ARMY-NAVY GAME: NOTHING LIKE IT

My son, Benjamin, and I are going to the most inspiring football game of the season, It's neither the National Football League nor the College championship playoffs.

It's the Army-Navy game, played tomorrow outside of Washington, These young men are pretty good football players, love the game and are devoted to service and country.
It a special experience to watch the "March on" of 4,000 midshipmen and 4,000 cadets into the stadium where they then stand and cheer for most of the game. The sights include spectacular fly-overs and parachute jumps and the emotion from aging veterans in the stands.
I hated politicians demagoguing professional football players protesting social injustice during the national anthem, which never was central to those contests. It is in the Army-Navy game honoring the patriotism and sense of duty,
Noted author John Feinstein, who wrote a book on the rivalry and has covered dozens of these games, gets emotional when 8,000 midshipmen and cadets salute the flag, "as every one of those men and women has volunteered to die for the rest if need be."

Actually while not back to the glory days of over a half century ago these teams are good. Army has an 11-1 record, won their conference championship and is in the top 25 nationally. Navy has won eight of eleven. Both beat the Air Force Academy so the winner captures the Commander-in-Chief's Trophy.

Army is a touchdown favorite but upsets are not unusual. Spend anytime at West Point or Annapolis and whether the team is undefeated or winless the season's success depends on winning this game.
There is so much history on their playing fields. Dwight D. Eisenhower, later President of the United States, earlier the Supreme Allied Commander in the War and teammate Omar Bradley, who also became a five star General, were members of the famous 1915 West Point "class the stars fell on" Generals Douglas McArthur and Matthew Ridgeway were managers of the football team at West Point. Also more than a century ago suiting up for Navy was the appropriately named William "Bull" Halsey," who directed Naval operations in the Pacific during the Second World War.

I grew up on this rivalry from the mid-50s to mid60-s when they were played at Philadelphia's 102,000 seat Municipal Stadium later named for President Kennedy. My Dad was a pediatrician and the father of one of his patients played on the great Blanchard Davis Army teams during World War II. Dad spent three years as a Naval officer in the Pacific during the war, so we cheered for Navy.
They were nationally ranked teams then. There were three Heisman Trophy winners: Joe Bellino and Roger Staubach for Navy, and Army's Pete Dawkins.

One of my first vivid memories was the 1955 game. Army's Don Holleder, an All-American end the year before, switched to quarterback to fill a critical void. He led the cadets to an upset win over Navy. Twelve years later I ran across a short item in the paper that Major Don Holleder, a former Army quarterback was killed in action in Vietnam.

All those valiant men who take the field tomorrow understand that risk.
By the late 60s, the Vietnam War and the surge in the National Football League's popularity and money made it almost impossible for the service academies to recruit the best players. This year's matchup is unusually high profile.
The passion, however, never waivered. I spent three days at West Point in 2013, lecturing and learning. The quality of these young men and women were extraordinary. It was only September but everywhere --outside the dormitories, in the dining halls, during a Volleyball game, there were signs and chants of "Beat Navy." The scene would have been similar at Annapolis.
When the game is over tomorrow there won't be fights as there were in college contests last month. The two teams will gather first to sing the alma mater of the team that lost and then together the alma mater of the winner,

I've warned Benjamin that, like my friend Feinstein, I'll probably cry.