French novelist Jean-Baptiste Alphonse Karr once wrote, “the more things change, the more they stay the same.”

That seems true enough, especially if you’re talking about this year’s Battle for the Chief between the Orestimba and Gustine high school football teams.

For nearly 80 years, the Warriors and Reds have battled on the gridiron, often with league supremacy and playoff implications at stake. And more often than not, the annual showdown happened during the final week of the regular season.

But not this year.

The one-time Southern League rivals find themselves in separate conferences (after Orestimba was shifted to the Trans-Valley League) and playing for the Chief during Week 1. 

“I cannot remember a time in my life that it’s ever been the season opener,” said Orestimba coach Aaron Souza, the winningest coach in OHS history with a career mark of 94-56. “It’s going to be a different feeling, kicking off in daylight, with fans wearing T-shirts and shorts. Usually, it’s dark at kickoff, with cold November weather.”

The rivalry was played during Week 1 a handful of times in the 1960s and ’70s. And, at other times when the schools have been in separate leagues, it’s been played in the third or fourth week of the season.

Either way, the game still is played for the Chief, a 5-foot-tall wooden carving of a Native American chief holding — what else? — a football.

“Oh, it means the world to us,” said Gustine running back Joao Palomino, who rushed for 1,100 yards in his sophomore campaign. “As you’re growing up, you get a feel for this rivalry and how deep it is within the communities. It’s a tradition, more than just a wooden statue.”

The teams have been playing for the Chief since 1987, when former Gustine athletic director David Shaw commissioned Lake Tahoe wood sculptor Matthew Welter to come up with something that could be used as a perpetual trophy. But long before the Chief, this game was, and remains, about bragging rights for these communities located just four miles apart.

“This game is truly generational,” said Souza, an Orestimba graduate whose father and father-in-law are OHS grads while his wife, mother and mother-in-law are graduates of GHS. “It’s a game that is talked about for a lifetime. It’s bragging rights for life.”

Now, however, it’ll be used as a gauge, to measure how prepared each team is for the upcoming season.

“This will be a good metric to see where we’re at,” said Gustine coach Collin Lane. “I think it can be a good thing playing Week 1. It gets it over with, instead of hanging over the kids’ heads all season. They tend to get a little lost in that. This way, we don’t have to wonder how they are doing, and if our scores are comparable.”

Lane got a favorable impression of his squad on Friday when they scrimmaged against defending Division 4 Central Section champ Torres (Madera), and D-4 playoff qualifier Chowchilla.

“We were very competitive,” said Lane. “I was actually surprised by how competitive we were.”

Souza’s squad also shined during its scrimmage jamboree against the likes of El Capitan, Atwater, West, Lathrop, Patterson, Pitman, and Ceres.

“I felt like we had some bright spots,” said Souza, whose team returns six starters on offense, plus two others who saw significant playing time, and seven starters on defense, in addition to three others who saw significant action on that side.

Regardless of the outcome, or the margin of the final score, the 78th meeting between these rivals promises to be like the previous 77 … a battle.