[Rhodes22-list] Go Navy

Tue Nov 6 18:55:21 EST 2007

Lee,
Do I understand that you want to bet on Army?  How about a case of something?  
I better be more specific, my last visit to the game I got a case of pneumonia!
Art

-----Original Message-----
>From: Leland <LKUHN at cnmc.org>
>Sent: Nov 6, 2007 8:42 AM
>To: rhodes22-list at rhodes22.org
>Subject: Re: [Rhodes22-list] Go Navy
>
>
>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.*
>> __________________________________________________
>> Use Rhodes22-list at rhodes22.org, Help? www.rhodes22.org/list
>> 
>> 
>
>-- 
>View this message in context: http://www.nabble.com/Go-Navy-tf4752591.html#a13606821
>Sent from the Rhodes 22 mailing list archive at Nabble.com.
>
>__________________________________________________
>Use Rhodes22-list at rhodes22.org, Help? www.rhodes22.org/list