The Rivalry: Mystery at the Army-Navy Game

by John Feinstein

  There was enthusiastic applause as he finished.

  “Governor,” Needle said, stepping back to the microphone, “do you mind taking a few questions from the media while you’re here?”

  “Glad to,” Rendell said.

  There were a couple of questions about Philadelphia’s commitment to keeping the game in future years. Then Jerardi stood up.

  “Hey, Dick, long time, no see,” Rendell said.

  “Thanks, Governor, we miss you on the postgame show,” Jerardi said. “Since the incident is now over, can you give us some idea about what happened earlier?”

  Rendell appeared to be ready for the question. He nodded at Jerardi.

  “Sure, Dick,” he said. “Two people got into the stadium who shouldn’t have. The Secret Service was understandably alarmed. But it turned out to be just a couple of kids from Penn on a fraternity initiation assignment.”

  “Fraternity initiation?”

  Rendell nodded. “Apparently they were supposed to get their picture taken with me-you know, the old Penn grad who is now governor. They had no idea there’d be extra security because of the vice president or that the vice president was even coming.

  “They were actually pretty clever. They called Comcast, claiming to be from Larry’s office, and asked who was coming to the lunch. Then they called Larry’s office, claiming to be from Comcast, and added two names to the list of attendees.

  “That got them through the door, and I guess no one looked closely enough at their IDs. That’s where the breakdown was. So they went into the concourse to wait for me to come in, hoping they could get a picture.”

  “So what took so long to sort things out, then?” Jerardi asked, which was what Stevie had been thinking.

  Rendell nodded again. “When the folks downstairs realized they hadn’t gotten on the elevators but were somewhere else in the stadium, they called up here, and the Secret Service shut the place down. By then there were police and Secret Service all over, and the kids panicked and hid. Took a while to find them.”

  “Were they arrested?” Jerardi asked.

  “No,” Rendell said. “Their stories checked. They weren’t carrying anything resembling a weapon-except their cell phone cameras. They were given a stern lecture and sent back to Penn.”

  “Last question,” Jerardi said. “Did they get their picture?”

  Rendell shook his head. “Secret Service wouldn’t let them anywhere near me. Not because they were dangerous, but because they caused everyone so much trouble. When I say they got a stern lecture, I mean they got a stern lecture.

  “Dick, they’re telling me I’m out of time; we need to get the coaches and players up here. Let’s get back to the reason we’re all really here!”

  With that, Rendell escaped, giving Needle the microphone so he could begin his introductions of the coaches and players.

  Jerardi sat down and leaned over to Stevie. “You buy that story?” he asked.

  Stevie looked at him. “You don’t?”

  “Maybe,” Jerardi said. “But if I had a relationship with Agent Dowling like you seem to have, I’d find him and see what he has to say. Rendell had almost too many details. He sounded very well coached to me.”

  “He’s a politician,” Stevie said.

  “Good point,” Jerardi said. “They’re very coachable.”

  As soon as the lunch was over, Stevie tried to find Dowling and Campbell. The police were no help, claiming they had no idea who Stevie was even talking about. Stevie finally found the guy who had introduced himself to the crowd as the head of the Philadelphia field office.

  “Bud Keyser,” he said, shaking hands when Stevie introduced himself. “I know who you are; Pete told me that you were shadowing him on some Army-Navy stuff.”

  “Do you know where he is right now?” Stevie asked.

  “Yeah, I do,” Keyser said. “He’s on his way back to Washington. Once everything was clear, he took off.”

  Stevie wondered what he should do next. He looked around and saw Niumatalolo finishing up a one-on-one with a local TV station and waving at Larry Needle.

  He thanked Keyser and made his way in that direction.

  “Interesting day,” he heard Niumatalolo say to Needle. “Sort of more than we bargained for.”

  “No kidding,” Needle said. “Who’d have thought two kids from a fraternity could hold us all hostage for an hour?”

  They shook hands and Niumatalolo turned and saw Stevie.

  “Hey, Steve,” he said. “You got a little more of a story than coaches and players talking about how much they’re looking forward to the game, didn’t you?”

  Stevie nodded. “That’s for sure. Did you happen to see Mr. Dowling once everything was all clear?”

  “The Secret Service agent? Yeah. Coach Ellerson and I spoke to him earlier. He explained that they had turned the vice president around just to be safe.”

  “How’d he seem? Concerned or annoyed?”

  Niumatalolo shot him a look, then smiled. “Always reporting, huh? He was calm and professional. Off the record, though, I thought he seemed kind of ticked off. He said something about having enough to worry about without panicking people over a fraternity prank.”

  “Thanks, Coach, I appreciate it.”

  “No problem-I hope we’ll be seeing you and Susan Carol on the Yard after Thanksgiving.”

  “We’ll be there.”

  Niumatalolo went off to round up his players. Stevie could see why Susan Carol had liked him so much-he was very friendly and talkative, probably much to Dowling’s chagrin. Then Stevie was struck by a scary thought. Dowling might have wanted Niumatalolo to pass on the fraternity prank story, along with Rendell. Maybe Dowling was ticked off because the story wasn’t that simple.

  * * *

  Kelleher must have said “Are you kidding me?” a dozen times as Stevie filled him in over the phone on his way home. “Nothing ever happens at that lunch!”

  “So maybe it was just a fraternity prank,” said Stevie.

  “I know Pete Dowling and Bob Campbell pretty well. They’re careful, but they don’t panic. They must have been really nervous about something to turn Biden around.

  “And Jerardi’s right-Rendell was most likely briefed beforehand so he could be the face of the story. Secret Service doesn’t like to put itself out front on anything unless there’s no choice.”

  “So should I call Dowling? Should you?” Stevie asked.

  “Right now, neither of us should call,” Kelleher said. “If something is going on, he’ll be too spooked to talk. I’d let it simmer a few days, and maybe when you see Dowling again in person, you can get an explanation that makes more sense.”

  “So what now?” Stevie said.

  “Go home and write,” Kelleher said. “And then ask more questions tomorrow. I think it was Woodward who first said to me, ‘Never think a story is over.’ At some point every day you have to sit down and write, but you never stop trying to gather more information.

  “So write what you know now. And then keep digging.”

  13. THE DEEP END

  After a long talk with Stevie about his adventures at the Army-Navy lunch, Susan Carol decided she should start compiling her notes for the story they were supposed to write on the Secret Service’s pregame security measures. The story had taken a turn for the weird, and she figured it’d help to have everything in order when they started to write.

  But a quick check of her emails sent the thought of the security story right out of her head. The subject line was: Letter to the Editor-Any comments?

  When she opened up the email, she found a note from the woman in charge of the letters page at the Post: Thought you should see the attached. The plan is to run it on Thursday. If you have any comments, please let me know by early Wednesday.

  Susan Carol opened the attachment and let out a little gasp as she began to read:

  I’m writing in regard to the story that appeared in Sunday morning’s Post under the byl
ine of Susan Carol Anderson. The story is misleading, it is false, and, in my opinion and those of our lawyers at the conference office, it is libelous. Ms. Anderson calls the officials who worked the Navy-Notre Dame game incompetents at best, cheaters at worst. She questions the honesty of referee Mike Daniels because he chose not to speak to a reporter. For the record, officials are never required to speak to the media, and only do so if there is a rule that needs interpreting. Mr. Daniels was simply following the policies he has been asked to follow. I’m extremely disappointed that the Post would publish a baseless and inflammatory story like this one. My understanding is that Ms. Anderson is fourteen years old and a high school freshman. Perhaps it is not surprising that when you substitute children for seasoned reporters, you end up with ill-informed, immature, and emotional stories rather than those grounded in fact. In printing it, you do a disservice both to my professionals and to your readers.

  Yours truly,

  Harold Neve, supervisor,

  ACC football officials

  Susan Carol reread the letter three times, getting a little angrier each time. And just a little bit scared.

  She forwarded the email to Stevie and called him immediately.

  “Miss me already?” he said, answering the phone.

  “Go read your email,” she said.

  “What’s up?”

  “Just go read! I’ll wait while you do.”

  “Okay, okay.” She could hear clicking and then Stevie saying, “Whoa… whoa… WHOA!

  “Gee, Susan Carol,” he said, finally done reading. “Usually I’m the one to shoot off my mouth and get in trouble.”

  “I know, that’s why I called-I figured you’d know what to do.”

  “Honestly? I usually do nothing and it blows over.”

  “But how can I say nothing? Did you see what he said? He called me a liar and said I’d committed libel and threatened to sue and-”

  “Hang on, hang on,” Stevie said. “The guy is clearly an idiot. Anyone who saw the game or the replays knows the officials screwed Navy. He’s just trying to cover that up by complaining about you.”

  “And I suppose you’d be this calm if it were you they were calling a liar?”

  He thought about that one for a second. “No, probably not. I’d be furious, like you. But then I’d also have you to calm me down.”

  “I guess. But, Stevie, people are going to read this and believe him.”

  “Maybe a few. But not anyone who saw the game. And certainly not anyone who knows you.”

  Susan Carol had to admit to herself that she and Stevie were spoiled. They’d gotten used to having people tell them how talented they were. This was the first time someone had publicly called her out on a story.

  “So, you don’t think I should respond?”

  “That I don’t know. See what Bobby and Tamara think.”

  When she spoke to them the next morning, Tamara was philosophical.

  “Oh, Susan Carol, I’m sorry. But letters written by angry people are a part of the job. Harold Neve is writing so he can show all his referees, not just Daniels, that he backs them up when they get criticized.”

  “Even when they’re wrong?” Susan Carol said.

  “Especially when they’re wrong,” Tamara said. “Listen, you’re going to get hundreds of these in your career. People are going to call you names, they’re going to call you a liar, and sometimes they’re going to say things about you that are completely untrue.

  “I once wrote a story about a basketball coach who showed me a letter in which the president of his school promised to raise money to renovate and modernize their gym. When the story came out, the president told the coach if he didn’t sign a letter to the editor saying no such letter had ever existed, he’d be fired.”

  “So what’d he do?”

  “He signed the letter, then sent a copy of the president’s original letter to my boss so he’d know I had it right, which was incredibly decent of him. But still, everyone who read the letter to the editor thought I’d somehow made the whole thing up.”

  “Wow,” Susan Carol said. “I’d have wanted to kill that president.”

  “I did want to,” Tamara said. “But you have to understand that when you tell the truth, there will be people who don’t want to hear it. This is one of those times.”

  Kelleher took the phone then and said, “Really, Susan Carol. Don’t sweat it. Harold Neve wrote almost the exact same letter about me eleven years ago. I wrote about that line judge who robbed Navy of certain victory by incorrectly moving the ball up a yard and giving Notre Dame a first down in the last minute. Neve wrote a letter questioning my integrity, my manhood, my breeding-everything. He never addressed the fact that his guy screwed up. This is the same thing. Notice he says nothing about the two calls, just that you’re a bad guy for pointing them out.”

  Talking to them all made Susan Carol feel a little better. But only a little.

  It seemed to Susan Carol that Thanksgiving Day would never end.

  The only good news was that she and her mother would be leaving after dinner to drive across the state to Charlotte. One of the most important age-group swim meets of the early season was being held there on Friday morning, and Susan Carol would swim her two butterfly events-the 100 and the 200.

  But she spent a lot of the day ducking her two obnoxious cousins and a busybody aunt.

  She tried to hide out in the family room with her father, watching the Lions take their annual Thanksgiving mauling-this time from the Bears.

  Her dad truly loved football. He had worked for a while as the team chaplain for the Carolina Panthers, and he ran clinics and support groups for people with all kinds of sports addictions. Susan Carol thought he was good at it because he understood-at least a little-how they felt.

  But she couldn’t even watch football-bad football at that-without flinching every time a ref’s whistle blew.

  “Suzy Q, you need to stop brooding about that letter,” her father finally said.

  She sighed-he could always read her.

  “Do you believe what you wrote is true?” he asked.

  “That’s the thing. I keep second-guessing myself. They were terrible calls. There’s no doubt about that. And I believe they should admit they got it wrong and not just dodge the blame by attacking me.” She paused. “But I didn’t really mean to accuse them of cheating, not literally. I was so mad when I wrote it, and I kind of thought the editor at the Post would cut out the harshest bits…”

  “But he didn’t?”

  “No, Matt Rennie said I’d really nailed them and that they deserved it.”

  “Hmm. I don’t know what to tell you, then, sweetie. Next time, try not to write in anger. Words are powerful things. And they can be used to hurt as well as help.”

  “Kinda like penalty flags…”

  “Huh,” he snorted. “Yes, with great power comes great responsibility…”

  “Now you’re making me Spider-Man!”

  “You could do worse than to be a protector of the innocent.”

  They both laughed, and Susan Carol did feel better.

  “Dad,” she said a while later. “Say a ref really was cheating-how would he do it?”

  “Susan Carol. Don’t decide they’re guilty just because you feel guilty for accusing them…”

  “No, really, just hypothetically. I know you know about this stuff from your clinics.”

  “Well, hypothetically, I guess a ref could cheat by trying to affect the score of the game. There are lots of different ways to bet on football. The most obvious is to just pick the winner-but usually that involves odds. For example, if you wanted to bet the Bears to win straight up today, you’d probably have to give about five-to-one odds. That means if you win a dollar, the person you’re betting with wins five if the Lions win.”

  “What else?” Susan Carol asked.

  “Most people bet with the points because there are no odds involved,” he said. “In this game, the Bears are f
avored, I think, by six and a half points. That means if you bet on the Lions and they lose the game by six points or less-or win, obviously-you win the bet. If the Bears win by seven points or more, the people betting on the Bears win. Sometimes a few points either way could make a big difference.”

  She nodded. “Okay. I know about that. I hear people say they’re ‘taking the points’ all the time. But I also hear people say they bet the ‘under.’ What’s the ‘under’?”

  He smiled. “You need to know everything, don’t you? An ‘over-under’ bet is based on the total number of points scored in the game. The bookie-the person you place the bet with-sets the lines, the point spreads, all that. If he sets the ‘over-under’ number at, say, fifty points, then you have a choice: you can bet the ‘under,’ and if the two teams combined score fewer than fifty points, you win. If you bet the ‘over,’ and they score more than fifty points, you win.”

  “What if they score exactly fifty points?”

  “It’s a push-a tie,” her father said. “No one wins, but the bookie collects the fee you pay to make the bet-usually ten percent.”

  “So the bookie is fine with a tie, then, right?”

  “Absolutely. The bookie always finds a way to win. Which is why it’s better not to bet. Along with it being illegal in most places.”

  Aunt Catherine poked her head in the door. “Football time is over,” she said. “Time for dinner.”

  Dinner seemed to take forever, especially after Aunt Catherine decided she didn’t think her brother’s blessing was “adequate.”

  “I think we should be more thankful than that, don’t you?” she said.

  “I thought he was plenty thankful,” her mom said.

  “And I’m plenty hungry,” her dad said.

  Susan Carol was in the car with her mom, getting nervous about her swims the next morning, when she got a text from Stevie: When u r done w/dinner call me.

  She called right away.

  “Bobby just called,” he said.

  “On Thanksgiving?”

  “Big sports day. Plus, he always works, you know that. Anyway, he said one of his political buddies has a source inside the White House who says there’s talk about canceling the president’s appearance at the game.”