[Rhodes22-list] Go Navy

[Leland]

Brad,

I have a friend who lives here in Annapolis that graduated from the Naval
Academy, worked at the Naval Academy, had five sons who graduated from the
Naval Academy, and two daughters who married Naval Academy graduates.  When
his last son graduated two years ago an article was written on the "record"
number of graduates from one family and it got published in several
newspapers throughout the country.  Two WWII widows came out of the attic
who had both been married to grads who both had four brothers who were
grads.  My friend was satisfied that he tied the record.

So anyway, my friend and I started betting on the Army/Navy game about seven
or eight years ago.  He told me that out of about 100 games, each team had
won about the same amount, but Army had had a better team of late.  So far I
think I've won one game, and that was after we first started betting.  I'll
be at the game this year with my brother-in-law and his West Pointed head
ringknocker friends, but something tells me I won't be winning the bet.

There's always next year.  Go Army!

Lee



Brad Haslett-2 wrote:
> 
> Hank started this theme today.   Here is another unbelievable story.  I
> hope
> my youngest son (a die hard college football fan) got this news at sea -
> he's gone for six weeks with the USCG.  Brad
> 
> *Miracle on Turf*
> 
> By John Feinstein
> Monday, November 5, 2007; A19
> 
> When the U.S.
> Olympic<http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/related/topic/United+States+Olympic+Committee?tid=informline>hockey
> team defeated the seemingly unbeatable Soviet
> Union<http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/related/topic/U.S.S.R.?tid=informline>in
> Lake
> Placid<http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/related/topic/Lake+Placid?tid=informline>in
> 1980 en route to the gold medal, it was hailed as the most stunning
> upset
> in sports history.
> 
> It may be difficult for an outsider to understand, but the Navy football
> team's 46-44 triple-overtime victory over Notre Dame on Saturday may rank,
> at the very least, a close second to that storied miracle on ice. This was
> a
> miracle on turf. Notre Dame had beaten Navy 43 straight times, dating back
> to 1963 when Roger
> Staubach<http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/related/topic/Roger+Staubach?tid=informline>was
> Navy's quarterback and officers in the military made salaries
> comparable
> to those of players in the National Football
> League<http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/related/topic/National+Football+League?tid=informline>
> .
> 
> It was before
> Vietnam<http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/related/topic/Vietnam?tid=informline>,
> before
> Iraq<http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/related/topic/Iraq?tid=informline>,
> before any high school athlete who had any notion that he could play in
> the
> NFL someday ran screaming from the room at the thought of attending a
> college with a five-year post-graduate military commitment. It was, in
> short, a very different world.
> 
> Skeptics will point out that this is a bad (now 1-8) Notre Dame team. It
> doesn't matter. Every Notre Dame team should dominate Navy on the football
> field. At one point during the game,
> NBC<http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/related/topic/NBC+Universal+Inc.?tid=informline>--
> also known as the Notre Dame Broadcasting Co. because it pays the
> school
> millions of dollars a year to televise all its home games -- did a promo
> for
> a high school All-Star game it televises in January. Only the country's
> top-rated high school seniors are invited to play.
> 
> "Twenty-one of the current Irish players have played in that game in past
> years," NBC play-by-play announcer Tom Hammond said.
> 
> That would be exactly 21 more than are currently playing at Navy. Or, as
> Hammond's partner Pat Haden pointed out: "With all due respect, Navy
> doesn't
> get to recruit blue-chip football players."
> 
> Just blue-chip people.
> 
> Navy's first touchdown on Saturday was scored by Zerbin Singleton, an
> aerospace engineering major with a 3.14 grade point average who hopes to
> be
> an astronaut. As an 11-year-old, Singleton watched as a bounty hunter shot
> and arrested his mother. He was accepted at the Naval Academy as a high
> school senior, but he could not report for plebe summer after he was
> injured
> when a car he was in was hit by a drunk driver. He tried to join the
> football team at Georgia
> Tech<http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/related/topic/Georgia+Institute+of+Technology?tid=informline>but
> was told, "Don't waste our time, kid, you're too small." He re-applied
> to Navy, was accepted, then had to deal with the suicide of his father
> during his freshman year.
> 
> Of course at 5-foot-8 and 174 pounds, Singleton is bigger than Reggie
> Campbell<http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/related/topic/Reggie+Campbell?tid=informline>,
> the 5-foot-6-inch, 168-pound offensive captain who scored the winning
> points
> on Saturday.
> 
> Notre Dame has every advantage a football power can possibly have: an
> 80,000-seat stadium; its own TV network; arguably the greatest tradition
> in
> college football history ("win one for the Gipper," Knute Rockne,
> Touchdown
> Jesus, the fight song); more money than it knows what to do with; and a
> great academic reputation.
> 
> What does Navy sell to recruits? The chance to play against Notre Dame.
> 
> Or maybe it's the chance to wake up at 6 o'clock every morning; the chance
> to be screamed at by upperclassmen; the chance to lose your weekend
> liberty
> for carrying a book-bag improperly or for being 30 seconds late to class.
> Not to mention the chance to get shot at when you graduate.
> 
> The players Coach Paul
> Johnson<http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/related/topic/Paul+Johnson?tid=informline>recruits
> are frequently like Campbell and Singleton: too small for big-time
> programs like Notre Dame to bother with; tough kids who love a challenge
> and
> love proving they can do things that "can't" be done.
> 
> Like beating Notre Dame in Notre Dame Stadium.
> 
> The best description I ever heard of what it is like to play football at
> Navy, Army and Air Force came from Fred Goldsmith, who coached at Air
> Force:
> "At a civilian school the hardest part of a football player's day is
> football practice," he said. "At an academy, the easiest part of a
> football
> player's day is football practice."
> 
> Navy can't possibly beat Notre Dame. Except on Saturday a group of
> youngsters who were too small or too slow (or both) to play big-time
> college
> football did just that.
> 
> With all due respect to Notre Dame and all its blue-chip players, Navy's
> celebration should be our celebration.
> 
> *John Feinstein is the author of "A Civil War: A Year Inside Army vs.
> Navy,
> College Football's Purest Rivalry." He has been a commentator for the Navy
> football radio network for 11 years.*
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