In the mean time, here’s a look at the beginning of one of my favorite chapters...

 

It's the hardest fought game in college football.  Tears at the end, but buddies to the end, too.

 

This game is 10 times bigger than the Super Bowl.

 

The first thing they ask is did you play football? The next thing they say is did you beat Navy? It's not a game: It's a tradition.

 

Army-Navy rivalry brings out the best in college football.

 

 

 

The sports pages and the airwaves burst with superlatives as Army-Navy week builds to a feverish pitch.

 

Photos from Iraq, Afghanistan, the Persian Gulf appear in countless emails of “GO ARMY – BEAT NAVY” banners hung from Saddam’s palaces, and “BEAT ARMY” spelled out by Sailors across the flight deck of an aircraft carrier.  One gets the sense that the entire nation—and much of the rest of the civilized world—is taking sides as this epic battle once again takes the world stage.

 

Of course, that’s not the case, but you wouldn’t know it if you lived within radio transmission distance of Annapolis, or West Point.  And even though there are other famous rivalries in college football, this one is unique.  Case in point: At the end of their very first day at the Academy, the Plebes sing, for the first time, their new Alma Mater, “Navy Blue and Gold.”  They will sing it at the end of every day of Plebe Summer, and countless times throughout their Academy and Navy careers.  From the very first night, they end the song--as they will virtually every time they sing it for the rest of their lives—by thrusting their fists in the air and shouting, “BEAT ARMY!”

 

At Navy, there is one slogan that is consistent for all sports, one sentiment that permeates all aspects of Naval Academy life, one accomplishment that can redeem an otherwise disappointing season,  one goal that unites all current Midshipmen with all former Midshipmen throughout all generations:  BEAT ARMY.

 

Sitting proudly in the entrance to Memorial Hall on the Naval Academy campus since 2003 is the Commander-In-Chief’s Trophy.  Awarded every year to the service academy football team with the best record against the other service academies, Navy had dominated the service academy rivalry for the previous four years.  With a win over Army, Navy would come within one win of tying Air Force for the most consecutive wins over both other service academies.  And the senior class would graduate never having lost a game to another service academy.

 

Not that any of that really mattered.

 

In this rivalry, there’s only one game that counts: this year’s Army-Navy game.