Despite the boundless professional respect I have for the guy who shares this space with me throughout the season, splitting the high school football beat with anybody is a delicate balance.

This was apparent a few Fridays ago while I staked out territory on the visiting sideline in Livermore Falls and awaited the Mountain Valley-Spruce Mountain kickoff.

Mountain Valley coach Jim Aylward could sniff blood in the water. Headset in hand, he walked over, flashing the smirk that Cape Elizabeth documentarian Kirk Wolfinger made infamous.

“Cripes,” or something to that effect, Aylward said, “which straw did you draw?”

Humbled as if I were a kid who had missed a block during a 2007 game against Fryeburg or Wells, I explained that I was not being punished for any misdeeds. I noted that it was the House of White’s turn to choose the Game of the Week and that he was spotting up for stellar coverage of Dirigo v. Winthrop/Monmouth 18 miles to the south as we spoke.

I added that Mountain Valley-Spruce Mountain was no TV dinner on a night of gridiron feasts. Any game between two proud programs in such close proximity, regardless of their perceived competitive balance at present, hardly constitutes a consolation prize.

Griffin Field might have been my first choice that night, anyway, I told the coach, and I meant it.

This admittedly long-and-winding account of a 30-second conversation brings me to this week. Even-numbered weeks on the schedule are my choice. So, naturally, after taking inventory of the dozen local games lying ahead of us, I pointed my trigger finger at …

Mountain Valley-Leavitt?

Here we go again. Only this time my arrival in Turner will be hailed not with, “what did you do wrong?” queries but with, “what is the matter with you, you bloodthirsty wretch?” rhetoric.

And those people will miss the point. If I may be accused of anything, it is living in the past. I choose to see it as living in the future. I’m paying tribute to what once was, and should become again, one of the best football rivalries in our area.

It’s absurd, given the short stretches of Routes 2, 108, 4 and 117 connecting them, that Leavitt and Mountain Valley haven’t played a meaningful regular-season game against another in a decade. Some genius whipped out a map and decided that Rumford was West and Turner was East — mostly for convenience’s sake, at the time — and that was that.

Mountain Valley went about the business of winning four state championships in seven seasons while never having a bus ride shorter than 90 minutes. Leavitt cultivated strong competitive relationships (sorry, they weren’t rivalries) with first Morse, then Gardiner, then Mt. Blue, appearing in three straight finals in its own right.

But with the exception of a chance meeting in the 2010 Class B title game — the Falcons rolled; Whitehouse and I both got to attend, so nobody had to take hostages — never the twain did meet. And how foolish was that?

Maine needs its high school rivalries. Thank God and realignment for Cony-Gardiner and Waterville-Winslow becoming meaningful again. Bless Biddeford for “petitioning up” and protecting its tradition with Thornton, even though the two programs have been on unequal footing lately.

Otherwise, in a you-can’t-get-there-from-here state with shrinking pockets of industry, there are no longer any guarantees of your fiercest competitor being nearly next door.

With Leavitt out of the picture for so long, Mountain Valley’s two longest-standing foes were schools that get their mail in Greater Boston, York and Wells. And yes, presumptuous as it first seemed, Cape Elizabeth transformed itself into one with consistent excellence that extended far beyond Wolfinger’s cutting-room floor.

But rivals? Sorry, no more than the Tampa Bay Rays can make themselves the Boston Red Sox’s rival by contending in the same division for six straight years. It takes decades of animosity and the good graces of geography to create one of those.

We all know who are the Sox’s true rival. And if Leavitt and Mountain Valley are ever going to have a legit rivalry between the goalposts, it will come either from one another or from the opposite side of a triangle that now includes Spruce Mountain.

All we need is for the three of them to have similar talent pools and power rankings. I’d say we’re about a year, maybe two, from that.

So consider these peculiar choices of mine a preemptive strike. I’ll be willing to arm-wrestle that other dude for games involving any combination of the Hornets, Falcons and Phoenix in the foreseeable future.

Kalle Oakes is a staff columnist. His email is koakes@sunjournal.com. Follow him on Twitter @Oaksie72.