Rivalry With St. Pius X High School
The Albuquerque Academy Chargers hold a fierce rivalry with the St. Pius X Sartans that has lasted for decades. Albuquerque Academy and St. Pius had evenly matched teams and were the largest two independent schools in the Albuquerque metropolitan area for years, fueling the rivalry which grew during the 1980s. Signs of the rivalry show up occasionally in acts of vandalism: St. Pius students apparently burned a large X into the Richard Harper Memorial Field at Albuquerque Academy (although this act was ascribed by some to students from La Cueva High School). Also, Academy students allegedly defaced the statue on the St. Pius campus numerous times. In 2000, all of the fingers except for the middle finger of the statue were broken off. This caused public outrage from the faculty of both schools, and a member of the Academy varsity soccer team was blamed.
Most recently, students at St. Pius X High School defaced a memorial site of a deceased Academy student on the Albuquerque Academy campus and spray-painted other areas around the campus, inciting outrage from both Albuquerque Academy and the St. Pius administrations. Though the offending students were dismissed, numerous members of the St. Pius community publicly protested what they viewed as an unfair punishment.
A notorious event in the rivalry's history occurred on October 6, 1976, when someone, allegedly St. Pius students, set fire to Albuquerque Academy's wooden press box the night before their annual football game. Another well-known event occurred in 1996, when a St. Pius football center played with two buckles on his helmet that were made razor sharp by his father. One Charger football player was hospitalized with serious injuries. The New Mexico Activities Association determined that this was the work of an individual, with no evidence to show that other students were involved.
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