Sometime in the coming weeks, state workers will bring permanent neutrality to the world's largest football trophy.

They will mount a "Rochester-Monaca Bridge" sign on the east end of the span over Ohio River and a "Monaca-Rochester Bridge" sign on its west end.

And thus will end a rivalry that was short in lifespan -- 21 years is nothing in Western Pennsylvania football -- but perfect in every other way.

Monaca and Rochester are small, working-class towns, both populated by second- and third-generation immigrants, both left bereft by the vanished steel industry and both football-crazy.

They have long winning traditions on the field and little else to brag about. They stare each other down across the Ohio River, with an imposing steel arch running from the heart of one downtown to the heart of the other.

Since 1988, the winner of the Rochester Rams-Monaca Indians game has won naming rights for the bridge for 12 months. When the Rams win, police stop traffic and workers mount "Rochester-Monaca Bridge" signs to the overhead beams at each end.

When the Indians win, the signs read "Monaca-Rochester Bridge." The game -- always the last of the regular season, the only time to schedule a true rivalry matchup -- naturally has become known as "The Bridge Game."

"We've had some big ball games," Monaca principal and assistant coach Shawn McCreary said. "I've coached when both teams were undefeated, and as recently as last year, we played for the division title. …

"But as important as the game itself is, it's also about the week leading up to it, all the talk about it. You get talking to people in the community, and they're all talking about when their father was in it, when their brother was in it."

"You have to experience it to understand it," former Rochester coach and current Monaca administrator (sort of, but we'll get to that) Dan Matsook said. "There's a lot of pride."

This year's players had better hold onto that pride because on Saturday, it all comes to an end.

The Monaca School District this summer merged with Center Area School District to form Central Valley. The elementary schools were consolidated this year, and the middle and high schools will consolidate next year. Monaca Junior-Senior High School will be no more; the building will become Central Valley Middle School.

This year's Indians will become part of next year's Central Valley Warriors, playing in what is now Center's stadium.

"I understand why we're merging, and I look forward to the future," Mr. McCreary said. "But it is the end, and it's going to be bittersweet no matter what the outcome is."

The two districts merged largely because Monaca's shrinking enrollment -- it has fewer than 700 students this year -- was making it difficult to offer a full curriculum, and the district was facing eventual renovation needs it could not afford. Center, meanwhile, also was losing enrollment, and leaders there saw an opportunity for a revitalized district.

The initial results have been good -- Central Valley's 2009-10 budget is $1 million less than the two district's combined 2008-09 budgets, elementary programs are reportedly humming along and planning is under way for an enhanced secondary curriculum and further costs savings next year.

But there is no way to plan for the Bridge Game -- Central Valley probably will be two class levels larger than Rochester.

"We're playing for the biggest trophy in the United States," Rochester head coach Gene Matsook said. "I'm sorry to see it go."

Gene Matsook was an assistant coach for Rochester in the first Bridge Game in 1988. He assisted his brother, Dan, who is now superintendent of Central Valley School District.

Monaca's head coach that first year was Joe O'Neil, who will coach Monaca's defense this year as an assistant to Sam Cercone, who was a Monaca freshman in 1988 and lists the 1991 game among his favorite memories, even though Monaca lost.

Rochester athletic director Ryan Bauer, who is organizing what promises to be a moving pre-game ceremony for Saturday's game, played in the second Bridge Game in 1989. Monaca Mayor John A. Antoline will be part of those pre-game ceremonies. He played against the Rams in 1981, when it was just a natural rivalry.

But the longest memories, perhaps, belong to Gerry LaValle, a one-time Rochester coach who was the town's mayor in 1988 and later served as a state senator.

He remembers 40, 50, 60 years back, when the game was just a vicious rivalry without a name.

"If you go way back in the history of Monaca and Rochester, we had some big brawls," Mr. LaValle said. "You didn't dare go across the bridge in those days."

That rivalry ended, however, when Rochester outgrew its Class-A designation in 1970 and moved up to play against larger schools. Beaver became Rochester's big rival, with Midland filling the role for Monaca.

Rochester returned to Class A in 1980, however, and the rivalry resumed, although it was hard to go brawling when the bridge linking the two towns closed for repairs a couple of years later.

The bridge reopened in 1987, and the next year Monaca Mayor John P. Antoline -- father of the current mayor -- approached Mr. LaValle with a proposition: The winner of the game would get to name the bridge.

"We ended up in the middle of the bridge in football stances," Mr. LaValle said with a chuckle. The image made the local newspaper and helped kick off the rivalry.

"John Antoline was a real community-oriented kind of person," Mr. LaValle said, describing the late former Monaca mayor as a good friend. "He was always coming up with something."

Mr. Lavalle will be on hand for Saturday's pre-game ceremonies, which will include all of the coaches who took part in the game. Mr. Bauer said the ceremony will be on Rochester's field, though there was some talk of trying to organize a coin flip on the bridge.

He said two scholarships will be awarded, and the TV series "Great American Rivalry" will record the events for posterity.

"It's definitely a sad thing, but it's all good with the merger of the schools," said John A. Antoline, who will represent both his town and his father at the ceremony. "It's good for the kids, and it's good for the town."

He said while the loss of the school will have an impact on the town's identity, the existence of Central Valley should be an even greater draw, with people looking at Monaca because of its place in a high-quality, innovative school district.

"I'm red and blue through and through, and it's going to be hard to see it go," he said, but "I think [the merger] is going to improve the community itself."

That ability to see and seize opportunity was just the kind of thinking that led Mr. Antoline's father to make the bet with Mr. LaValle, although not everyone realized how big a deal it was at the time.

"He said, 'Let me talk to LaValle. I want to play for the bridge,' " Mr. O'Neil, who was then Monaca's coach, recounted. "I said, 'What?' He said, 'I want to play for naming rights to the bridge.'

"I said, 'Yeah, sure, whatever,' and then forgot all about it."

But his wife, a former Monaca cheerleader, and his father-in-law started educating him on "how the towns used to go after each other on the bridge." He heard talk around the town, saw people in the streets and finally saw a helicopter hovering over the field to dry it out after a storm.

"I said, 'Geez, what did we get ourselves into?' " Mr. O'Neil said.

Monaca won that first game, thanks largely to the dazzling play of Matt Raich, now an assistant coach with the NFL's Arizona Cardinals. Coaches from both sides remember him breaking multiple tackles on one famous touchdown run.

"It was Trips Right 34 Draw Trap," Mr. O'Neill said, remembering the exact play call. Matthew cut it back and went all the way. He must have broken six or seven tackles. He just refused to stop."

"It's one of the legendary plays in Beaver County history," Dan Matsook said. "I still have nightmares about it, just standing there saying, 'Somebody tackle this kid, for crying out loud!' "

Dr. Matsook would go on to win his share of Bridge Games.Tthe 1999 game was his last victory as a football coach before he moved into the administrative ranks.

But he is also one of two men most responsible for dropping the curtain on the game. He and former Monaca superintendent Mike Thomas were the architects of the school district merger.

"I'm sure there are some people out there who would like to kill me for it. 'How could he stop this game?' " he said. "I'm sad that it's the last one. But you can't stop progress because of a football game."

And it's hard to argue that anyone is more entwined with this game -- and more conflicted about its outcome -- than Dr. Matsook.

Besides his own history with Rochester, he has allegiance to his brother. His mother, moreover, is a "die-hard Rochester Rams fan, to the point where you can't even sit by her," he said.

But because of the merger he helped create, he is top administrator in charge of Monaca High School as Central Valley superintendent and has been working closely with Dr. Thomas and former Monaca school board members for several years. Can he look at them and root for the Rams? One of his cousins, Mike Lyons, is a former Monaca head coach. Another cousin, on his fanatical mother's side, is Monaca tackle Mitchell Himes.

That should be enough emotional conflict to cause cranial meltdown.

"I hope it's a good game, and I hope the team that's supposed to win, wins," Dr. Matsook said with a chuckle.

And if you want to say hi to him at the game, he'll be the one clad in Steelers gear. "I might wear one red shoe and one blue shoe," he said.

Others in neutral position might be tempted to root for Monaca -- it is, after all, the school's last regular season game ever, and Rochester will go on. But Gene Matsook sees it differently.

"Our seniors haven't beaten them yet," he said. "I really want this for them."

He also noted, half-seriously, an inherent unfairness to the ultimate naming of the bridge: "The beam on their side is right there as you get on the bridge, and it's right there over the road, so you can really see the sign. One our side, it's way up in the air; you can't even really see it unless you're looking."

For Mr. Cercone's part, he'd like to send his seniors off witha final win and to experience a repeat of the 2007 game, which Monaca won at Rochester.

"I just remember coming back across the bridge in the buses, with a police escort, and parading through town," he said. "People all came out of their apartments, out of the bars, whatever, all celebrating. Our players were just thrilled."

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