Friendly Franciscan challenge unites two high schools for Ravens-Bills playoff clash

The young men at Archbishop Curley High School want to make it clear to their Franciscan brothers at St. Francis High School near Buffalo, N.Y. They are confident their beloved Baltimore Ravens are going to beat the Buffalo Bills in the NFL playoffs on Sunday night.

And to prove it, the school sent a challenge via a hype video to the student body of its New York brother school.

Featuring students wearing Ravens gear and sharing silly barbs such as,  “Ravens fans hang out at M&T Stadium or the bank, which sounds professional, while Bills fans hang out at Highmark Stadium, which sounds like a gas station,” the video ends with students issuing the challenge outside.

If the Ravens win, the students at St. Francis will wear the Ravens’ colors on Tuesday and give a donation to the Franciscan Center in Baltimore. If the Bills should win, the boys at Curley will wear Buffalo’s red, white and blue and give a donation to a local nonprofit there (Feed More of Western New York.)

“I am a true bleeding purple Ravens fan,” said Dalton Scheckells, a Curley senior, who is the narrator in the short. “The students loved doing it. I’m super excited about it. It was great and a little comical.”

At a pep rally held Friday morning at Archbishop Curley, the student body saw for the first time St. Francis High School’s reply. It, too, featured the school’s student body cheering on their team and sharing silly jibes. It ended with several shirtless students standing outside the school in the snow.

The forecast for the nationally televised game in upstate New York calls for temperatures in the teens and possibly snow.

“You don’t know anything about the cold. You’re just visiting. We live here. It is nothing to us,” the narrator says, before the group throws themselves into the snow shouting “Go Bills.”

As the auditorium’s lights came on, Curley’s principal, Jeremy Joseph, thanked the students for “keeping your shirts on” in their video.

The two schools, both founded by the Franciscan Friars Conventual of the Province of Our Lady of the Angels, have long enjoyed a camaraderie, according to Joseph. Various athletic teams have traveled to New York to compete, and teachers and staff have visited.

The friendly football banter goes back to the 1970s when the Bills and Baltimore Colts were divisional rivals.

“Our missions are similar,” Joseph said. “We build great men rooted in their faith with a heart for service.”

St. Francis’ current president, Conventual FranciscanFather Matt Foley, ministered at Curley for 10 years before being assigned to St. Francis. A photo of him is even featured in Curley’s hype video  — the students are shown sticking a Ravens symbol on his baseball cap.

Father Foley joined Curley’s pep rally virtually.

“I came from Curley. It was a privilege to work with you guys,” Father Foley told the group, reminding them they “have brothers” in New York.

“This has been a whole lot of fun. Brothers at their best,” Father Foley said, in an interview. “Both schools do a great job forming young men.”

Email Katie V. Jones  at kjones@CatholicReview.org

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