This weekend, DC has a different century-spanning power struggle: St John's vs Gonzaga - USA Today

After the Chicago Bears' victory over the Seattle Seahawks Monday night, Caleb Williams sat down for his SportsCenter interview in front of a rowdy wall of Bears fans. Chants of “MVP!” rang out around him. 

Host Scott Van Pelt hit all the regular notes – the tempo, the fans, the expectations – but it was the rare high school shoutout that reverberated through Washington, D.C.

“I know a bunch of folks that wear purple and wear that gigantic G that are real proud of what you’re doing in this league,” VanPelt said, referencing Gonzaga High School in Washington, D.C.

“Eagles fly high,” Williams said with a smile. 

VanPelt probably had something particular on his mind: It’s the biggest weekend of the year for Williams’ alma mater.

Gonzaga College High School (7-2) and St. John’s College High School (8-1), or "That Team on Eye Street" and "That Team on Military Road," according to each other, will play for the 106th time this Saturday, Nov. 7. The all-time record is currently tied at 50-50-5, giving Saturday’s edition of one of the country’s oldest rivalries some extra teeth — not that it needs it. 

In the city where politics, power and money are always center stage, the impending game is already everywhere. “God is purple” shirts circulate among the city’s Gonzaga fans, "God is not purple" among the St. John's contingent. Custom-made yard signs go up and white sheets hang off the Beltway (and once, even the capitol building): "Go St. John's, beat Gonzaga," or "Go Gonzaga, beat St. John's."

“If you are lucky enough to come to (the game), you’ll be like that is one of the best high school football experiences I’ve ever come to,” said Mike Ward, a class of 2006 St. John’s football alumnus and the team’s defensive coordinator. “And if you’re lucky enough to play in it, you’ll never forget it the rest of your life.”

First, let’s go back a few years – or 100. 

The two schools met on the football field for the first time around 1889, but the rivalry’s “modern era” officially took hold circa 1928. The two have played every year since, broken up only by a two-year gap from 1979-80 when Gonzaga stepped back to recoup its program amidst struggles tied to the safety of its neighborhood in downtown D.C. 

“It goes back to the days when there were only a couple Catholic schools in Washington, D.C.,” said Paul Warren, a Class of 1968 Gonzaga alumnus and author of "Echo Ever Proudly: Gonzaga High School in the Press 1821-1899" (among others), on how the two fell into such an intense rivalry. “Catholics were a minority in those days, and so they were very well aware of each other, and the rivalry just naturally developed.”

The game has gone through its fair share of momentum swings – St. John’s dominated the 70s, Gonzaga the 80s and 90s, and lately the two have traded blows a bit more consistently. 

Alongside Gonzaga’s regroup in the 70s, St. John’s has gone through its fair share of changes over the years — the school discontinued their college department to become a full-time high school in 1921 (Gonzaga did the same in the early 20th century), before becoming coed and making their JROTC program optional in 1991. The school’s military background is still on display at the blockbuster game as their whole cadet corps performs a synchronized march for their storied “March On” tradition before kickoff.

Over the years, the rivals’ home in the nation’s capital has proven itself the perfect backdrop for some pre-game hijinks. In 1969, Gonzaga students convinced the Park Police that they were conducting a scientific experiment, gaining access to tape purple celluloid over the Washington Monument’s lights to turn it purple. In 1966, they unfurled a "Go Gonzaga, Beat St. John’s" banner from the Capitol building itself. 

Pat and Mike Ward, however, were born with St. John’s in their blood. In D.C.’s parochial school community, it’s passed down through families without much choice – not that they ever would have made a different one. 

“Our grandfather was class of ‘37. Our two great uncles were ‘42 and ‘53. Our uncle Mike was ‘69. I’m ‘93 and Mike’s 2006,” Pat said, gesturing to his little brother Mike. “We have six generations of St. John’s.”

The Gonzaga games of their own playing years are still the ones burned into their heads – “I can’t remember what I had for dinner, but I can remember (the winning play) my senior year,” Mike Ward said with a laugh. And both have since returned to the program after successful college careers. Pat held the head coaching position from 2020 to 2025 after multiple decades with the program, before moving to his current role as the dean of athletics. Mike is currently the team’s defensive coordinator. 

“What we’ve pretty consistently told our kids and what was told to me when I played in this game, (and) I’m sure what was told to Pat, is this game isn’t like other games. You lace your laces a little bit tighter, put your helmet on a little bit tighter, because it just means more,” said Mike Ward.

There’s animosity, to be sure, but also a lot of underlying connection. A city of 693,000, made up largely of transplants, D.C. feels more like a small town than a big city to its native residents – and with red (St. John's) and purple (Gonzaga) blood coursing through the city’s Catholic population in particular, there’s a lot of “connective tissue” between the two schools, in Pat' Ward’s words. 

When former Gonzaga athletic director Joe Reyda passed away in 2023, St. John’s wore stickers on their helmets for him, as one example. There’s a lot of respect, and quite a lot of overlap in the schools’ Venn diagram. But, for the record, rivalry chatter doesn’t stop for any occasion. 

“It doesn’t even matter if it’s a funeral or wedding, there’s going to be friendly banter and jabs thrown about the rivalry. That’s just kind of how it goes,” said Jeffrey Clay, a Class of 1994 Gonzaga football alumnus and member of the school’s athletic hall of fame. 

He himself landed in an unlikely rivalry friendship. After four years of loathing the St. John’s quarterback at the time, Kevin Ricca, the two found themselves on the same collegiate team at D.C.’s Catholic University. After keeping their distance freshman year, the two became (and remain) great friends. 

When Ricca couldn’t make it to Clay’s Hall of Fame induction in 2019, he sent a video of his two young kids. “Congratulations, hall of famer,” they start. “Sorry we couldn’t be there.”

But of course, the dig had to be swift. Ricca’s son says purple is for girls, and his daughter retorts that even she doesn’t wear purple. 

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