On the cusp of the Packers-Bears playoff matchup, Chicagoans stand united, Packtose intolerant, loathers of cheese in all its forms, sneering as often as possible in the direction of those green and gold neighbors to the north.
This is, after all, a rivalry. A big one, possessing all the key ingredients rival-ologists require: geographical proximity; two groups competing to reach the same goal; a long and enduring history of battle; and, of course, a heaping dose of good old-fashioned hatred.
While all eyes are on Sunday’s game, the truth is that rivalries are an ongoing part — sometimes even a motivational driver — of most people’s lives. They range from simple sibling rivalries or competition to outsell a co-worker to decades-long geopolitical conflicts that impact the broader functioning of our world.
“When we talk about rivals in international conflict, there’s an element of a long-standing competition,” said Paul Diehl, a political science professor at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and an expert on enduring rivalries. “India and Pakistan have been fighting for 65 years. A geopolitical rivalry is something where there has been a lot of competition in the past, and more to come in the future. That’s also true in sports.”
As individuals, we often seek out rivals as a means of self-motivation, setting up villains to act as measuring sticks for our own success.
“It puts more at stake in the outcome,” said Edward Hirt, a professor of psychology at Indiana University. “It adds a whole other level of motivation, whether it’s fear or anger of being trounced by somebody you don’t want to lose to, or bragging rights. … Often competition with other people sets the bar higher and helps us achieve what we expect and demand of ourselves.”
So Chicagoans are expecting much from the Bears, and the Packers are in the way. Fans feel a hatred toward their opponent — whether it’s real or manufactured — and that hatred can actually help people strengthen their own sense of identity.
“One way to represent who you are is by creating who you’re not,” Hirt said. “You have to have that contrast for it to be a worthwhile designation. It serves as a helpful way of making yourself unique if you’re not what the other team is.”
Bears fans, those on bended knee praying for another Super Bowl trip, are most definitely not “what the other team is.” They are not from a smallish Wisconsin city, but rather from a booming metropolis brimming with culture and industry and chic, corrupt politicians. They are tough and rugged, not “friendly” and “welcoming” as Wisconsinites are often described.
“Chicagoans have an attitude, there’s no question about it,” said Randy Roberts, a sports and pop-culture historian at Purdue University, which is in some adorably small city in Indiana. “Not quite the attitude of New York, but an attitude. But people from Wisconsin are like the friendliest, nicest people in the world. They speak with that funny little accent that they have. How can you get mad at them?”
Easily. The Bears and Packers have been rivals since Curly Lambeau was nothing more than a goofy name. And the last time the teams played a game of this significance was 1941, meaning fans of each team harbor an enormous amount of pent-up rival juice.
Roberts — a self-proclaimed Pittsburgh Steelers fan and possible Packer sympathizer — tried to make amends by speaking truth to rivalries like that between Chicago and Green Bay.
“A true rivalry to me exists when you don’t really know if you like your team better than you hate your rival,” he said. “You want to see your team win, but you so deeply and so passionately hate the other team that you take almost equal pleasure in seeing them lose.”
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Certainly not all rivalries have the same testosterone-fueled intensity of a football feud. The University of Oxford and the University of Cambridge, for example, are fierce rivals in Britain, with the oppositional focus there leaning more toward academics, even when sports are involved.
Prior to an annual rugby match between the two universities in 2006, a British rugby organization put out an advertisement to stoke the tensions, noting that Oxford had produced more prime ministers (26) than Cambridge (14).
Diehl, the rivalry expert, also pointed to gas wars in the 1960s and 1970s, when some competing gas stations dropped prices so low they lost money, but at least sold more gas.
“Or look at McDonald’s and Burger King,” he said. “They’re competing for the same market, and they’ve been at it forever. They put up restaurants right next to each other. You want to be successful, but it’s almost as important to make sure the other one doesn’t succeed.”
Clearly aware of the seriousness of the Bears-Packers rivalry, Bears coach Lovie Smith said from the minute he arrived at Halas Hall that his top priority would be beating the Green Bay Packers. He has had two chances this year, winning once and losing once.
Try No. 3 comes Sunday.
Whether motivated by their love for the Bears or their hatred of the Packers, the fans will undoubtedly be in full throat, hoping to nab what in the world of rowdy rivals can best be deemed a double win: Bears in the Super Bowl, Packers kept out.