Central High School has been Omaha North High School’s rival for many years. Omaha Public Schools website claims this rivalry goes all the way back to 1924 when the school first opened.  

Larry Martin, the Omaha North head football coach, has been coaching for 26 years.  

“When I first started coaching at North in 2000, they told me that Central was the school we had to beat,” said Martin. 

It took the Vikings three years after Coach Martin started working at North to finally beat the Eagles.  

According to Coach Martin, Central was considered a “quarter final, and semi-final team,” back in 2000. This means they would make it to that level of play but fall before winning the title. 

Over the past nine years, North has kept their winning streak against Central. However, the Central Eagles were determined to end the winning streak this year. 

In August of 2025, Central posted a video, directed towards the North football team. 

In the video, Central football players sat in a classroom making a “game plan” to win 13-0. One of the players then threw a crumbled-up paper at the teacher with the word “Vikings” written on the paper, and “V” upside down.  

Many of the Omaha North football players found this to be very disrespectful. 

Ethan Hays, 11, has played for the Omaha North Vikings since his freshman year.  

 “I don’t know why they needed to disrespect us like that,” said Hays.  

Hays is friends with many of the Central football players, making this video even more confusing for him. He has found that having friendships on the other team sometimes can make it a little difficult to balance being rivals and friends 

As the game against Omaha Central approached, many of the boys prepared like normal. 

“It doesn’t really matter who we play, it’s the same thing no matter who we play,” said Hays  

To play their best against Central, Omaha North focuses on staying consistent and being more physical according to Hays.  

“In our last game we had against Central, we had a hard time being consistent,” said Hays. 

Coach Martin not only pushes his players to do their best, but he also tries to get the players to push each other. 

“I try to get the boys to push each other, I’m big on having them challenge each other,” said Martin 

Omaha North faced Central on Friday, September 15, 2025.  

Last year in 2024, Omaha North beat Omaha Central 28-18. This year Omaha Noth beat Central 51-20.  

The Eagles came out ready to score. They ended the first quarter 6-0. But by half time, the Vikings came through with two touchdowns resulting in tying the game. During fourth quarter, the Vikings added two more touch downs to their score while the Eagles remained stagnant. 

In addition to ending the game with a 51-20 victory, the Viking players experienced personal victories. 

Jaron Cannon, 12, is the running back for the Omaha North Football team.  

Cannon had a career defining game with 4 touch downs, and 312 rushing yards, compared to the 3 touchdowns and 78 rushing yards he had last year.  

Another player who had high statistics during the game was Maxwell Clark,12. 

Clark is a middle Line Backer for the Omaha North football team.  

In the 2023 Central game, Clark had two solo tackles, three assisted tackles, and ended with a total of 5 tackles. This year against, Clark had a ten-yard touchdown, five solo tackles, seven assisted tackles, ended with 12 total tackles.   

The North Football team faced their rivals and came out on top.  

This is another win in the books for North.