NEW HOPE — Jason McElveen cheered loudly when Columbus High School junior Dariyah Webb sank a 3-pointer from the right corner during the fourth quarter Friday at New Hope High School.
McElveen shouted in celebration again seconds later when the Trojans’ Lailah Henderson answered the bucket with a layup.
“I’m cheering everybody,” McElveen told those near him on the top row of the Falcons’ side of the New Hope gym Friday night. “I don’t care who wins.”
In perhaps the Golden Triangle’s biggest basketball rivalry, he might have been about the only one with that perspective — outside of those wearing stripes and blowing whistles.
Asked if anyone is truly neutral when the Falcons and Trojans get together, New Hope boys coach Drew McBrayer promptly answered, “No.”
He gave it a few seconds. The answer didn’t change.
“You’re either one way or the other,” McBrayer said. “We’ve even got some who go one way or the other depending on who they want to win that night.”
But McElveen, a South Carolina native who recently moved to Columbus, bucks that trend. The PA announcer — and general jack-of-all-trades — at Heritage Academy insists he has no preference between the two MHSAA Class 5A, Region 1 rivals.
His rooting interest? The “New Hope-Columbus Trojan-Falcons.”
“I want both teams to win,” McElveen said during the game. “I’m having a good time.”
During an agonizing triple-overtime boys game that saw New Hope win its 10th straight game against Columbus, he was perhaps the only one who was. Without a vested interest in the outcome, McElveen could sit back against the gym’s back wall and just enjoy the contest like few others.
While lightly heckling the referees, of course.
“It’s a pretty heated game,” McElveen said. “It’s good basketball. The officiating’s kind of ehhh, but it’s good basketball.”
It certainly was Friday night. The girls and boys teams played 76 combined minutes of basketball, and the total point margin was just three. The Columbus girls outlasted New Hope 41-38 after the Trojans failed to get off a 3-pointer in the closing seconds, and the Trojans boys returned the favor with a 91-85 victory.
Despite a 10th straight loss to New Hope, Columbus boys coach Phillip Morris admitted the nightcap was a classic contest — great for the fans who filled both sides of the bleachers.
“It was great both ways, but that’s normal with this,” McBrayer added. “Anytime us and Columbus get together, you know you’re going to have a pretty good crowd.”
Both teams’ fans were certainly spirited, but to McElveen, it couldn’t quite compare to what he grew up on.
He attended West Florence High School and still considers South Florence and Wilson high schools rivals for life.
“It wasn’t just, ‘Oh, we don’t like you for basketball season; that’s it,’” McElveen said. “We don’t like you all the time. You went to that school, I went to this school, and we didn’t like you. It wasn’t like, ‘I want to beat you up’ or anything, but it was a genuine dislike for each other for anything athletic or anything involving the schools. If we were playing checkers, I wanted my school to beat your school.”
To be sure, there’s some of that between the coaches and players involved in the New Hope-Columbus rivalry.
“Oh, God, yes,” Columbus girls coach Yvonne Hairston said when asked if it always felt good to beat the Trojans.
But Hairston offered a reminder that it’s not quite so black and white — or purple and gold. She pointed to the signs affixed to the gym’s opposite wall, the ones honoring standout New Hope teams of years past.
On the plaque for the Trojans’ Class A championship team in 1984 and the sign for their state runner-up squad the following year, the same name appears: Yvonne Davis.
Another name. Another school. Another life.
“This is home for me,” Hairston said. “My name is up there on them signs.”
She was one of few people around Friday night with connections to both schools. People like McElveen — with connections to neither — are even rarer.
Rooting for both teams sometimes earns McElveen weird looks — “but I just give weird looks back,” he said.
Unlike the Falcon faithful and the New Hope diehards, he’s only there for the love of the game.
“New Columbus Falcon Hope, let’s go,” McElveen said.
Theo DeRosa reports on Mississippi State sports for The Dispatch. Follow him on Twitter at @Theo_DeRosa.
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