Junction City and Manhattan High School students and officials gathered for a summit this past week at the Devin Center in Junction City. According to USD 475 connectED they focused on the importance of sportsmanship on both sides of the field.

JCHS Athletic Director Matt Westerhaus told JC Post that they believe the Manhattan – Junction City rivalry is one of the best in the state. “And we want to enhance and grow that rivalry as much as we possibly can. We think there’s been some kind of outliers that unfortunately that has drawn a lot of attention and taken away from the ( football ) game itself.”

Westerhaus noted administrators, coaches, and most importantly the students from the two schools met. They discussed the meaning of the rivalry and where to go in the future to correct some of the issues detracting from the rivalry. “Some of the things that we talked about were what can we potentially do to enhance, be a little bit more positive.”

Westerhaus said he thought the students attending the summit were curious about what would happen. “Little curious because some of these students obviously didn’t know each other. And it was good for them to get an opportunity to talk to opposing school kids, and understand that they’re the same people, they’re the same. I think one of the things that we took out of this is down the road an opportunity for maybe our student section leaders or organizations to get together to provide some outreach, some positive messages in regard to the rivalry.  Westerhaus added he thought the student councils from the two schools would do a swap where they would visit the other school for a couple of days to get know the members.

Westerhaus said, “It’s got to be our students that want to do something. I think we have some great leaders, they have some great leaders. Hopefully we can enhance the rivalry and not talk about the negative stuff.”