For almost a century, Rye and Harrison’s legendary meet-ups on the football field have been driven by a singular charge: us against them.
But at a recent Garnets and Huskies get-together, chest-thumping and fight songs were nowhere to be found, and the only sign of a rumble was the bass that boomed from the DJ’s sound system and echoed off the walls of Rye High’s gym.
For two and a half hours on a frigid February evening, 100 students from both schools came together at the second-ever Rye-Harrison Friday Night Mixer. Some danced to the beat, others were drawn to games like spike ball and cornhole, and they lined up to cheer each other on at tug-of-war.
At tables set up by Rye’s Chemistry Club, they traced and colored unicorns and hearts on plastic sheets to create Shrinky Dink keychains. They filled up on pizza and sandwiches and nibbled on brownies baked by Rye and Harrison’s special education students.
“At the end of the day, it’s just the school next door,” said Kaya Kose, a Harrison sophomore. “We don’t have to be rivals for everything.”
The mixer was the brainchild of students from both high schools who are committed to preventing alcohol and substance use among their peers. Ironically, it was a Rye-Harrison football game that brought them together.
“Student leaders from the RyeACT RHS Youth Action Team have done a lot of prevention messaging around the Rye-Harrison Game, which tends to be a big weekend associated with a lot of drinking and substance use,” said Nancy Pasquale, RyeACT Coalition coordinator.
On game day three years ago, Rye’s Youth Action Team invited students from Harrison’s Y2Y (Youth 2 Youth) Club to join them in putting prevention messaging stickers on more than 3,000 concession items, from cups of noodles to water bottles to candy and snacks.
They had so much fun getting to know each other that they wanted to keep the party going. A planning committee was formed, and the first Rye-Harrison Friday Night Mixer brought 250 students to Harrison High’s gym in the spring of 2023. Fewer people attended this time, but that might have been because of the frigid weather or because it had to be rescheduled from late November with the Rye football team’s journey to the state championships in Syracuse.
Excited about the mixer’s success, they made plans to hold one every other year. This year was Rye’s turn to host.
While the groups are guided by adults from both schools — RyeACT’s Pasquale; RHS social worker Sandy Degenhardt; HHS’s student assistance counselor Dana McCarthy, and school psychologist Samantha Pisani — the mixer is completely student-led.
For the student organizers, inclusivity was key every step of the way. They invited clubs and classes from both schools to choose the activities, promote the event, set up the gym and run the games, crafts, and concessions.
“It gives us an opportunity to come together,” said Rye junior Fiona Marino, “and kind of makes a bridge between the two communities.”
The members of Rye’s Youth Action Team and Harrison’s Y2Y clubs are no strangers to fostering healthy relationships. Their aim is to show up for themselves by protecting their physical and mental health. And to show up for their friends to help them stay healthy and safe.
“The purpose of RyeACT is to stop the stigma (of mental health issues) and spread awareness,” said Rye senior Miloa Garely. “Finding peers in other towns is also very helpful.”
Rye High School’s principal, Andrew Hara, is encouraged by the shift he sees around peer pressure giving way to respect for individual choices.
“To see the students who are parts of these clubs, who are also friends with probably some of the students who in their free time on the weekends are partaking in activities where they’re drinking, it says a lot that you can see those same students together, even in friend groups.”
Whether you’re a Garnet or Husky, the challenges facing high schoolers — navigating friendships, searching for a sense of belonging, school and social pressure, and the delicate dance of connection — reach across town lines.
Another tradition that binds Rye and Harrison is the Christopher Mello Award, which is given each year during the Rye-Harrison football game to honor a player from each team who shows athleticism, scholarship, leadership, and a commitment to community service. It was instituted to honor Christopher Mello, a Rye High School grad who died in one of the planes that crashed on 9/11.
“There’s that awkwardness of being a teenager and approaching anybody that you don’t know,” said Harrison High School principal Kim Beukema. “It’s hard enough to do that at your own school, let alone at a new school.”
But at The Rye-Harrison Friday Night Mixer, attendees were learning that, while neighbors can be rivals on the field, they can be there for each other the rest of the year.
