeled toward Davis and focus it on positively cheering for “Led,” “AAA” and the boys. Maybe Davis didn’t admit you, maybe an ex goes there, maybe the In-N-Out in Davis forgot to hold the pickles, whatever it is focus more on our team than theirs.

One more thing, I do realize that Davis kids do the same to us but you know what? They’ve earned the right. They could be really cruel and a la Duke fans at Maryland games chant, “Not our rival!” but they don’t.

Nothing is more juvenile than pointing out someone else doing something bad to justify their own wrong doings.

Whenever I would do this when I was younger, and when I do today, my mom says, “If they jumped off a bridge, would you do it too?”

Given the amount of beer flowing through Hornet Stadium last year, I’m glad the Guy West Bridge was further than any of those drunks wanted to walk.

So this year, let’s try something new. When your High School buddy from Davis starts to talk, let him. Be humble and see what happens, we may just earn the right to make those Aggies come down from their cloud and smell the cow dung.

Contact John Parker at [email protected]