The Rivalry: Mystery at the Army-Navy Game

by John Feinstein

Susan Carol felt exactly the same way. The whole game seemed massively unfair. “How can they do that?” she said to Tamara.

  “Great question,” Tamara said. “I doubt anyone will answer it, but it’s a great question.”

  Matt Klunder took Susan Carol into the locker room again. Tamara Mearns had gone to see if she could get in to talk to the officials.

  Niumatalolo stood silently in front of his players for a good long while as they settled in around him-some standing, some seated in front of lockers, others taking a knee directly in front of him.

  Finally, he took a deep breath, still clearly fighting his emotions. “Look, fellas, we tell you all the time not to worry about the officiating.” He paused. “We tell you, and I really believe this, that when all is said and done, games are decided by the players. You get a bad call, then you get a good call. It almost always evens out.

  “I can’t look you in the eye after this particular game and tell you that’s the case. I’d like to, because we’re not about making excuses, are we?”

  “NO, SIR!” they all shouted back.

  “So when the media asks about the holding call that cost us the touchdown, and the hold that cost us the interception, you guys are going to say: ‘We don’t make excuses at Navy.’ That’s your answer.

  “And the most important thing for all of you to understand is how proud I am of you. You outplayed Notre Dame today, and everyone who watched that game knows it. Right now that isn’t much consolation, but try to remember it. There isn’t another football team in the country I’d rather be coaching right now.

  “One more thing. When they ask you on the hall what happened, you have my permission to say: ‘We got screwed.’ ”

  They all got a momentary laugh out of that, and Niumatalolo even forced a smile.

  “Okay,” he said. “Let’s get it in.”

  They all stood and came together in the middle of the room just as they did at halftime.

  Susan Carol whispered to Robinson, “What’s ‘the hall’?”

  “Bancroft Hall,” he said. “All four thousand midshipmen live there. It’s the largest dormitory on any college campus in the country.”

  As the players formed their circle, their cry on three was: “Beat Army!”

  Susan Carol expected she would hear those words a lot the next few weeks.

  8. THE CADETS

  Stevie’s experience at West Point for the Army-Georgia Tech game was considerably different. To begin with, there was no snow. And for once he was up earlier than Susan Carol. Kelleher had him walking out the front door of the Thayer by seven o’clock for a tour of the campus. They walked all the way across the Post-going along the Hudson River first, then winding their way up to the Plain and over to Trophy Point, where Kelleher showed Stevie cannons and guns captured in various wars through the years. There were also several more statues.

  They stood for a moment at the edge of Trophy Point. They were high up enough to have a great view down the Hudson River. The campus sprawled on one side, and rolling hills went on for miles on the other. The sun had only been up for about an hour and the air was crisp, but the sky was clear. It would be a perfect fall day for football.

  “Pretty spectacular, huh?” Kelleher said.

  “Unbelievable,” Stevie answered, meaning it.

  They were back in the hotel by eight for breakfast and out again by nine. Kickoff wasn’t until noon, but Kelleher wanted to arrive early to introduce Stevie to various people in the press box.

  Before that, though, they stopped at a tailgate party that was held right outside the Holleder Center, where Army’s hockey and basketball teams played. Even though he had just eaten, Stevie found the smell of grilling hamburgers irresistible.

  “Go ahead,” Kelleher said, seeing the look on Stevie’s face. “You’re still a growing boy.”

  “I wish I was growing faster,” Stevie said.

  He was waiting for his hamburger when someone behind him said, “Well, if it isn’t my biggest fan.”

  Stevie recognized the voice instantly but was still surprised to see Duke basketball coach Mike Krzyzewski standing with another legendary basketball coach, Bob Knight, and Pete Dowling, the Secret Service agent.

  “Coach K., you remember me?” Stevie said.

  Krzyzewski laughed. “Remember you? If it weren’t for you and Susan Carol Anderson, I’d have another national championship.”

  Stevie felt himself turning red. “Well, you know, Coach, we were just trying-”

  “To do the right thing,” Krzyzewski broke in. “And you did. Wouldn’t want it any other way.”

  “Stevie, I’d like you to meet Bob Knight,” Krzyzewski said, realizing that Stevie was a bit tongue-tied. “And this is Pete Dowling…”

  “We met last night,” Dowling said.

  Knight, who was wearing one of his signature sweaters with an ESPN-his current employer-logo on it, shook hands with Stevie and said, “You’re an aspiring sportswriter, I hear.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “So I take it, then, that you’re not very bright. Are you going to just stand there all day or are you going to let someone else eat around here?”

  Now Stevie was really tongue-tied.

  “Coach, I thought we had a deal that you wouldn’t start beating up on reporters until they’re at least twenty-one,” Krzyzewski said, making a joke of it. “Stevie, could you ask for three more hamburgers?”

  “Um, sure,” Stevie said, and signaled for three more to the guy at the grill. “What brings you up here?”

  “Girls’ field hockey,” Knight answered.

  Stevie knew that Knight was famous for being brusque, often going out of his way to be rude to reporters. He had risen to fame while winning three national titles and getting into all sorts of trouble at Indiana. He had finished his career at Texas Tech, and Stevie had read that he had become a kinder, gentler curmudgeon since going to work as a commentator on TV. It didn’t seem quite that way at the moment.

  Krzyzewski forced a laugh. “What Coach meant to say is, the Army Hall of Fame induction dinner is tonight. We both coached at Army early in our careers, and we each have a former player going in. That’s why we’re here.”

  “And we hired Agent Dowling for the day to protect us from kids who are media wannabes and budding sycophants,” Knight added.

  “Well, you don’t need protection from me,” Stevie shot back. “I’m strictly a newspaper guy, so ESPN is the last place I’d ever work.” He was about to congratulate himself for remembering from his eighth-grade vocab class what a sycophant was when he saw the look on Krzyzewski’s and Dowling’s faces and the definition flew out of his mind. Oh my God, I just talked back to Bob Knight!

  “You’ve got some mouth on you, don’t you?” Knight said.

  Fortunately, the guy grilling the hamburgers intervened at that moment. “Got four fresh ones here,” he said, handing them to Stevie, who quickly passed them around.

  “I’m sorry-” Stevie started to say.

  “That’s actually a point,” Krzyzewski said. “You are in the media now, Coach.”

  “I need something to drink with my burger,” Knight said. “Let’s go.”

  “I’m going to stay here for a minute with Steve,” Dowling said. “Coach Knight, it was an honor to meet you. I hope I see you later.”

  He shook hands with both coaches, who turned into the crowd and were instantly mobbed. Maybe they did need Secret Service protection.

  “Pretty gutsy line there, Steve,” Dowling said as he picked up his hamburger.

  “I can’t believe I said that,” Stevie said.

  “Yeah.” Dowling laughed. “He may be seventy, but he’s a big guy with a temper.”

  “No kidding,” Stevie said. “What were you doing with them?”

  “I met Coach K. years ago when he brought his team to the White House after winning a national title,” Dowling said. “He’s signed things for charities for me and for my kids. Good guy.”


  “I know,” Stevie said glumly. “My friend Susan Carol loves him and everything Duke. I can’t stand Duke, but whenever I’ve met him, he’s been really nice.”

  “Class act,” Dowling said. He looked at his watch.

  “Are you working?” Stevie asked.

  “Soon,” Dowling said. “I’m going to meet with the officiating crew when they get here. Some of them will work Army-Navy, so I want to brief them.”

  “I guess that’s a break for you if some of the same guys work both games,” Stevie said.

  Dowling shook his head. “No, it’s not. We requested it. Three officials from this group and four from the Navy-Notre Dame game will call Army-Navy.”

  “No detail overlooked, huh?” Kelleher said, walking up to join them.

  Dowling shrugged. “That’s the plan.” He glanced at his watch again. “I’m sorry, I’ve gotta go,” he said. “Stevie, keep an eye out for Coach Knight.”

  Stevie laughed.

  Kelleher gave him a look as Dowling walked away. “Did you get yourself into trouble again?” he asked.

  “Only a little,” Stevie said.

  Kelleher shook his head. “Come on, let’s get inside the stadium. Maybe you’ll be safe in there.”

  Watching the game from the sidelines was thrilling for Stevie. He was amazed by how fast the players moved and by how hard they hit one another. You really didn’t see that on TV. Several times when plays came close to where he and Kelleher were standing, he winced at the sound of the contact being made and fully expected the players to remain lying on the ground. And yet they jumped up and ran back to their huddles.

  “My mother was right about one thing,” he said late in the first quarter. “This is not a game I should play.”

  He and Kelleher had been joined by two men who knew a lot about football injuries: Tim Kelly, the Army team trainer, and Dean Taylor, a former team doctor who now worked at Duke.

  “I’m an Army alum,” Taylor said when Kelleher introduced him. “Class of ’81. I’m back for the Hall of Fame dinner too.”

  “He has to keep an eye on Coach K.,” Tim Kelly joked. “Anything happens to him and they probably shut Duke down tomorrow.”

  “True enough,” Taylor said.

  Taylor had an easy, friendly smile and seemed pretty laid-back-except when calls went against Army.

  When a punt hit a Georgia Tech player on the leg and Army fell on it, the packed stadium erupted. But the officials ruled the ball hadn’t hit the Tech player and awarded the ball to the Yellow Jackets.

  “How in the world can forty thousand people see something and all seven of you miss it completely?” Taylor railed at the side judge, who was standing only a few feet away as Georgia Tech lined up. “What are you looking at, the scenery?”

  The side judge shot Taylor a look. Taylor shot him a look right back. At that point Kelly, who watched impassively with his arms folded unless it appeared an Army player might be hurt, put his hand on Taylor’s shoulder.

  “Easy, Doc,” he said.

  Kelleher was laughing. “I don’t think I’ve ever heard Dean raise his voice except on the sidelines.”

  Both teams ran almost identical offenses. Paul Johnson, the former Navy coach, was using the same option attack with Georgia Tech that had been so effective at Navy. He’d already won one ACC title with it and was closing in on another one. Army, after getting pounded by Navy’s option for years, had hired Rich Ellerson, largely because he ran a similar offense at Cal Poly.

  The result was that the defenses knew the offenses well since they practiced against them all the time. When Johnson called for an option pass early in the second quarter from midfield, the Army defense was ready for it and intercepted the pass near the goal line. Every time Army tried to run a toss play for their slotbacks, Georgia Tech was ready for it.

  The only score of the first half came late. Army had pinned Georgia Tech near the goal line and forced a punt. The kick was a short one, and Army kick returner Tom Knudson got it to the Tech 37. Army managed to pick up a first down but then stalled at the 21. With forty-two seconds left, field goal kicker Jay Parker hit from thirty-eight yards to make the halftime score Army 3-Georgia Tech 0.

  “Not exactly an offensive fireworks display,” Kelly said as they crossed the field, heading for the locker room. When they got to the door, Kelly pointed out a middle-aged man in the back of the room.

  “Bobby, take Stevie back there to Dicky,” he said. “He’ll take care of you. I’ve got to go into the training room and get to work.”

  Stevie noticed that the coaches had huddled together in an office as soon as everyone piled into the room. Kelleher maneuvered him over to Dicky.

  “So, finally, I get to meet a real journalist,” Dicky said as he gave Kelleher a hug. “Steve, I’m Dick Hall; it’s a pleasure to meet you.” He pointed at a table in the corner. “We’ve got snacks over there; help yourself.”

  Stevie thanked Hall and scanned the piles of candy, donuts, bagels, and drinks. He had already eaten two hamburgers in addition to breakfast. But he grabbed two packages of spice drops just in case.

  “Dicky’s been the equipment manager at West Point since General Thayer founded the place,” Kelleher told him.

  “Liar,” Hall said. “It wasn’t until two years later.”

  Thayer had founded the academy in 1802. And Hall looked to be about fifty.

  “Actually, it was 1971,” Hall said, cutting Stevie a break. “Right after I got back from Vietnam.”

  That, Stevie knew, made him older than fifty but younger than Sylvanus Thayer.

  The coaches came back into the room and the players broke off into groups. A few minutes later, they all returned to the main locker area and Rich Ellerson came into the room.

  “We told you this was going to be a defensive struggle, didn’t we?” he said. “This is exactly the game we wanted. It’s going to come down to one mistake, one play-someone making a play to win the game. Every man in this room is capable of making that play. Each and every one of you. Let’s all be ready when that moment comes, because we don’t know when it’s going to be.”

  He paused and looked around the room. “There’s no one who has more respect for Coach Johnson than I do. You guys know that. But we owe him a loss, don’t we?”

  “YES, SIR!” they all answered.

  “Let’s go.”

  As soon as the players moved to the middle of the room to huddle up before going back outside, Stevie turned to say something to Dick Hall. But he wasn’t there. Stevie looked around the room and found Hall standing by the door. As the players walked through it, Hall gave them each a pat and called each by name, saying, “Let’s go, touch the sign.” The players all patted Hall back and reached up and touched a sign directly above the door.

  As he and Kelleher followed the players out, Stevie paused to read it: NOW I LAY ME DOWN TO BLEED AWHILE BEFORE I RISE AGAIN TO FIGHT.

  “What is that?” Stevie asked.

  “A lot of college football teams have some sign they post above the locker room door that the players touch for luck or inspiration as they go out,” Kelleher said. “Most of them are corny things like ‘The team that plays hardest wins the most.’

  “This one’s a little different. It’s an old Army saying from a long-ago battle. Dicky says it was already in place when he got here, so he doesn’t know who first posted it. But it means a lot to the players.”

  Stevie could tell. There was an incredible aura in this place. The history, the tradition-it was a palpable force.

  The second half of the game wasn’t much different from the first, although the offenses did finally gain some traction. Georgia Tech took the kickoff, finally got its offense in gear, and went eighty yards, culminating the drive when their huge fullback bulled into the end zone from four yards out.

  “They took almost eight minutes off the clock,” Tim Kelly said as the extra point made it 7-3. “Our offense needs to give the defense some rest right now.”


  It did. Trent Steelman, the Army quarterback, wasn’t all that big, but he began finding some room after a couple of good runs up the middle by fullback Tom Nottingham. Then he faked a run, dropped back, and found tight end Michael Arnott open for a twenty-two-yard pickup to the Georgia Tech 23. But the drive stalled there and Parker had to come in and try another field goal, this one from thirty-six yards out.

  The kick began hooking left as it got near the goal line, causing everyone on the sidelines to lean to the right, trying to guide the ball through. Which kind of worked-the ball hit the left upright and ricocheted through the goalpost.

  “Thank God,” Taylor said.

  “I’m not sure he was involved,” Kelly said. “But we’ll take it.”

  There was a little more than a minute left in the third quarter, and Georgia Tech led 7-6.

  Stevie noticed that the wind had picked up and the temperature had dropped since kickoff, but the game was going quickly-it wasn’t even three o’clock. As the third quarter ended, the band played the Army fight song and the four thousand cadets-all of them standing-went crazy, singing so loudly that “On, brave old army team, on to the fra-aaay” echoed in Stevie’s ears.

  If a team could win on heart, Army had the game locked up.

  9. OVERTIME

  Early in the fourth quarter, with the Yellow Jackets facing third and two on their own 37, Georgia Tech coach Paul Johnson made a bold call.

  Thinking Army would be looking for a run made sense, since Tech had only thrown six passes at that point. So Johnson called for a quick pass on a sideline route, figuring he’d at least get a first down and might pick up big yardage. But Army cornerback Mario Hill didn’t fall for the fake, and when the Tech quarterback threw the ball, Hill stepped in front of the intended receiver, intercepted the ball, and had nothing but open field in front of him as he raced to the end zone.

  The Army sideline exploded, and Stevie noticed that even Tim Kelly unfolded his arms long enough to hug both Dean Taylor and Dick Hall. Stevie wondered if this was the one big play Coach Ellerson had talked about at halftime.