The Coyote vs. Knight feud soared to new heights this football season: the rival student bodies took their battle online before the first whistle blew at the Star.

Twitter awoke days before the October 6 football game against cross-town rival Independence, from students responding to each other’s tweets on twitter. After IHS’s student council tweeted to their following to wear camo and “hunt the coyotes,” Heritage students responded.

In this instance, it would have been better to remain silent and avoid confusion that followed the event. By taking the low road and firing back, it causes more damage than good.  

“I don’t really understand it,” HHS sophomore, Gabriella Lapp said during an interview. “You don’t hunt coyotes”

Independence senior Parker Buhler said the goal of the tweet was to help get Knights to the game. With the close mile distance of the schools, Coyotes noticed.

“I responded ‘0 coyotes will be hunted’,” Heritage junior Harrison McFarland tweeted . “I thought it was pretty funny they wore camo so they could hide from us.”  

McFarland added that Independence is like Heritage’s little brother. With middle school students  being split into different schools once high school is reached, divided students want badly to beat their friends now rivals.

“A lot of my friends went to Independence,” Heritage sophomore Chief Murgerson said before the game.  “I just wanted to beat them so I could bring a good reputation to my school.”

Friend divides were drives for the Knights, along with their previous defeat in September 2016 by the Coyotes. Sophomore Meredith Beck from Independence said those factors overall intensified their rivalry.

Though schools had mixed emotions with the win for Heritage, a common agreement was made. “You can never take back a tweet,” IHS senior Jacob Smith says. “It’s there forever.”

Independence and Heritage broadcast teacher Candace Bagwell said it’s really easy to start throwing jabs and shade at each other in the heat of the competition over the battle of Eldorado.

“You are personally branding yourself and your approach on how you switch something into context. Even something you saw as friendly competition, you can’t control the context somebody reads it as,” Bagwell says. “Employers, colleges, are all looking at that … you can’t go back.”

With students freely posting opinions on the internet, many agree building a positive environment through social media could possibly bring the schools closer.

“Twitter can bond others together. If I tweeted about how well Heritage played it could create a positive relationship between schools with the same rivalry there.” Buhler said.

While students of both schools feel that Twitter is a great place to hype up the team, make jokes, a spread information quickly, students are aware of the consequences.

“There is a difference between having school spirit and talking trash on social media. Talking trash about another team on Twitter is immature, whether you were the one to tweet it first, or if you reply to it,” Buhler said.

There are different ways to react to a tweet opposing your school.  Staying above the negativity, either by remaining silent or tweeting positive messages, bring schools out of the fire.  Adding more to the fight just makes it harder to sort.

Image obtained by Ashlyn Wilde.
Harrison McFarland, like other students, responded to the Independence tweet.