When Army and Navy renew their annual rivalry at the end of every football season we are reminded that even though the service academies very much want to beat each other on the football field, their fierce rivalry is characterized by a profound sense of mutual respect and national solidarity.  Thank you to all of the men and women in our armed services and their families for their service to our country and protecting our freedoms.

Here is an excerpt from my book, What Washington Can Learn from the World of Sports, about the storied rivalry between the Army and Navy football teams.

When Army and Navy renew their annual rivalry at the end of every football season, no one is ever quite sure whether the game itself will be the main attraction—or whether the pageantry and pranks surrounding the game will take center stage. Certainly, the Cadets and Midshipmen have played their share of classic gridiron battles.

In 1926, more than 110,000 fans watched an undefeated Navy team led by All-American Frank Wickhorst tie Army 21–21 in the first-ever game played at Soldier Field in Chicago. Among the fans in attendance that day was Notre Dame football coach Knute Rockne, who was so interested in seeing this classic rivalry that he actually skipped his own team’s game against Pittsburgh. (In Rockne’s absence, Pitt upset the Irish, 19–0.)

In 1944, an undefeated Army team led by “Mr. Inside” Doc Blanchard and “Mr. Outside” Glenn Davis beat Navy 23–7 to complete the Black Knights’ perfect season and win Army its first of two consecutive national championships. Blanchard and Davis would each go on to win a Heisman Trophy, and the pair would finish their careers at Army as the only backfield tandem to ever be named All-American three straight years.

In 1963, future Hall of Fame quarterback Roger Staubach led Navy to a 21–15 win over Army in a nationally televised game that featured the first-ever use of instant replay. After Army’s first score, CBS commentator Lindsey Nelson had to explain to the viewing audience that they were not watching the Cadets score again. “Ladies and gentlemen, what you are seeing is a tape of Army’s touchdown,” Nelson said. “This is not live.”

In addition to football memories, the Army-Navy game has also had its share of rowdy, raucous, audacious, off-the-field shenanigans. In 1894, for example, President Grover Cleveland called a special meeting of his cabinet to discuss ways to preserve the reputation of the military academies after brawls in the stands and a near-duel between a retired general and a rear admiral marred the 1893 Army-Navy game. President Cleveland cancelled the game indefinitely. Several years later, President William McKinley revived the annual tradition.

In 1953, President Dwight D. Eisenhower, a West Point grad, ordered the Army cadets to return Navy’s billy goat mascot to Annapolis after a group of West Point cadets conducted the first of many successful kidnappings of the opposing school’s mascot during the week leading up to the big game.

In 1975, Navy alum H. Ross Perot got revenge for his graduating class (1953) when he snuck onto the West Point campus the night before the big game and serenaded the cadets from the chapel belfry with a medley of “Anchors Aweigh,” “The Marine Hymn,” and “Sailing, Sailing.” Perot was captured by some cadets and turned over to military police.

In 2007, an international peace conference being held in Annapolis the week of the big game caused Navy midshipmen to rein in their pranks, doing little beyond the customary effigy-burning of an Army mule at a mid-week pep rally. But the peace conference didn’t stop a group of West Point cadets from sneaking onto the Annapolis campus and burning a special message into the Naval Academy’s parade field grass. That message read: “Go Army.”

So, in addition to some smash-mouth football, the Army-Navy game has also been the impetus for all sorts of good-natured off-the-field fun. More than anything, though, the Army-Navy game has featured moments that remind everyone that even though the service academies very much want to beat each other on the football field, their fierce rivalry is characterized by a profound sense of mutual respect and national solidarity.

During World War II, for example, travel restrictions prevented students at the academies from going to away games. So in 1942, under orders from their superiors, some Navy midshipmen filled the visitors stands in Annapolis and cheered for the Army team. In 1943, some Army cadets returned the favor at West Point. When the travel restrictions were lifted prior to the 1944 game, a fleet of five Navy destroyers escorted a steamer full of Army cadets into Baltimore Harbor to attend the game.

Perhaps no moment, however, can top the scene at the end of every Army-Navy game when the players for both academies gather together to listen to the playing of each other’s school songs in a show of mutual appreciation and great sportsmanship.

“Army-Navy is like playing your brother,” Navy safety Gary Lane told a Smithsonian magazine reporter after the 1999 game. “You play harder, but you share something because you know what the other guy has been through.”