55-62-7 (Soon to be 56-62-7)

The One Where They Beat Navy

A Brief History

The year is 1890. Cadets are adorned in full dress (perhaps dress gray) lining the outside of the makeshift football field on The Plain for what would become the first ever Army Navy Game. These few, these happy few, these pigskin heroics take the field with hopes for victory in West Point’s name. The game would come to a close 24-0 with Navy winning the day.

In the 123 contests that followed, Army won 55, luck was on Navy’s side for 62, and seven matches were a tie. Though the Army Navy rivalry began on The Plain, the two have faced off in Annapolis, Philly, Princeton, New York, Baltimore, Chicago (Soldier Field 1926 – Tie), the Bronx (twice at Yankee stadium), Pasadena (the Rose Bowl 1983 – not Army), East Rutherford (Giants’ Stadium), Landover, and Foxborough. This Saturday, the mule (Ranger III) and the goat (Bill) will go head-to-horn at Northwest Stadium in Landover, Maryland.

CDT Dennis Michie accepted a challenge by a group of midshipmen to a pickup football game between Navy and the newly formed West Point team.

Off the Field

If there are any Old Grads, Army fans, or midshipmen (boo) reading this, and I imagine there are, you will all be familiar with the friendly rivalry that intensifies in the weeks leading up to the match. We tease our frenemies with posters, parties (of the Beat Navy variety), and yes, even publications. You are reading the Harding Project after all.

Among these magazines sits The Pointer. Initially published and disseminated to the Corps on September 15, 1923, The Pointer was the original Howitzer—a medium for Cadets to publish their prose, poetry, or visual art skills. Beat Navy week published a particularly popular issue, featuring drawings and poems centered around the upcoming game. Publications also often included a “Pointer Profile”, highlighting various football players in the days and weeks leading up to weighty matches.

Posted with permission from Mike Nemeth via LinkedIn.

The issues above, from left to right, were published in 1937, 1943, and 1958. The 1958 cover may as well be a live photo from an iPhone taken in Central Area in 2018. It seems if there is one certain truth in this life, it is that cadets will risk life, limb, and eyesight for a laugh and good jab at Navy.

The first few issues of The Pointer were a quasi-newspaper and journal, mostly satirical. Cadets submitted content and the editorial team, comprised of cadets, cut and pasted the comics, jokes, poems, and articles into issues that were disbursed bi-weekly or monthly, depending on the year. Publications weren’t always Corps-centric. Worth noting, from 1925-1940, Cadets also published The Week End Pointer geared towards visitors, specifically “young lady guests”. This was a regular publication that included sections like “What to Bring in the Way of Clothes” and “The Inevitable Flirtation”; the dedication page reads, “Dedicated to the Femmes: For What Would a Week-End be Without Them?”.

In 1946, the Academy Public Affairs Officer (PAO) seized the popularity of the magazine and began publishing a weekly newspaper, The Pointer View. The View was edited by a different club and remained much more news focused. Another major departure from The View, The Pointer became a for-profit endeavor, selling advertisements to local and national brands—most issues were about 40% ads. Hilariously and worth noting, every single standard issue of The Pointer included notes by Pyrene, the mess hall cat. She was essentially the original muser of “the Corps has…”

The End of an Era

Much to the dismay of the Corps, the final issue of The Pointer was published in Academic Year 1996. Several publications have since taken its place including The Howitzer, Centerstall, Mortar Magazine, and Circle in the Spiral Literary Magazine. Most cadet content began filtering to Circle once it began production in 1991, eventually leading to the retirement of The Pointer. Currently at the Academy, there are various avenues for Cadets to showcase art and linguistic skills. Some of these include events hosted by Cadet clubs like Spectrum and the Corbin Forum, or the ever-popular John Calabro Night of the Arts hosted by the Department of English and World Languages.

Whether you are watching the game from the chilly stands or the comfort of your couch, may you root for black and gold! If you find yourself the least bit curious about the ghost of Army Navy past, I encourage you to take a peek at articles like the history of Michie Stadium or the hiatus of the game between 1915-1919. You could also recite 13 historical facts about the game as a riveting party trick. Here’s to hoping for another victorious year and unlimited PMI for the Corps. Beat Navy!