Go Navy!
If I had to choose, I'd take the Texans winning over the Patriots losing any time, so I choose to believe that the football weekend was a good one. Hopefully someone else will beat the shit out of the Patriots at some point this year.
I was awakened to this essay on NPR this morning: Every once in a while something happens in sports that reminds us all why we care about games even in times when it would seem games really don't matter very much.
A moment like that took place on Saturday on one of college football's most hallowed fields. Only this time, the home team was the victim. The heroes were the visitors. Those were the kids from Navy--young men who will never play in the NFL but may very well fight in Iraq very soon--who somehow found a way to beat Notre Dame 46-44 in three overtimes in as remarkable a football game as anyone is likely to ever see.
Navy and Notre Dame play football against one another every fall. Quite literally, this is the most one-sided rivalry in football history. Prior to Saturday Navy hadn't beaten Notre Dame for 43 years. The last time Navy won, John F. Kennedy was president; Vietnam was just a place in southeast Asia and Roger Staubach was Navy's quaterback.
There are good reasons why Notre Dame dominates Navy. It has more football tradition than anyone from George Gipp and Knute Rockne (win one for the Gipper) to the fight song and touchdown Jesus. . . . There isn't a football player born who doesn't at least think about playing at Notre Dame. The Irish don't Recruit players, They select them.
Not so Navy--especially now when coach Paul Johnson has to answer questions in recruits homes about how likely it is that someone's son might have to go to war if he plays football at Navy. Navy is four years of a hard life: it is academically stringent; militarily difficult and there are no corners cut for football players. If you graduate, your reward is five years in the Navy or the Marine Corps.
Most of Navy's players are smart, tough kids too small or too slow to be recruited by Notre Dame or other big time schools. They are kids like Zerbin Singleton, who scored the first touchdown on Saturday. He's an aerospace engineering major who wants to be an astronaut. As a kid he watched a bounty hunter shoot and arrest his mother; was injured by a drunk-driver in a car accident and was told by coaches at Georgia Tech that, at 5-foot 8-inches, 174 pounds he was just too small to play college football. He transferred to Navy and Saturday he helped beat Notre Dame.
Navy's team is full of kids like Singleton: Reggie Campbell, the 5-foot-six inch, offensive captain who scored the winning points Saturday; Brad Wimsatt who hopes to follow his two brothers into the Marines as a pilot; Kaiponoa Kahayaku-Enhada, the quarterback who spent the entire afternoon urging the Notre Dame crowd to get louder because he so loved being part of a game like this one.
There simply is no way Navy can beat Notre Dame. There are too many obstacles--size, speed, strenth, money, referees--to overcome. On Saturday, an extraordinary group of young men proved that if you believe enough and care enough and absolutely refuse to ever give up you can overcome just about anything.
If that's not inspiring I don't know what is. That's why sports is worth caring about. Because at it's best it can inspire us all.
I have a soft spot for the Naval Academy. When I was at Oxford, the guy who lived one floor up from me was a Rhodes Scholar from the Naval Academy. There were three other Navy grads at Oxford at that time, and we all became close friends. They were smart, dedicated and about to embark on some serious missions, once Oxford was over. And they were a lot of fun, always having parties, always exploring this wonderful opportunity that we all had in being at Oxford, always making the most of our time there. Sean was one of my closest friends, and he had this wonderful way of bringing people together. Dave was the first person I ever fell in love with. Though nothing ever happened in terms of a relationship, he was one of the most extraordinary people I've ever met, and he challenged me and my way of thinking a lot. Mike was going to get married as soon as he got back to the States, and he was trying to figure out how to merge a married life with one inside a submarine. Jeff spent a lot of his time learning to play the guitar and planning trips around the world while he had this year to learn everything he could before becoming a SEAL. My 22nd birthday, they threw me a surprise party after we'd been at a pub for the evening. They all decorated my birthday cake: Sean put on a big sun in the middle with the words "Happy Birthday 'stina!" Jeff (I think) put on a skull and crossbones with USN written underneath. Dave (I think) drew a pint of Guinness and a four leaf clover. Mike supervised.
Anyhow, I know that the Navy kicks ass in many, many other ways, but it's nice to see them beating the so-called gods of college football (though Notre Dame hasn't been all that much of a powerhouse in many a year) in what sounds like an absolutely amazing game.
I was awakened to this essay on NPR this morning: Every once in a while something happens in sports that reminds us all why we care about games even in times when it would seem games really don't matter very much.
A moment like that took place on Saturday on one of college football's most hallowed fields. Only this time, the home team was the victim. The heroes were the visitors. Those were the kids from Navy--young men who will never play in the NFL but may very well fight in Iraq very soon--who somehow found a way to beat Notre Dame 46-44 in three overtimes in as remarkable a football game as anyone is likely to ever see.
Navy and Notre Dame play football against one another every fall. Quite literally, this is the most one-sided rivalry in football history. Prior to Saturday Navy hadn't beaten Notre Dame for 43 years. The last time Navy won, John F. Kennedy was president; Vietnam was just a place in southeast Asia and Roger Staubach was Navy's quaterback.
There are good reasons why Notre Dame dominates Navy. It has more football tradition than anyone from George Gipp and Knute Rockne (win one for the Gipper) to the fight song and touchdown Jesus. . . . There isn't a football player born who doesn't at least think about playing at Notre Dame. The Irish don't Recruit players, They select them.
Not so Navy--especially now when coach Paul Johnson has to answer questions in recruits homes about how likely it is that someone's son might have to go to war if he plays football at Navy. Navy is four years of a hard life: it is academically stringent; militarily difficult and there are no corners cut for football players. If you graduate, your reward is five years in the Navy or the Marine Corps.
Most of Navy's players are smart, tough kids too small or too slow to be recruited by Notre Dame or other big time schools. They are kids like Zerbin Singleton, who scored the first touchdown on Saturday. He's an aerospace engineering major who wants to be an astronaut. As a kid he watched a bounty hunter shoot and arrest his mother; was injured by a drunk-driver in a car accident and was told by coaches at Georgia Tech that, at 5-foot 8-inches, 174 pounds he was just too small to play college football. He transferred to Navy and Saturday he helped beat Notre Dame.
Navy's team is full of kids like Singleton: Reggie Campbell, the 5-foot-six inch, offensive captain who scored the winning points Saturday; Brad Wimsatt who hopes to follow his two brothers into the Marines as a pilot; Kaiponoa Kahayaku-Enhada, the quarterback who spent the entire afternoon urging the Notre Dame crowd to get louder because he so loved being part of a game like this one.
There simply is no way Navy can beat Notre Dame. There are too many obstacles--size, speed, strenth, money, referees--to overcome. On Saturday, an extraordinary group of young men proved that if you believe enough and care enough and absolutely refuse to ever give up you can overcome just about anything.
If that's not inspiring I don't know what is. That's why sports is worth caring about. Because at it's best it can inspire us all.
I have a soft spot for the Naval Academy. When I was at Oxford, the guy who lived one floor up from me was a Rhodes Scholar from the Naval Academy. There were three other Navy grads at Oxford at that time, and we all became close friends. They were smart, dedicated and about to embark on some serious missions, once Oxford was over. And they were a lot of fun, always having parties, always exploring this wonderful opportunity that we all had in being at Oxford, always making the most of our time there. Sean was one of my closest friends, and he had this wonderful way of bringing people together. Dave was the first person I ever fell in love with. Though nothing ever happened in terms of a relationship, he was one of the most extraordinary people I've ever met, and he challenged me and my way of thinking a lot. Mike was going to get married as soon as he got back to the States, and he was trying to figure out how to merge a married life with one inside a submarine. Jeff spent a lot of his time learning to play the guitar and planning trips around the world while he had this year to learn everything he could before becoming a SEAL. My 22nd birthday, they threw me a surprise party after we'd been at a pub for the evening. They all decorated my birthday cake: Sean put on a big sun in the middle with the words "Happy Birthday 'stina!" Jeff (I think) put on a skull and crossbones with USN written underneath. Dave (I think) drew a pint of Guinness and a four leaf clover. Mike supervised.
Anyhow, I know that the Navy kicks ass in many, many other ways, but it's nice to see them beating the so-called gods of college football (though Notre Dame hasn't been all that much of a powerhouse in many a year) in what sounds like an absolutely amazing game.