The Rivalry: Mystery at the Army-Navy Game

by John Feinstein

  A Navy player scooped it up-Stevie saw it was number 15-and ran toward the end zone. As he crossed the goal line, the Navy sideline exploded.

  But Susan Carol was shaking her head. “Look,” she said, pointing across the field.

  Sure enough, there was a flag.

  “Would you like to bet this call goes against Navy?”

  “Oh no,” Stevie said. “I’m not a betting man.”

  Mike Daniels was consulting with line judge Terry Ramspeth and solemnly nodded.

  “Offside,” he said. “On the defense. It’s a five-yard penalty. Repeat fourth down.”

  Stevie looked down the sideline just in time to see Kenny Niumatalolo steaming toward Daniels, headset off, screaming. “Who was it?” he demanded. “What number? You didn’t even give a number! What game are you guys watching out there?”

  “Come on,” Susan Carol said. “Let’s go find the FBI.”

  They took off for the tunnel, where guards and Secret Service agents were posted, blocking people from coming onto the field.

  “If you leave now, you can’t come back until the president has crossed the field,” someone in a suit warned them.

  “It’s okay,” Stevie said. “We understand.”

  They turned the corner and ran for the officials’ locker room.

  Two men in dark suits were waiting.

  “Are you Steve and Susan Carol?” one of them said. He was very tall, with short-cropped dark hair.

  “That’s us,” Susan Carol said.

  “I’m Agent Mayer; this is Agent Caccese,” the tall one said. “What have you kids got?”

  “Your theory, Stevie,” Susan Carol said. “Tell them.”

  Stevie did, talking as fast as he could about all the calls and about Ramspeth’s reaction when Dean Taylor had mentioned making sure no one scored.

  Mayer looked at Caccese. “What do you think?”

  “I’ve heard crazier theories that have been proven out,” Caccese said. “And after all the fuss at the Notre Dame game, we’ve been watching for anomalies here. Gamblers come in all shapes and sizes.”

  “And stripes,” Mayer added.

  Caccese rolled his eyes and pulled out his cell.

  “Tom, when the officials come off, stall them a minute. Tell them the service is sweeping their locker room one more time.”

  “What’re you going to do?” Stevie asked.

  “I’m going to put a bug in their locker room,” Caccese said. “See if they say anything interesting during halftime. I’ll need about fifteen minutes to get it done.”

  After a few more phone calls and about five minutes, four more FBI guys appeared, two carrying suitcases. Also two Secret Service agents and two bomb-sniffing dogs. The six of them walked to the door of the officials’ locker room and knocked while Mayer, Caccese, Stevie, and Susan Carol held back in the hallway. Todd, the attendant, answered. Stevie couldn’t hear what the FBI and Secret Service agents said, but he heard Todd say, “There are only twenty-two seconds left in the half; the guys’ll be in here in about two minutes.”

  Whatever was said in response, Todd came out and the six men and two dogs went in. Todd leaned against the wall and shook his head.

  The half ended while they were waiting. Stevie and Susan Carol shrank back behind Mayer and Caccese while the seven officials walked past, escorted by several yellow-jacketed security men, but none of them looked left or right as they walked.

  When they got to the door and saw Todd, Mike Daniels said, “What’re you doing out here?”

  Todd pointed at the door. “Secret Service is in there. They said they had to have the dogs check one more time.”

  “Why?” Daniels asked. “The president isn’t coming anywhere near here again.”

  “Ask them,” Todd said.

  At that point, Agent Caccese walked down the hallway to Daniels.

  “I’m sorry, sir, it’s strictly procedure when the president is still in the building. We rechecked the team locker rooms and everything else on this level too. It shouldn’t be more than another minute.”

  “We need to get in there and prepare for the second half,” Daniels said.

  “I understand. If you need, we can delay the start of the second half for an extra couple minutes.”

  The door opened at that moment and the Secret Service men with the dogs came out first. The FBI guys-who Stevie hoped looked no different from the Secret Service guys to the refs-followed.

  “All clear,” an agent said to Caccese. Turning to Daniels, he said, “Sorry for the delay. We won’t need to bother you again.”

  The officials made their way into the locker room and Todd followed. If any of the officials had spotted Stevie and Susan Carol, they gave no indication of it.

  Caccese walked back to them and Agent Mayer.

  “It’s all set. We’ve got people in the command center listening, and we’ll go back there now. We’ll let you know if we hear anything.”

  “Thank you,” they said, just as strains of “Hail to the Chief” began again.

  “Any way you can help us get back on the field to watch this?” Susan Carol asked. “We’d really like to see it.”

  Caccese nodded. “Tom, take them out and see what you can do, will you? I’ll meet you back in the command center in five minutes.”

  “Follow me, guys,” Mayer said.

  He led them to the tunnel, which was blocked. “I’ve got two who have clearance from Pete Dowling to go back out,” he said.

  Apparently those were the magic words. Mayer walked them onto the field. “You’ll be okay from here,” he said. “We’ll talk soon.”

  Stevie checked the scoreboard clock and saw there were still twenty minutes left in the break.

  He could see that the president had just reached the field. Representatives from the army, the navy, and the marines lined both sides of the 50-yard line; all of them snapped to attention. As the president passed each person, he or she saluted.

  Stevie could see Army superintendent Hagenbeck walking with the president, who was trailed by several other people in uniform, a number of Secret Service agents, and the usual phalanx of photographers and TV camera crews. Right at midfield were the representatives from Navy.

  “I’m glad we got to see this,” Stevie said to Susan Carol.

  “Me too,” she said. “But I wonder what’s going on in that referees’ locker room.”

  Stevie wondered too. The president had reached midfield. The army officers snapped off salutes that were returned by their Navy counterparts. The president shook hands with the Army people and then joined the Navy people, who turned around to escort him to their sidelines. The entire stadium had come to its feet on both sides, applauding the scene.

  “What do we do now?” Stevie asked as the president reached the other side of the field.

  “We watch the halftime show,” Susan Carol said. “And we wait.”

  26. IT’S OFFICIAL

  The two bands put on an impressive halftime show, each ending its performance with the school fight song, which brought everyone back to their feet. Normally, Stevie would have enjoyed every minute of it, but he was squirming, looking at the clock every ten seconds, finding it hard to believe time could move so slowly.

  The Army band cleared the field and the players came back out. And much to Stevie’s disappointment-so did the officials. Stevie and Susan Carol were both standing on the Army sideline. The clock was under two minutes. Apparently the second half would start on time.

  “What do you think?” he asked Susan Carol.

  “No idea,” she said.

  Just as she finished, Stevie saw Pete Dowling, Bob Campbell, and the two FBI agents, Mayer and Caccese, coming out of the tunnel. Dowling spotted them, pointed at them, and the four men began walking briskly in their direction.

  “Think we’re in trouble?” Stevie asked.

  “We’ll find out soon,” Susan Carol said, sounding a little bit shakier than Stevie would have hoped.


  Dowling spoke first when the four men reached them.

  “Your theory might be right,” he said. “But we can’t be sure.”

  “What do you mean?” Susan Carol asked.

  Dowling looked at Caccese, who filled them in. “We definitely heard some things that sound suspicious. The referee-is it Daniels?-was lecturing someone about keeping his cool, that getting into arguments with people on the sidelines didn’t help anything.”

  “That would have been Ramspeth,” Stevie said.

  “Right,” Caccese said. “There was also talk about just sticking with what they were doing and being close to the payoff.”

  “Payoff?” Susan Carol said. “You’ve got it right there, don’t you?”

  Caccese shook his head. “No. They might be talking about some kind of bet; they could also just be talking about getting paid for working the game or the payoff of knowing they’ve done a good job. Trust me, it would never hold up in court. Bugging the room without a court order is already a little shaky. But we called Ed Murphy, who heads up our gambling unit in DC, and he thought there was cause. He’s on his way now.”

  Caccese finished, “My gut tells me you guys have this right. We just don’t have enough evidence to take any action.”

  Stevie felt his heart sink.

  “The room is still bugged,” Mayer said. “Maybe we’ll hear something when they come in afterward. And we’ll watch to see if any of these guys seems to come into windfalls after the game. It’s not over.”

  “But the game is,” Susan Carol said.

  “Yeah,” Mayer said. “Could be. I’m truly sorry.”

  Stevie and Susan Carol decided to stick together on the sidelines, if only to take solace in each other’s company. They started on the Army sideline since Army had the football to start the second half.

  The third quarter was like a rerun of the first two. Army moved the ball quickly into Navy territory and had a third and one at the Navy 37. Fullback Jared Hassin, Stevie’s old friend who had piled into him at West Point, dove into the line and appeared to pick up the first down. In came Ramspeth-the line judge-to spot the ball. He picked it up and moved it back almost a full yard from where Hassin had been tackled. The Army bench immediately began screaming about the spot.

  “What is with these guys?” Dean Taylor said. “It’s that same guy again, the line judge.”

  Ramspeth’s spot left Army a yard short of a first down.

  “I’m going to tell you something right now,” Stevie said while Ellerson called a time-out to decide whether to go for it on fourth and one or punt. “If you go for it and get the first down, there will be a penalty.”

  Taylor, Hall, and Kelly all looked at him. “You just being cynical, Steve?” Hall asked.

  “I don’t think he is,” Kelly said before Stevie could answer.

  Army decided to go for the first down. They lined up in a tight formation, apparently planning to either quarterback sneak or go for the fullback dive again. Just as Steelman took the snap, though, the whistle blew. In came Daniels.

  “Illegal motion before the snap,” he said. “That’s a five-yard penalty. Repeat fourth down.”

  As the umpire picked the ball up and moved it back five yards, it was Ellerson’s turn to demand to know who the penalty was on. Daniels pretended not to hear.

  “They didn’t even wait to see if we made it,” Taylor said.

  “Guess they didn’t want to take any chances,” Susan Carol said.

  With the play now fourth and six, Army punted, the ball rolling out-of-bounds on the 4-yard line.

  “That should make the officials happy,” Susan Carol said. “They’ve killed five minutes, and Navy’s ninety-six yards from the goal line.”

  “What do you guys know?” Tim Kelly said. “You know something.”

  “We might,” Stevie said. “We just aren’t sure.”

  “More sure by the minute, though,” Susan Carol added.

  TV had gone to time-out. As the cadets and the midshipmen in the stands whooped it up, Stevie saw Mayer, Caccese, Dowling, and Campbell running down the sidelines.

  “We’ve got them,” Caccese said as they got close.

  “Whaaaa?” they both said.

  “No time for details right now,” Caccese said. “But you know the kid in the locker room, the one taking care of the officials?”

  “Daniels’s nephew, Todd?” Stevie said.

  “Yeah. As soon as the boys left the locker room for the second half, he was on the phone with offshore betting services. He was reading off confirmation numbers to make sure the bets they’d placed before the game were all in place. Based on what we’ve heard, these guys have at least ten million dollars riding on the under-which was forty-eight points-and even more riding on the regulation game ending scoreless.”

  “So what are you going to do?” Stevie asked.

  “Ed Murphy, the head of the gambling unit, just arrived,” Caccese said. “We asked the TV producer to hold the time-out for a minute longer so we can remove these guys.”

  “Remove them?” Stevie and Susan Carol shouted together.

  “Yup. They can leave the field voluntarily or in handcuffs. We’re drawing up warrants for their arrests right now in the command center.”

  “But are you sure all seven are involved?” Stevie asked.

  “Not a hundred percent. Todd used eight different names when confirming the bets. They were fake names, but we’re pretty sure it’s these seven guys plus him. Okay, here comes Murph.”

  A tall man with iron-gray hair in an equally gray suit was walking toward them, followed by at least a dozen other agents.

  “Which one is the referee, John?” he asked, all business.

  Caccese pointed at Daniels, who was in conversation at that moment with the umpire. “I’ll ask the Army coach to call him over.”

  “Let’s go,” Murphy said.

  Murphy, Caccese, and Mayer began walking up the Army sideline with a squad of agents trailing behind them. From the stands it must have looked very strange, Stevie thought. The FBI approached Ellerson, who took off his headset. There was a brief nod and then he waved at Daniels, who trotted over.

  Stevie was dying to hear the conversation, but Daniels’s body language was clear enough. As Murphy began speaking, he lurched backward. Then he was shouting.

  If any of it bothered Murphy, it didn’t show, and he cut him off effectively. With the crowd beginning to murmur, Daniels waved the other officials over. Stevie saw Ken Niumatalolo several yards onto the field on his side, clearly confused by what the commotion could be. After a few more seconds of discussion, which included Terry Ramspeth screaming while taking his cap off and throwing it onto the ground, the FBI men and the officials began walking off the field.

  The fans didn’t know how to react. Some booed. Others hooted. Mostly there was confused silence. Murphy pointed at Pete Dowling, who nodded and began talking into his wrist. Within a minute Stevie knew what he had been saying.

  “Ladies and gentlemen,” the PA announcer said, “we apologize, but there will be a brief delay because there is a problem with the game officials.”

  “Yeah, there’s a problem,” Stevie heard a fan yell from the stands. “They SUCK!”

  Dowling turned to Bob Campbell. “Bob, go tell Niumatalolo what’s going on and that we’re going to need a few minutes. They can keep their kids out here or take them back to the locker rooms. Whatever they want. Then meet me back in the tunnel; we’ve got the ADs en route.”

  Campbell nodded and took off across the field.

  “You two can come too if you want,” Dowling said. “You started all this. You have any brilliant ideas where we can find some new officials?”

  * * *

  Chet Gladchuk, the Navy athletic director, and Kevin Anderson, his counterpart at Army, were clearly confused when they arrived in the tunnel a few minutes later.

  “What’s going on?” Gladchuk asked. “The officials just went by me with a
bunch of agents. Are they being arrested for incompetence or something?”

  “Gentlemen, I’m sorry, but we’ve got a situation here,” Agent Caccese said. “If those seven men had continued officiating, I can tell you with certainty that the game was going to end regulation at zero-zero.”

  “You aren’t the first one to make that comment today,” Anderson said. “What’d they do, bet the under?”

  “That’s about the size of it. We can get you details later,” Caccese said. “For the moment, we need seven new officials for the game to continue. Any ideas?”

  Gladchuk and Anderson both gaped at him.

  “You’re serious, aren’t you?” Gladchuk said.

  “As serious as someone trying to fix the Army-Navy game,” Caccese answered.

  “We could call Harold Neve at the ACC,” suggested Anderson. But no one seemed to think he’d be all that helpful.

  Stevie ventured, “Would the officials for the Redskins game tomorrow be in town already?”

  “Maybe-but it would take a while to find out and get them here. And the NFL rules are different…”

  Everyone was quiet for a moment. Then Susan Carol said, “What about the high school officials? The ones honored before the game?”

  Anderson snapped his fingers. “Of course. They’re all up in a corporate box, watching the game.”

  “We need seven of them,” Caccese said.

  “What about uniforms?” Susan Carol asked.

  “They have to keep spares in the locker room,” Gladchuk said. “I’m sure someone who works here for the Redskins can help us with that.”

  Caccese looked at Anderson and Gladchuk. “No matter how good or bad they may be, at least they won’t be cheating,” he said.

  Both athletic directors nodded. Then everyone pulled out their cell phones and started to dial.

  It took about thirty minutes to sort out which of the high school officials would take over the game and to get them outfitted and ready. Agent Mayer returned to say that the seven officials and Todd were being taken to the FBI office downtown to be charged with game-fixing and assorted other gambling-related crimes. He and Dowling then went with the two athletic directors to explain the plan to the coaches.