The Rivalry: Mystery at the Army-Navy Game

by John Feinstein

  The teams had both gone to the locker rooms, and the crowd was told nothing more than that the delay simply had to do with a problem with the officials. They would learn the rest soon enough, Stevie imagined. There were some murmurs, but no one was leaving, that was for sure. The weather was cold but not frigid, and the sun was shining down.

  “That’s one of the good things about a military crowd: they don’t question things as much as some other people might,” Kelleher said. He and Tamara had managed to get downstairs with their all-access passes after Stevie and Susan Carol had called to fill them in.

  “I’ve never seen anything like it,” Tamara said. “Stevie, what tipped you off? We were all sitting in the press box thinking it was a horribly reffed game but that at least the calls were balancing out.”

  “That’s what I thought too,” Stevie said. “But when the line judge went off on Dr. Taylor after he said something about keeping anyone from scoring, it seemed like an over-the-top reaction. Just like the way the officials overreacted about Susan Carol’s articles. Plus, I believed Susan Carol. She didn’t see how those calls at the Notre Dame game could be honest mistakes, so I started to believe they were dishonest mistakes.”

  “And the kid Todd was stupid enough to make the call to confirm the bets from the locker room,” Kelleher said. “That’s unreal. He walks out into the hall and uses his cell phone, they never get caught.”

  “True,” Susan Carol said. “But now they’ve got all those confirmation numbers on tape.”

  “Well, we’ve got to go upstairs and let our papers know what happened,” Kelleher said. “I’m told the FBI is putting out a press release on the whole thing within an hour, but we can at least get some people moving downtown-checking out who these guys are, their backgrounds, things like that. You guys stay on the sidelines and focus on the game. We’ll talk about how you’ll write it when it’s over. You may have to do something in the first person. Either way, you’ll both have a lot to do.”

  They both nodded just as the new officials walked past, heading onto the field.

  The teams were back out and had been given an extra couple of minutes to warm up after the long break.

  Susan Carol had made her way back to the Navy sideline and found Captain Klunder waiting to shake her hand. “I hear we have you to thank for this, Susan Carol.”

  “No-it was Stevie who put it together, really,” she tried to say, but then Ken Niumatalolo came up and lifted her off the ground in a bear hug.

  “Looks like you were right,” he said.

  “More than I thought, even,” Susan Carol said.

  “Well, thank you for your story-and for sticking with it. You made all the difference. You saved the game-I can’t even tell you-” One of his coaches called him away, and he ran back to get ready for the game to resume.

  Before she could start to take that in, she felt a tap on her shoulder. She turned, and Ricky Dobbs bent down and kissed her on the cheek. “Thank you,” he said. “For giving us back the game.”

  Then he put on his helmet and ran onto the field.

  Suddenly, Susan Carol wished she had a place to sit down.

  27. STARTING OVER

  The rest of the second half was everything you could have wanted an Army-Navy game to be. If the officials made a mistake, neither side seemed to notice-these refs were every player’s new best friend.

  Navy, which had been backed up on its 4-yard line before the break, couldn’t move and had to punt to Army, which took over at midfield. From there, the Cadets put together the first (allowed) scoring drive of the day, with quarterback Trent Steelman diving in from the 1-yard line. Navy answered right away, Dobbs matching his counterpart with his own run into the end zone, tying the game at 7-7 with 2:07 left in the third quarter.

  It was Army’s ball again, but Alan Arnott stepped in front of his brother, made a one-handed interception of a Steelman pass, and got the ball back for Navy on the Army 32. On the very first play, Dobbs faked to Murray, pulled the ball back at the last minute, and found Greg Jones wide open in the middle. It was the exact play that had produced the called-back touchdown in the first half. But this time there was no flag, and Navy led 14-7.

  Undaunted, Steelman fired a blistering pass through two defenders to Michael Arnott, who outraced his brother and two other defenders while sprinting forty-seven yards to tie the game again as the third quarter ended.

  “This is the way Army-Navy is supposed to be,” Taylor said to Stevie. “You have your heart in your throat on every play.”

  After the gun sounded to end the third quarter-the new officials had apparently taken possession of Dowling’s starter pistol-Stevie looked up and saw Susan Carol walking in his direction.

  “What’s up?” he asked.

  “Nothing,” she said. “I missed you. This is too good to watch without my partner.”

  The fourth quarter was the same as the third: back and forth. Navy put together a seven-minute drive to go up 21-14. Army responded by taking almost five minutes off the clock and tying the score again with 3:08 left.

  Everyone in the stadium was on their feet. Dobbs, cool as ever, drove his team to the Army 33, finding slotback G. G. Greene on a key third and eight for twenty-seven yards. Two running plays moved the ball to the 24 with the clock ticking toward a minute. Army called time out with 1:21 to go.

  “They don’t want to let the clock run all the way down and let Navy kick a field goal to win the game at the buzzer,” Susan Carol said.

  “Then they have to stop them on this play, or that will happen,” Stevie said.

  For once, Kelly, Hall, and Taylor were all quiet. They knew what was at stake as Navy lined up on third and one. Dobbs brought his team up, waving for quiet from the Navy side. Navy didn’t try anything fancy. Dobbs handed the ball to Murray to drive up the middle. But Army had seen it coming and Murray never got to the line of scrimmage. He struggled forward for a second but was brought down at the 25-yard line.

  Army immediately used its second time-out. Navy had fourth and two with the clock showing 1:09.

  “Any chance they go for it?” Stevie asked.

  Susan Carol shook her head. “No. Navy’s got a very good field goal kicker and Army’s only goin’ to have one time-out left either way. They go for the field goal here for sure.”

  As usual, she was right. Navy kicker Joe Buckley trotted out with the field goal unit.

  “Maybe we should call time here to ice him,” Hall said.

  “Can’t,” Taylor said. “We need that last time-out when we get the ball back.”

  Buckley lined up for the kick. The snap was perfect and he calmly kicked the ball cleanly through the uprights. Navy led 24-21 with 1:05 left in the game. Stevie could see the Navy sideline celebrating. He could also see Niumatalolo waving at his players to calm down. He knew the game wasn’t over yet.

  Stevie could feel a chill in the air. Because of the delay, it was now almost four o’clock and the field was bathed in shadows.

  But no one in the stands cared a bit. They were on their feet, yelling full throttle.

  “Who do you want to see win?” he yelled at Susan Carol over the noise.

  “I don’t know,” Susan Carol yelled back. “I can’t stand the thought of seeing either team lose.”

  Stevie felt the same way. He’d found it much harder to be a die-hard fan since he started covering sports. He always rooted for his friends to do well. But in this case, he had friends on both sidelines.

  Navy kicked off, and Army kick returner John Conroy found a little hole on the right side and got the ball to the 36-yard line.

  “Gives us a chance,” Kelly said.

  He was right.

  Steelman ran an option to the right and picked up eleven yards and a first down. That stopped the clock with fifty-one seconds to go. On the next play, Army spiked the ball to stop the clock immediately.

  “How far do you need to get the ball for Parker to have a chance at a field goal?” Stevie
asked.

  “Jay’s made one from 50 this season,” Hall said. “That’s the longest of his career. We have to get to the 33.”

  Steelman ran left on the next play and pitched to Steve Carpenter. He picked up six, so they were in Navy territory now. On the 47. The clock was running and, because of the spike on first down, it was now third and four.

  “Have to save the time-out as long as we can,” Kelly said.

  Steelman got a quick snap with twenty-nine seconds to go and, surprisingly, handed it to the fullback Hassin, who went straight up the middle. Navy was surprised too. Hassin had a huge hole and he picked up nine yards-and, most importantly, the first down-steamrolling to the 38. Again the clock stopped for the chains to be moved. Again Steelman spiked the ball on the next play. There were seventeen seconds left in the game.

  Stevie looked back and saw Jay Parker calmly kicking the ball into a net a few yards from where he was standing.

  Steelman took the snap again, faked to Hassin, and went back to try a play-action pass. Navy had gambled, though, and Middleton was coming fast on a safety blitz. Steelman never had a chance to get off a throw. Navy defenders took him down at the 46. The clock ticked under ten seconds.

  Coach Ellerson took Army’s last time-out with nine seconds left. It was third and eighteen. Army had to somehow pick up about twelve or thirteen yards to get into Parker’s range and stop the clock so there’d be time to get the field goal team onto the field.

  “I think they may be done,” Susan Carol said.

  “NEVER say that,” said Taylor, who had overheard her.

  Army came back to the line after the time-out. TV hadn’t gone to commercial, so the time-out only lasted forty-five seconds. Steelman took the snap and quickly rolled to his right. He made a pump fake as if to throw deep, then threw a short sideline pass to Michael Arnott, who had curled underneath the Navy defense. Arnott caught the ball and was shoved out of bounds by his brother at the Navy 36. Stevie looked at the clock: there was one second left.

  They had no choice but to hope that Parker could make the longest field goal of his life. He trotted onto the field.

  “Well, at least we’ve got a shot at it,” Hall said.

  “It’ll take a miracle,” Kelly answered.

  “Miracles happen,” Taylor said.

  As soon as Parker got into position to kick, Navy called time out. They had that luxury. In fact, they could call one more. Which they did. Parker had to wait close to two minutes before he finally had a chance to line up to kick. He was standing right on the 43-yard line, meaning he was fifty-three yards from the goalposts.

  Susan Carol slipped her hand into Stevie’s and he squeezed.

  The snap came back and the ball went down. When it came off Parker’s foot, Stevie thought it was wide right. But as it got closer to the goalposts, it was hooking. It hooked and hooked and began to wobble, and finally it hit the right goalpost-and bounced through!

  It was good. Hall, Kelly, and Taylor were all pummeling each other. Susan Carol had her arm in the air and Stevie’s along with it. The Army bench went wild, and the stadium was exploding on both sides.

  They had played sixty minutes-almost twenty-five of them with real referees-and the score was tied 24-24.

  They would decide the game in overtime.

  “NOW WHAT?” Stevie said.

  “Now we watch them go at it some more,” she said. “Then we watch them stand together and cry during the alma maters no matter who wins the game.”

  “I don’t want it to ever end,” Stevie said.

  She nodded, her eyes shining. “It’s exactly the way it should be, isn’t it?” She smiled. “And best of all, you and I get to watch it together.”

  As usual, she was right. Being a part of Army-Navy was like nothing else he’d ever done in his life. But seeing it up close with his arm around Susan Carol made it just about perfect.

  A Historic Rivalry

  The Army-Navy rivalry began in 1890 when Cadet Dennis Michie accepted a challenge from the Naval Academy and the two teams faced off on the Plain at West Point. Navy won that game 24-0 in front of a crowd of five hundred.

  By 1893, the crowds had swelled to eight thousand, and stores and offices were closed in Annapolis so that people could attend the game.

  But football then was a brutal game with few rules and many injuries. And the fans were just as violent! After Navy’s victory in 1893, a rear admiral and a brigadier general got into a dispute about the game that nearly led to a duel. President Grover Cleveland stepped in and put a halt to the rivalry to try to defuse the situation.

  But in 1897, Theodore Roosevelt, then assistant secretary of the navy, wrote an impassioned plea to have the game reinstated.

  The rivalry picked up again in 1899 on neutral ground-at Franklin Field, in Philadelphia, where Army beat Navy 17-5 in front of a crowd of twenty-seven thousand.

  In 1901, Theodore Roosevelt was president of the United States, and he became the first president to attend the Army-Navy game-and he began the tradition of switching sides of the field at halftime.

  Football was still a brutal sport, and there was talk of banning intercollegiate football altogether-especially after the 1905 season, in which there were nineteen fatalities nationwide. But President Roosevelt worked to enact new safety rules and require equipment to reduce casualties, keeping the game alive.

  Here’s How the Rivalry Stands After the 2009 Game

  The Army-Navy game has been played 110 times.

  Navy leads the series with 54 wins. Army has 49 wins. And 7 games have ended in a tie.

  The biggest margin of victory came in 1973 when Navy shut out Army 51-0.

  Navy is dominating the series right now-it has won the past eight games.

  National Championships

  The Cadets of Army and the Midshipmen of Navy have not contended for the national title in recent years. Both schools’ exacting academic requirements and the players’ military commitment following graduation mean that the teams are not made up of many NFL hopefuls. But both teams have had their powerhouse moments.

  Army was national champion in 1914, 1944, and 1945-ending each of those years undefeated.

  Navy holds a share of the 1926 national championship title-one of three undefeated teams that year.

  Each of these championship teams was a standout.

  In 1914, Army’s victory over Navy capped its first undefeated season. On the team that year as a student assistant was future president Dwight D. Eisenhower. Eisenhower was a running back and linebacker in 1912, but a knee injury following a tackle forced him off the field and onto the sidelines.

  In 1926, the game was played in Chicago for the first-and only-time. Soldier Field was being dedicated as a monument to the servicemen who fought in World War I, and there seemed no more fitting way to mark this than with the Army-Navy game. Navy came into the game undefeated and Army had lost just once that year, to Notre Dame. The teams battled to a 21-21 tie before a crowd of over a hundred thousand.

  The 1944 game was played during wartime, and the Army team traveled to Municipal Stadium in Baltimore by steamer ship-under escort from Navy warships guarding against submarine attacks. Army went into this game ranked number one in the country, and Navy was ranked number two. Army’s 23-7 win gave them the national title. In order to get a ticket to this game, fans also had to purchase a war bond, and $58,637,000 was raised.

  Both teams were ranked one and two the next year as well, and the 1945 game was labeled the “game of the century” before it was even played. Army won again-cementing their third national title. Playing in that game were two of Army’s Heisman Trophy winners: Doc Blanchard and Glenn Davis.

  Heisman Trophy Winners and Other Famous Players

  Five players from Army and Navy have won the Heisman Trophy for the most outstanding collegiate football player of the year:

  Doc Blanchard, Army, Fullback, 1945

  Glenn Davis, Army, Halfback, 1946

&nbs
p; Pete Dawkins, Army, Halfback, 1958

  Joe Bellino, Navy, Halfback, 1960

  Roger Staubach, Navy, Quarterback, 1963

  Army boasts 24 players and 4 coaches in the College Football Hall of Fame.

  Navy has 19 players and 3 coaches in the College Football Hall of Fame.

  But only one player from either academy has gone on to the Pro Football Hall of Fame: Roger Staubach of Navy.

  Thomas J. Hamilton, Navy class of 1927. Hamilton was a halfback on the 1926 national championship team. After serving on the USS Enterprise in World War II, he went on to be head coach and athletic director at both the Naval Academy and the University of Pittsburgh.

  Doc Blanchard, Army class of 1947. During his three years playing for Army, his team’s record was 27-0-1, with the one tie a famous 0-0 duel with Notre Dame. Notre Dame coach Ed McKeever was so impressed with Blanchard after Army’s 59-0 win in 1944 that he said, “I’ve just seen Superman in the flesh. He wears number 35 and goes by the name of Blanchard.” Blanchard and his teammate Glenn Davis were a devastating pair of rushers, with Blanchard known as “Mr. Inside” to Davis’s “Mr. Outside.” They appeared together on the cover of Time magazine in 1945. That year, Blanchard won the Heisman Trophy, the Maxwell Award, and the James E. Sullivan Award. He was the first junior ever to win the Heisman. Blanchard was third overall in the 1946 NFL draft, but chose a military career instead. He became a fighter pilot with the air force and served in the Vietnam War. He retired from service in 1971 as a colonel.

  Glenn Davis, Army class of 1947. This halfback was known as “Mr. Outside” and won the Maxwell Award in 1944 and the Heisman in 1946. In 1944, Davis led the nation with 120 points scored and 59 touchdowns. He averaged 8.3 yards per carry throughout his career, and during the 1945 season he averaged an amazing 11.5 yards per carry-both are records that still stand today. After serving in the military, Davis played for the Los Angeles Rams, but a knee injury ended his football career.