Every year nearly 20,000 people stream into East Los Angeles College’s Weingart Stadium to watch a homecoming football game. Fans, players and community members have done so for the past eight decades. Yet unlike other longtime football rivalries, such as Alabama-Auburn and USC-UCLA, this one does not take place at a Division 1 college. Instead the pigskin game centers around two high schools — James A. Garfield and Theodore Roosevelt High School — and their social character and athletic traditions.
Played since pre-Depression years, the match between Garfield High and Roosevelt High is dubbed the East LA Classic. Promoters call The Classic the “largest football rivalry west of the Mississippi.” The game began the same year Garfield High opened in 1925, which was a year after Roosevelt opened its doors to students.
Since then it has become an annual tradition in the community, save for the few years during World War II when the game was not played because of the economic and social tolls of the Great Depression and World War II. It was first officially called The Classic in 1972.
As the student bodies of the schools and the neighboring area have grown, so has the impact of the game.
“We’re definitely a football school,” said Athletic Director Ruben Torres, who is also the baseball coach at Garfield High. “That’s not to take away from any of the programs. But usually as our football program runs it does affect some of the morale.”
To those at Garfield involved in planning the large-scale event, preparation is key. Administrators say the student body prepares for the game in various ways. Every year a press conference is held at ELAC, Garfield students decorate the hallways and participate in opposite day where they dress up in Roosevelt gear. A pep rally is held to round out the week’s events.
In addition to general student body traditions, a few nights before the face-off the Garfield Alumni Association garners sponsors for a steak dinner in honor of the two teams. During the dinner, the organization awards scholarships to the graduating seniors.
Many say these traditions work to bring sportsmanship to the event. The good-willed traditions also offers a new light for the community outside of the school.
“There’s some misconceptions out there that you’re in East L.A. and at the game there’s fights and the parents are all these chollos,” Torres said. “It couldn’t be further from the truth.”
“Everything is in the spirit of competition,” he added. “Roosevelt fans sit their fans on one side and Garfield sits their fans on another but at the end of the day everyone has to exit the stadium the same way.”
Garfield High School is located in a low-income neighborhood of the city that falls within the Los Angeles Unified School District. Approximately 91 percent of students at Garfield qualify for free or reduced lunch, according to Assistant Principal Javier Gonzalez. Of the 2,468 students enrolled in the school, 99 percent of them are of Hispanic descent. The graduation rate among seniors is 71 percent.
“I know [The Classic] is an experience that [the kids] will only encounter maybe once in their lifetime,” said head football coach Lorenzo Hernandez. “That appearance on that night in that stadium really gives you a good feeling. So you just imagine that as a player it is probably magnetized by the thousands.”
In addition to the players, many say those positive and supportive feelings surrounding The Classic extend off the field as well. Joe Espinosa, president of the Garfield Alumni Association, said the traditions have withstood the time. Since graduating from Garfield in the 1960s, Espinosa has regularly attended the match.
“I don’t think it’s really changed throughout the years because the schools have a lot of pride in them,” Espinosa said. “I have seen a lot of the different teams come through and some of these kids are really fantastic. It’s a very good rivalry.”
Torres noted that the demographic and socioeconomic makeup of the two schools has also led to the traditions being maintained and solidified. He said, “It makes for nice, pretty good dinner conversation leading up to the game and probably a couple weeks after the game.”
Athletic Director Torres said the most gratifying feeling comes the next morning, once the final score is recorded.
“You read the newspaper and all it says it’s another Classic,” he said. “And hopefully it says the winner is Garfield High on the right end, but that it’s all good and shines a nice light on the schools.”
For the past four years, Garfield has snagged those bragging rights for winning the game.
The East LA Classic between Garfield and Roosevelt High Schools will kick-off at 7 p.m. on Nov. 7 at ELAC.